Cosmic Queries – Multiverse Nesting Dolls

What if our universe is the inside of a black hole… inside another black hole? Neil deGrasse Tyson and Paul Mecurio answer a grab bag of fan questions about black hole mergers, the misconception about gravity assists, and if there’s such a thing as laws of physics.

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

• 0:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Paul, people love themselves in black hole.

• 0:01Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah, and I think it's because it's sort of the unknown, right?

• 0:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because it can eat you.

• 0:06Paul Mecurio?

  Yes.

• 0:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that gives you, that forces you to respect them.

• 0:09Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 0:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There it is.

• 0:10Paul Mecurio?

  It's like a street thing.

• 0:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Coming up on StarTalk, Cosmic Queries.

• 0:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 0:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk. Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. We're doing a Cosmic Queries grab bag today with Paul Mecurio. Paul?

• 0:42Paul Mecurio?

  Hi. First, nice to see you.

• 0:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back.

• 0:45Paul Mecurio?

  We got, thank you. We got to correct. I am barren. Paul Mecurio?

• 0:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did that happen?

• 0:51Paul Mecurio?

  United me and I-

• 0:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay. Thanks for reminding me.

• 0:55Paul Mecurio?

  Where are the trumpets?

• 0:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I just forgot. Barren. Barren Paul Mecurio. Thank you for that reminder.

• 1:03Paul Mecurio?

  And the nice thing is you created problems at my house because now my wife and son have to call me that all the time.

• 1:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think I used my Excalibur to do that.

• 1:10Paul Mecurio?

  You did. It was a big thing and a lot of people responded online.

• 1:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On the wall there.

• 1:14Paul Mecurio?

  One person said, maybe you should, whatever, but you didn't. Thank God. No, it's great to see you. Great to be back.

• 1:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. And you got a podcast.

• 1:22Paul Mecurio?

  Yep.

• 1:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's the name of that podcast?

• 1:23Paul Mecurio?

  Inside Out with Paul Mecurio. You've been on it.

• 1:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, I have.

• 1:26Paul Mecurio?

  Fun one-on-one interviews with folks.

• 1:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 1:28Paul Mecurio?

  Paul McCartney and Colbert and I perform on that show.

• 1:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, no, it's all good. Yeah, yeah. You perform on Colbert. Do you also write for him as well?

• 1:36Paul Mecurio?

  No.

• 1:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But you used to write for the Daily Show.

• 1:38Paul Mecurio?

  I wrote for the Daily Show, yeah, for a long time. Yep. And then touring with my stand-up and my off-Broadway show directed by Frank Oz, Permission to Speak.

• 1:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Love Frank Oz. Nobody doesn't love Frank Oz.

• 1:49Paul Mecurio?

  He's like such a mensch, as they say. Yeah, he's so sweet. And he's Yoda, so it's very intimidating to work with the original Yoda because-

• 1:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Does he give stage directions and Yoda speak?

• 1:59Paul Mecurio?

  I so long wants him to go backwards. Well, when he orders, though, he orders backwards. Steak I will have. I'm like, all right. We get it, Frank. You're Yoda. Stop. We're in a diner, okay? No, he's the sweetest human being and so talented.

• 2:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really good.

• 2:13Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah.

• 2:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We've actually had him on StarTalk. If you dig him up, he'll be in our archives somewhere.

• 2:18Paul Mecurio?

  I didn't know you had him on.

• 2:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Long ago. Yeah, we had everybody. Oh, yeah.

• 2:21Paul Mecurio?

  He doesn't live far from here. We should go to his house.

• 2:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here is my office.

• 2:25Paul Mecurio?

  Show up with the puppet.

• 2:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At the Hayden Planetarium.

• 2:29Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah.

• 2:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I went to reach for Mini Neil.

• 2:32Paul Mecurio?

  There you go.

• 2:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The hand goes up the butt or something.

• 2:37Paul Mecurio?

  Oh, you can move the, oh, look at you.

• 2:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, my mustache is coming off.

• 2:41Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah, you look, you look like a bandit of some kind that's gonna, in the 19th century, that's holding up a train.

• 2:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who are you talking to?

• 2:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Cosmic Queries.

• 2:56Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah.

• 2:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Grab bag.

• 2:57Paul Mecurio?

  We got some fun ones.

• 2:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got them all right in front of you.

• 3:00Paul Mecurio?

  You got them all in front of me?

• 3:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 3:01Paul Mecurio?

  Jump in.

• 3:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I haven't seen these. I might not know some of them. I mean, I don't know.

• 3:05Paul Mecurio?

  So, we're good?

• 3:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, go for it.

• 3:07Paul Mecurio?

  All right, man.

• 3:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. If I don't know an answer, I'll just say, I don't know.

• 3:09Paul Mecurio?

  You know.

• 3:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, stop.

• 3:11Paul Mecurio?

  You know. Okay. Adam Schmidt, hello, Dr. Tyson. Greetings from Adam in Atlanta. I loved your video on the possibility our universe is inside a black hole.

• 3:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So did a lot of people.

• 3:23Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah.

• 3:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's weird.

• 3:23Paul Mecurio?

  I, uh, I was like that. In our universe, we have detected dozens of black hole mergers. If we're inside a black hole, what would that event look like if our black hole merged with another black hole in our parent universe?

• 3:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's very cool.

• 3:39Paul Mecurio?

  Okay, I got, why don't we, there's more to, there's more to the question. You want to stop there and then I'll?

• 3:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, go on, go on, go on.

• 3:45Paul Mecurio?

  Okay, what would, what would evidence of something like that in our past look like? Could our parent black hole's continued accretion of matter explain why we're continuing to expand?

• 3:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, I can't answer with precision all of those points, but I can say a couple of things. A black hole is black from the outside. If you're on the inside, you see light coming in.

• 4:07Paul Mecurio?

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From, you see what's going on outside. It's all coming down to you. It's, it's funneled to a very narrow field of view, but you see it coming in.

• 4:16Paul Mecurio?

  To the point of singularity.

• 4:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so you would see the other black hole collide with you. You, you should be able to see that.

• 4:24Paul Mecurio?

  Would you see it or feel, is it, it's like, it's like nesting dolls, right? In a way, like, in, in the sense that like a black?

• 4:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, once they're together, they, they become one.

• 4:32Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 4:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, and you don't, you lose? Lose track that there were once two of them.

• 4:36Paul Mecurio?

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you'll see it come in, the, the event horizons will merge into one larger event horizon. And all of its matter will join you in your black hole. And they would say the same thing about them, because you're, it's relative, right? You'll, you'll join each other, have a common envelope, a common event horizon. And you'll see the matter collapsing down. If there's a singularity there, everybody's headed towards the singularity.

• 5:02Paul Mecurio?

  But now there's a theory in that singularity.

• 5:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, the singularities go to each other.

• 5:05Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 5:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 5:06Paul Mecurio?

  But there's a theory within the back hole that the singularity doesn't necessarily, it could mean that another universe is created.

• 5:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, yes.

• 5:15Paul Mecurio?

  From that, so it's sort of.

• 5:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not from it, just the black hole mathematics gives you an entire other spacetime inside of it.

• 5:22Paul Mecurio?

  So it's like this cosmic like family tree where we have.

• 5:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, oh, you mean it's nesting, that's what you mean by the nesting dolls.

• 5:28Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah.

• 5:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right, because the universe inside the universe inside the universe. And it's, the universe is all the way down.

• 5:33Paul Mecurio?

  And it's like one, we have just one unmarried, single parent. It's like we're an illegitimate child. And, and, and nobody remembers anybody's birthday. Like, that's pretty much how the family functions, right?

• 5:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I hadn't thought of that. There's the one starter universe, and the black holes within are universes within, are universes within. So, yeah, that's a, that's a curious consideration. The, uh, the, the point of there being another spacetime in front of you is that as you pass into the black hole,

• 6:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  time slows down for you relative to the rest of the universe.

• 6:11Paul Mecurio?

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which means to you, the rest of the universe speeds up.

• 6:14Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 6:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Looking out to the rest of the universe, you will see the entire future history of the universe unfold before your eyes.

• 6:22Paul Mecurio?

  Well, my understanding is also if I'm looking at you as you approach the event horizon, it's slowing, it's looking like it's slowing down.

• 6:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct.

• 6:30Paul Mecurio?

  But it's not.

• 6:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I'm looking at you and you're speeding up, correct?

• 6:32Paul Mecurio?

  Right, but there's spaghettification happening as well.

• 6:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That only happens down near the singularity.

• 6:37Paul Mecurio?

  Down the singularity.

• 6:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I mean, it's funner to think that crossing the event horizon is where you get all torn up.

• 6:44Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 6:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, it's just this region of space, you'll pass right through it like, like you didn't know or care that it was there. You'll realize once you're in, you can't get out. And depending on whether the black hole is spinning and how big it is, your path could go straight to the singularity. And that's all she wrote.

• 7:03Paul Mecurio?

  But it's chaos within it because it's consuming its light and stars and gases. It's inescapable. It's like every family Thanksgiving dinner in my house. You cannot get out in its complete chaos. You have an annoying brother in law there and you know who I'm talking about.

• 7:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, they're not brother in law, they're uncles and aunts. Those are the crazy ones are the uncles and aunts. Yeah, so maybe, I mean, sure, there'd be a lot of different things there. A cacophony of cosmic objects.

• 7:31Paul Mecurio?

  Let's go to Alex M. Zebeta from Houston. What is beyond the black holes? Explain.

• 7:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What is beyond the black hole?

• 7:41Paul Mecurio?

  Dunkin' Donuts franchise everywhere. They're everywhere.

• 7:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, like we just discussed, there's, there'd be, there's a singularity down in the middle. But to the extent that you can avoid the singularity, which it's not clear if you can. Let's say we have rotating black holes where the, what's going on inside is a little different. But like I said, there's an entire universe opening up inside of it.

• 8:04Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 8:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there's something, there's a colleague of mine who considered the natural selection of universes. And he said that we are most likely to live in a universe where the laws of physics favor the creation of black holes.

• 8:23Paul Mecurio?

  Through massive stars.

• 8:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By whatever mechanism.

• 8:26Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 8:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because that universe that has black holes, each of those black holes is a universe within. And if those laws of physics make universes within that, so which universe are we most likely to be in? The universe where there's a lot of black holes because we would be in one of those black holes.

• 8:43Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 8:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If there's a universe that doesn't make any black holes, we'd have to be in that universe native, right? With that, because it's not making any other universes with its black holes.

• 8:53Paul Mecurio?

  It's sort of like a pregnant cosmic pinata where you break it and then many universes come from that.

• 9:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's obscure, but okay. How about, I got a better one. How about cosmic tribbles?

• 9:07Paul Mecurio?

  Oh, there you go.

• 9:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, tribbles?

• 9:08Paul Mecurio?

  Oh, yeah, Star Trek.

• 9:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, do you remember what the secret was about them?

• 9:13Paul Mecurio?

  I don't.

• 9:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're born pregnant.

• 9:15Paul Mecurio?

  Wow.

• 9:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes. I got a tribble right here.

• 9:18Paul Mecurio?

  Ah, look at that. Look at that. And the tribble is pregnant when it's born.

• 9:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it is so fertile, they're born pregnant.

• 9:27Paul Mecurio?

  Hmm.

• 9:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. So, so a universe that natively makes black holes, it's going to make other universes, you know, easy.

• 9:38Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 9:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Easy.

• 9:39Paul Mecurio?

  But is there, is there anything that can sort of, where is science in terms of being able to confirm any of that at this point?

• 9:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are you speaking to me right now? Because I'm just...

• 9:50Paul Mecurio?

  You're really loving that tribble, huh?

• 9:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've just seen the episode, everybody just, they just stand there and squeeze them.

• 9:55Paul Mecurio?

  I know, and there's a lot of them.

• 9:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a lot of them. And they make a little sound like...

• 10:00Paul Mecurio?

  Was it water that killed them or something?

• 10:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, no. What happened was they were eating the grain of the ship.

• 10:06Paul Mecurio?

  Oh.

• 10:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that, they were delivering food to some location, and then they were dying. And it turned out the grain was poisoned by some evil...

• 10:15Paul Mecurio?

  No, it just proves that carbs are bad for you. You don't want to eat too much, you don't want to eat too much bread, people. That's the theory behind the...

• 10:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If I remember the storyline, I think that was it. Yeah.

• 10:39Speaker 02

  I'm Nicholas Costella, and I'm a proud supporter of StarTalk on Patreon. This is StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 10:58Paul Mecurio?

  All right, so we're going to move on to our next question, which is a really terrific question from Hennec Tadesi, and he is from Ethiopia. Thanks for truly making the sublime and fascinating part of everyday discussions. Here's my question. How is Stephen Hawking's theory about the accretion disk around black holes proven? How does one go about proving theories about something so far away and not directly observable? And what current theory or study of black holes excites you?

• 11:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love it. Okay, so first...

• 11:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think he's referring to Hawking radiation. Because otherwise, the accretion disk, that's a whole other thing. It's a whole, black holes can have accretion disk, but Stephen Hawking wasn't there. He cares about black holes evaporating by creating particles out of the gravitational field that surrounds the black hole. So my black hole, and I have this gravitational field, it's an intense gravitational field. Occasionally, my field will create a particle antiparticle pair. It will fly apart, and one typically falls back in to the black hole, the other escapes. Well, if this keeps up, what's the future of this?

• 12:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You run the math, and the particles inside the black hole are what are escaping by this mechanism out of the gravitational field. The gravitational field has a built-in inventory of what particles were absorbed by the black hole to begin with, had fallen into the black hole. The question was, do you lose all the information about particles falling in?

• 12:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it's retained, apparently. The Hawking radiation recovers all that fell into the black hole. It recovers it. And so the black hole gets smaller and smaller and smaller, without ever having to reach in through the event horizon. That's what's amazing.

• 13:00Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah.

• 13:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Stuff is coming out of the black hole because it's birthed outside of the black hole. Right? So now watch. So, how do we know this is happening? We don't. Quantum physics is the most successful theory of physics there has ever been. We have yet to see any edges where it begins to fail us. Newton's laws fail us at high speeds and high gravity. We needed Einstein to come in to cut that some slack, okay? Well, how about, that was a limit of Newton's theories. How about Einstein's? There's a limit to Einstein's. What happens in the center of a black hole?

• 13:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What happens at the singularity of the Big Bang? Einstein's equations fail there. It's sometimes described, it's where God is dividing by zero. Remember you're not supposed to divide by zero?

• 13:57Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 13:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In your math class?

• 13:58Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah.

• 13:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You tried doing that on your calculator.

• 14:00Paul Mecurio?

  Hmm.

• 14:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It just, it doesn't like.

• 14:02Paul Mecurio?

  No.

• 14:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Doesn't like you.

• 14:03Paul Mecurio?

  No.

• 14:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's like, you go back and take some math.

• 14:06Paul Mecurio?

  Catch fire in your hand.

• 14:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, the thing with quantum physics is, it is so effective and so potent that if you discover an effect in quantum physics just by manipulating the tenets of quantum physics and the equations, that prediction, we take that as gospel.

• 14:27Paul Mecurio?

  Because quantum physics has yet to fail us.

• 14:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct. That's why we all believe.

• 14:33Paul Mecurio?

  But that doesn't mean it's infallible.

• 14:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct. But that's why we all are on board with Hawking radiation. We're all on board with it.

• 14:41Paul Mecurio?

  And the part of his question.

• 14:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All of us.

• 14:43Paul Mecurio?

  About, well, I'm, you know, speak for yourself, buddy.

• 14:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Except for you.

• 14:46Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah, Mr. Tribble. How do you prove theories about something so far away? Goes to the way that, you know, sort of that, the photo from 2019 of the black hole. They look at stars orbiting invisible masses. They caught heat and X-rays from matter.

• 15:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's how you know the black hole is there. How big it is and what it does to its environment.

• 15:06Paul Mecurio?

  LIGO and for gravitational waves, all of that.

• 15:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, these are observant, you don't have to be there. You just need a telescope. That's what makes telescopes useful. How do I know you were home? Because I looked in your window with my telescope. Okay.

• 15:19Paul Mecurio?

  Right, but it's sort of like, you know, there's a, you speculate there's a black hole out there, but you can't see it, but you see all of sort of the chaos around it. It's like that coworker you never see, leaves a mess everywhere.

• 15:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They do.

• 15:32Paul Mecurio?

  And you gotta clean up after the coworker.

• 15:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's always somebody that needs cleaning up after.

• 15:36Paul Mecurio?

  You know what I'm saying?

• 15:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right. They break it after they touch it.

• 15:38Paul Mecurio?

  The stars are orbiting something you can't even see. It's like a dog chasing an emotional tennis ball, right? Just in a circle.

• 15:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, I hadn't thought of that.

• 15:47Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah, well, that's why I'm here.

• 15:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  An emotional tennis ball.

• 15:49Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah. You're gonna be thinking about that later.

• 15:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't wanna think about it. So, the environment of a black hole, we understand pretty well. Enough to look for what it predicts.

• 16:02Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 16:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In fact, the first X-ray telescopes were targeting objects that we thought, could there be a black hole here? Is this, is this signature of a black hole? You do the math, a black hole with an accretion disk, as was mentioned here, would radiate X-rays. Let's look for X-rays.

• 16:18Paul Mecurio?

  And those X-rays showed, because you get something back from black holes through X-rays, right?

• 16:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it wasn't the black hole that admitted it, it was the material around it.

• 16:25Paul Mecurio?

  Around it, but it told you, because that X-ray basically said, that's like the black hole chewing with his mouth open, right? Look, I'm eating, right? You can eat.

• 16:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 16:34Paul Mecurio?

  In a way.

• 16:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think that's a correct, that's accurate.

• 16:36Paul Mecurio?

  You know, I mean, that's, that's the scientist in me talking right now. All right, we're gonna move on. Elite.

• 16:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 16:41Paul Mecurio?

  Uh, greetings, Dr. Tyson. My name is Caleb Ferguson from Lebanon, Virginia. In the movie, The Martian, there is a maneuver called slingshot.

• 16:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:50Paul Mecurio?

  Which uses the gravity assistance of Earth to help accelerate a ship back towards Mars. My question is, is this technique used in real life? And if so, do you think it would be possible to attempt this maneuver using a black hole?

• 17:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, first of all, a slingshot is used in 100% of our missions to the outer planets.

• 17:08Paul Mecurio?

  Right. Voyager 1 and 2, Cassini, Juno.

• 17:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  100% of them.

• 17:12Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 17:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cassini, Voyager 1 and 2, Pioneer 1 and 2, uh, pardon, sorry, Pioneer 10 and 11. There's no other way we wanna get to the outer solar system. The value is, you get extra bang for your buck. I don't need to have rocket fuel get me that speed. I can come up behind a planet, fall towards the planet while it's in orbit, and come out the other side and having gained... Energy.

• 17:37Paul Mecurio?

  Is the gravity of that planet is pulling it in and shooting it out?

• 17:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's, no, if it's just pure gravity, it's symmetric. It's a subtle point that most people don't get. So if you just have the planet there, you'll fall in and it'll accelerate you. And how about on the other side? You try to get out, but it'll pull back on you. That entire scenario is precisely symmetric. You don't gain anything if you're just falling into the planet and trying to climb back out of the planet.

• 18:03Paul Mecurio?

  Okay.

• 18:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's symmetric. It accelerates you at just the rate that it slows you down on the other side. The reason why slingshot works is the planet is in orbit around the sun. And as you approach the planet, yes, the gravity will pull you in, but the gravity is pulling you into a moving planet.

• 18:23Paul Mecurio?

  So that's pulling you.

• 18:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 18:25Paul Mecurio?

  So it's like having two horses pulling you there.

• 18:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly. So one is just the pure gravity, but that's going to cancel out on the other side. But that's bringing you into the reference frame of the planet itself. And that extra energy gets boosted to you. And now you can get farther faster in the solar system without having a rocket that was big enough to have to do that.

• 18:46Paul Mecurio?

  Okay.

• 18:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So slingshots are, everyone uses a slingshot.

• 18:49Paul Mecurio?

  So part of his question is about black hole using a, that to me is like trying to get, you know, energy for a bike by riding behind the jet engine. Like, it seems like you're gonna be.

• 19:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Actually, I tried, remind me to tell you something about when I was drafting off a truck, which I don't recommend anyone do.

• 19:07Paul Mecurio?

  Were you on a skateboard?

• 19:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I was in a car, but I'll tell you about it in a minute. So it has nothing to do with the gravity of the object. So a black hole would only be useful to you is if the black hole is moving in the direction that you want to be moving when you come out the other side.

• 19:23Paul Mecurio?

  Because again, just like the planet, it's just not enough to just have the gravity pull you.

• 19:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because the gravity's symmetric. It'll eat you on the other side.

• 19:30Paul Mecurio?

  So when we're slingshotting, it's almost, it's like you're sort of borrowing energy from a planet.

• 19:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're not borrowing because you ain't giving it back.

• 19:36Paul Mecurio?

  And you're not reimbursing it through Venmo. You're just screwing the planet.

• 19:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It would be cool if you could. You've just stolen orbital energy from the planet. And we proceed on the assumption that the planet doesn't mind.

• 19:50Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah. They're like teenagers, these rockets. They never have enough energy. They're always asking their parents for a boost. They're a mess.

• 19:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we gotta help them out wherever we find them.

• 19:59Paul Mecurio?

  They flirt with the planets. They go up to the planet, they get cute with the planet.

• 20:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right.

• 20:02Paul Mecurio?

  They get close to it, and then next thing you know, gone, never see them again.

• 20:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Onto the outer.

• 20:06Paul Mecurio?

  I'm sorry, I'm personalizing a lot of this. I've had a lot of bad relationships.

• 20:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Have you been in, in therapy about this?

• 20:11Paul Mecurio?

  Tell me about this car drafting.

• 20:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, no, no. So I forgot which car ago of mine this was, but it was the first time I was able to, it was able to tell me what my miles per gallon was.

• 20:24Paul Mecurio?

  Oh, it had these little.

• 20:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's an active miles per gallon.

• 20:27Paul Mecurio?

  Probably one of the first computerized cars.

• 20:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe it was in there. And so I noticed that when I floored the accelerator, miles per gallon dropped to like three miles a gallon or something. Then when I was cruising, it went back up, gently pressing the, you know, so it was pretty much consistent with the sticker information about the miles per gallon that I was getting. All right. So,

• 20:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I said, I wonder what happened if I drafted behind a truck. Right? Big old 18 wheeler truck. So I'm on a high, on the freeway and I start pulling up behind the truck.

• 21:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I start seeing the mileage go up. The gas mileage, the, the, the miles per gallon go up.

• 21:11Paul Mecurio?

  I thought you were gonna say you got mesmerized by the mud flaps with the cute girl on them.

• 21:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's, so it went from 20 miles per gallon to 30 to 40. Then I got within maybe 15 feet. Very dangerous. I don't recommend anybody to do that. 50 feet of a truck going 60 miles an hour.

• 21:29Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah. And a guy who does this for a living is like, why this, and why is this annoying guy behind me? You're lucky you didn't hit on the brake.

• 21:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got him about 20 feet and it went to 99 miles per gallon and didn't go higher than that. So basically it went to infinity on the, so I was completely enclosed.

• 21:46Paul Mecurio?

  And I just wanted to say.

• 21:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The drafting, the draft air of the, of the truck.

• 21:50Paul Mecurio?

  And just for the StarTalk fans out there, whenever I go on a car trip with Neil, it's really annoying because he'll only draft behind trucks because he's too cheap for gas. So it's really frightening. We're holding on. It's brutal. And it take, and you, oh yeah. And then, and then he saved money.

• 22:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I tell you on a trip.

• 22:08Paul Mecurio?

  He saved money. Still not buying you a hamburger at the McDonald's when you stop. You're on your own. All right. The guy's working it both ways. That's what I'm saying. Okay. This was a very good question. These are great questions.

• 22:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One thing that most people, I think.

• 22:19Paul Mecurio?

  I'm sorry, we're done. You can't talk anymore.

• 22:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  About drafting. I am.

• 22:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Creating a more laminar flow of air behind the truck than it otherwise would.

• 22:30Paul Mecurio?

  Well, because you're, there's a vacuum there.

• 22:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct, and I am.

• 22:33Paul Mecurio?

  You don't have anything pushing against.

• 22:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct, but I am making the air behind the truck come off the truck more smoothly. Which means, when I'm drafting off the truck, the truck's gas mileage is improving as well.

• 22:48Paul Mecurio?

  But why would what's happening in the back of the truck affect the gas? Because is it pushing down and then pushing it that way?

• 22:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because there's no longer a partial vacuum behind the truck. Because I'm inside that pocket.

• 22:57Paul Mecurio?

  But why does a partial vacuum hurt them?

• 22:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because it's sucking against, the truck is trying to pull against what was otherwise be a lower pressure air.

• 23:05Paul Mecurio?

  But now you've got a vacuum behind your car.

• 23:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, well, it depends on how the air flows.

• 23:10Paul Mecurio?

  Don't disagree with me, just say you're right.

• 23:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it wouldn't have to be a vacuum if the air comes smoothly.

• 23:15Paul Mecurio?

  Oh.

• 23:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Vacuum is when it's turbulent and again, okay, so now watch. So, on bike races where people draft off of others.

• 23:22Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah.

• 23:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  People say, "Get off my back, I don't want to tow you." They're not towing him, you actually would ride faster if someone is drafting off you.

• 23:30Paul Mecurio?

  But it's there.

• 23:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But the person that's drafting off you is using even less energy than you.

• 23:34Paul Mecurio?

  MX Self-Destruct. Aloha, Dr. Tyson, Samus from Los Angeles. Dr. Tyson, I've heard you describe the process of spaghettification before. And there are lots of theories about what one would see as they fall into a black hole. However, we know that as gravity increases and observers' perception of time slows down. Since the gravity of an event horizon is infinite, wouldn't this mean that time would effectively stop for anything falling in? And so, nothing ever actually crosses into the black hole itself. If you could maintain molecular cohesion, wouldn't you just see it evaporate away as you get closer? Until it's eventually gone?

• 24:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Back in the early 70s, when black holes were finally making their way into our mathematics and our ideas and understandings of the universe. The, uh, the science writer for the New York Times wrote a book titled Frozen Star. And he was referring to black holes, his name was Walter Sullivan. And I read a lot of his work, I mean, I appreciated people writing for the public. When I'm there as a middle schooler, learning about science.

• 24:42Paul Mecurio?

  Hmm.

• 24:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so he, among others, were were early influences in my life. I would clip articles he wrote in the New York Times on the latest discoveries. Anyhow, frozen star referencing the fact that if you watch someone fall into a black hole, they move slower and slower and slower. And right before the event horizon, everything stops. So it's frozen.

• 25:04Paul Mecurio?

  That person is frozen.

• 25:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Anything is frozen, except it's not, but that's what was considered at the time.

• 25:11Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 25:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I would learn from Jana, Jana Levin, sitting in that chair. That as you come closer and closer to the black hole, what happens is the event horizon encloses you. There's some phenomena that happens where you're not actually passing through it. You are joining the event horizon as you get absorbed.

• 25:34Paul Mecurio?

  So if the black hole.

• 25:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you actually do pass through.

• 25:36Paul Mecurio?

  There were trampoline with a giant, and I'm being serious, ball that creates sort of the effect of a black hole. And you're approaching the edge of that trampoline.

• 25:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why is it a trampoline? It's a rubber sheet that's curved.

• 25:46Paul Mecurio?

  Listen, it's my analogy. I get to do what I want.

• 25:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Black hole's not bouncing back.

• 25:50Paul Mecurio?

  And so when you have, so you're approaching that event horizon from the viewer, from the person looking from the outside.

• 25:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Outside observer.

• 25:59Paul Mecurio?

  You're you're frozen. That person looks like.

• 26:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As was understood in the early seventies.

• 26:05Paul Mecurio?

  Right, but that's not the case.

• 26:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You get absorbed into the event horizon itself.

• 26:08Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 26:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then you pass through.

• 26:09Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 26:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Without incident.

• 26:10Paul Mecurio?

  But that's what isn't, where does spaghettification come in?

• 26:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On route to the singularity.

• 26:15Paul Mecurio?

  So you your feet are getting pulled and you're getting stretched.

• 26:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On route to the singularity.

• 26:19Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 26:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At big black holes, there's not much tidal forces crossing the event horizon. You just fall right through and you'll be fine.

• 26:28Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 26:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's as you start approaching the singularity, deep in the center of the black hole, where these effects become significant.

• 26:35Paul Mecurio?

  And there's, there is this sort of chaos that's happening within the black hole at all times.

• 26:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, it's, it's eating things voraciously, anything that comes near. So I, I don't know what the inside of a black hole looks like.

• 26:49Paul Mecurio?

  You should get on that. Less time drafting behind trucks, more time doing some work. You know what I'm saying, buddy? So the, so in a sense, the black hole is sort of this sort of like, time slows down, right?

• 27:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the vicinity of the black hole, yes.

• 27:03Paul Mecurio?

  And, and so-

• 27:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As seen by an observer from outside, a very famous scene in the movie Interstellar, where the people are on the black hole planet for 15 minutes and the guy ages 15 years or some, some crazy ratio of time evolving for the two of them. You come back, he's got gray hair. I wouldn't have waited that long.

• 27:27Paul Mecurio?

  So as gravity increases, time slows down?

• 27:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 27:30Paul Mecurio?

  Right?

• 27:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 27:31Paul Mecurio?

  Which is why I guess a lot of work meetings feel like they're right next to a black hole. It's brutal.

• 27:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't know time is slowing down for you.

• 27:39Paul Mecurio?

  Well, when you're on a plane, the clock is a little, going a little faster than on Earth, right? Isn't this, doesn't it speed up a little bit?

• 27:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, not significantly. It does it for GPS satellites.

• 27:53Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 27:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, GPS satellites, in fact, it's not slowing down, it's speeding up. Because we are in a higher gravity field than the GPS satellites. So their time ticks faster than ours.

• 28:03Paul Mecurio?

  Because the gravity is a little weaker.

• 28:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Weaker there than here.

• 28:06Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 28:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right. So the GPS satellites pre-correct the time they give you by saying, "We're ahead of you, I'm gonna subtract that," then we give all your cellphone towers the correct time. What's funny is, we know and understand that phenomenon because of Einstein's general theory of relativity. If his theory of relativity did not exist, we would be measuring that phenomenon and not know why it was happening.

• 28:27Paul Mecurio?

  But just accepting it.

• 28:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because it's real. Yeah, there's a lot we measure and don't understand.

• 28:32Paul Mecurio?

  But quantum physics couldn't explain it?

• 28:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not that, no, it's relativity entirely.

• 28:36Paul Mecurio?

  Dr. Neil Tyson, this is Roger Gamblin. Roger coming at you from Eugene, Oregon.

• 28:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Eugene.

• 28:41Paul Mecurio?

  My question regards Dr. Tyson's true specialty, science education and the public understanding of science, in particular when it comes to people with neurological disabilities. I have ADHD. So it's difficult to sit down and read something with consistent focus. For example, I only got about a third of the way through astrophysics for people in a hurry. And I'm with you. Uh, my question is, what's the best way to learn undergrad level physics without using the book? Let me take this one, I have the answer. It's called a keg party.

• 29:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 29:15Paul Mecurio?

  You will see at a keg party, so many laws of physics being defied, and more as the keg slowly gets consumed. Go ahead, you can answer now.

• 29:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, that's a relatively short book. And if you only got a third of the way through, here's what I would recommend. So I have another book called Letters from an Astrophysicist, where it's just my correspondence with people back when my email was public. And I had these conversations with people.

• 29:46Paul Mecurio?

  That's amazing to me that you had a public email.

• 29:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the day, in the day. And there's some interesting other people on the other side of that. Some person in San Quentin prison, writing, you know, there's a...

• 30:00Paul Mecurio?

  How do I get out?

• 30:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You didn't ask that.

• 30:04Paul Mecurio?

  If I use a file, will it really work?

• 30:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You didn't ask that.

• 30:09Paul Mecurio?

  Will a file rust in a cake?

• 30:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or will it rust in a hot dog?

• 30:12Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah, that's right.

• 30:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That book can be read in pieces, because each letter exchange is just, so you can start it, stop it whenever you want. So the attention span for the reading, the letter and the reply are resonant with someone who might have ADHD. In addition, what just got published is the sequel to Merlin. Merlin, I had a pen name for Merlin for years, where I answered questions from the public, brought it back into the 21st century. The second volume of that just got published. It's questions and answers about the universe.

• 30:53Paul Mecurio?

  And they're short, brief?

• 30:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're short and brief, some are really short.

• 30:56Paul Mecurio?

  So it's like, and I'm not trying to be a short story form book to answer questions about physics in a way.

• 31:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's shorter than short stories even, right? A short story might be 100 pages.

• 31:05Paul Mecurio?

  Right, right, right.

• 31:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so I'd recommend the Merlin books, there's two of them, one came out last year and one came out this year. That has more physics in it than the Letters from an Astrophysicist does. That one is people that have existential angst and want to know. I grew up in a Christian family and I learned, and then I saw Cosmos. Then now I'm rejected. What should I do? I, you know, I'm in prison for this and I accept my thing, but my kids are in school and can't. What should I do? So it's a lot of existential.

• 31:36Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 31:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Inquiries in the, in the letters from an astrophysics book. But the, the Merlin books will be right up his alley.

• 31:43Paul Mecurio?

  Okay.

• 31:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a lot of physics in there.

• 31:44Paul Mecurio?

  Roger, do that. Also cheat off your neighbor's test. I'm just saying, especially after a keg party.

• 31:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here's the problem.

• 31:52Paul Mecurio?

  You're gonna have a headache.

• 31:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here's the problem. School systems value grades more than students value learning.

• 32:02Paul Mecurio?

  Wow. You just blew my mind.

• 32:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is why people cheat. Think about it.

• 32:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's no other reason to cheat other than to impress the school with your high grade.

• 32:12Paul Mecurio?

  Right, because you want to achieve and you want to get ahead.

• 32:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, you want to get a high grade.

• 32:15Paul Mecurio?

  Well, that's what I mean. You want to get ahead.

• 32:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you said you want to achieve. The achievement is the knowing of the information. Without regard to the grade.

• 32:22Paul Mecurio?

  Listen buddy, I've cheated my whole life. Don't tell me why I cheat and why I don't cheat.

• 32:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm telling you.

• 32:28Paul Mecurio?

  Neil, I gotta be honest with you. I'm really tired of hearing about your book.

• 32:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's tired?

• 32:33Paul Mecurio?

  Look, I love you. I've known you a long time.

• 32:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go collect your paycheck and leave.

• 32:37Paul Mecurio?

  More pictures buddy, more pictures.

• 32:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  More pictures. Okay, by the way, my Pluto book had a lot of pictures in it.

• 32:44Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah, did it?

• 32:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 32:45Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah, after the previous two books, I didn't buy it. I'm like, I can't do this again.

• 32:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, no, so if you are somehow have an aversion to what I've created. Which was in direct response to what I thought the public needed, let me just say.

• 32:58Paul Mecurio?

  Let me back up. Did anybody write to you and say, we need you to write these books?

• 33:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, but I felt it.

• 33:05Paul Mecurio?

  Okay, Yoda. Yoda.

• 33:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Felt it, I did.

• 33:09Paul Mecurio?

  Yoda with a mustache.

• 33:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if you're not a good reader, maybe you're a good listener. Those two Merlin books?

• 33:16Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah.

• 33:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I narrated them.

• 33:19Paul Mecurio?

  Oh my god. I think that might be worse.

• 33:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to the universe. What do you mean worse? And because it's Q and A with people-

• 33:28Paul Mecurio?

  For me to listen to your book, you talking like that, I would have to turn all the lights off and get a bottle of wine and light candles. And my wife would be like, "Why are you listening to Neil Tyson? Light candles and wine? Are you having an affair?" I'm like, "No, but he's talking like Barry White."

• 33:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Barry White.

• 33:45Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah, baby.

• 33:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to the universe.

• 33:51Paul Mecurio?

  We gotta put some music-

• 33:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  1970s music.

• 33:52Paul Mecurio?

  Do we put some music behind it?

• 33:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Put the tank, tank on. So, it includes other people reading the questions. Because those are other people from the public. There's a kid in there, we got a kid voice, we got an old person voice. So, if you have ADHD with regard to reading, maybe it affects you differently with regard to listening. So, that's... And other resources online. Gotta love the Khan Academy. Very carefully conceived lessons. K-A-H-N, Khan Academy.

• 34:27Paul Mecurio?

  Khan! Star Trek. Come on, you get to do a Star Trek reference and I respond, you look at me like I'm crazy.

• 34:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I reference the series. That is... This is the most famous thing in the series. And you're talking about one F1 movie?

• 34:43Paul Mecurio?

  Khan! You gotta look up at this guy.

• 34:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With Ricardo Montalban, this Khan.

• 34:48Paul Mecurio?

  How do he keep working? God bless him.

• 34:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ah, he was-

• 34:51Paul Mecurio?

  So, to wrap up, you were saying there are all of these... I'm not really paying attention, I have ADHD, so...

• 34:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, the Khan Academy are educational units online that handholds you as necessary, or not, if you don't need it, handholds you through lessons on almost everything you would ever find in a college curriculum, including physics.

• 35:14Paul Mecurio?

  Okay, so there-

• 35:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, and I've seen it, and in fact, my family donates to them. So, because I care about-

• 35:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Democratizing education?

• 35:23Paul Mecurio?

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just because you went to a fancy school, I don't need to hear that. You know, I want everybody to know what you know.

• 35:29Paul Mecurio?

  Mm-hmm. Great. I hope it helped Roger. So we've got books, we've got audio books.

• 35:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Neil's books.

• 35:32Paul Mecurio?

  Neil's books. Nobody else's.

• 35:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nobody else's books.

• 35:36Paul Mecurio?

  If you have any other books, Roger, burn them right now. Burn them.

• 35:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's not what I said.

• 35:42Paul Mecurio?

  And, uh, and audio books and then, you know, uh, I would, we would definitely recommend the ones with Neil's sexy voice. Uh, all right, we're moving on.

• 35:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you, Paul.

• 35:53Paul Mecurio?

  Anytime.

• 35:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Anytime.

• 35:54Paul Mecurio?

  Anytime.

• 35:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 35:56Paul Mecurio?

  Uh, all right. William Duzenberry.

• 35:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 36:00Paul Mecurio?

  Nietzsche's Eternal Recurrence. Everything that's happening now in the cosmos has happened before and will happen again ad infinitum, forever and ever, including black holes. What are the odds of it ever even happening once?

• 36:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so I don't know. Did Nietzsche talk like that? Did he have?

• 36:19Paul Mecurio?

  This is it. Nietzsche's, yeah.

• 36:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not my favorite quote of Nietzsche's, although attributed to him, I don't know if he actually said this, but it's, "Those who were dancing were deemed insane by those who could not hear the music."

• 36:33Paul Mecurio?

  Hmm.

• 36:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I said, "Yeah."

• 36:35Paul Mecurio?

  That's a very deep.

• 36:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That works.

• 36:37Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah, man.

• 36:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You look through a glass window and people are just jumping up and down. And you don't hear the music. It's like, wow. What? What's wrong with those people?

• 36:45Paul Mecurio?

  I just, I'm in, I'm looking at a funny farm right now.

• 36:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Funny farm. Right, right, right. So that's my favorite quote of his, attributed to him. So.

• 36:53Paul Mecurio?

  This sounds like sort of a cosmic, cosmic.

• 36:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the multiverse, I spoke with, um, Brian Cox about this, actually. Or was it Brian Cox or Brian Greene? My brains cross pollinated. Uh, one of them. They're my physicists at large.

• 37:07Paul Mecurio?

  Okay.

• 37:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I reach for them when I need extra physics to back up my astrophysics.

• 37:11Paul Mecurio?

  Got it.

• 37:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I didn't know Nietzsche had anything to do with the multiverse, but in the multiverse, we are just one of an infinite number of universes.

• 37:20Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 37:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Being born at all times. And apparently that infinity is large enough to include all possible configurations of atoms and molecules.

• 37:30Paul Mecurio?

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that we would be having this conversation in another universe. Yes. Or, or there's a version where you're evil and you have a goatee.

• 37:41Paul Mecurio?

  It's right there, sitting next to you. It's your evil puppet. Well, so it's like if everything's happening over and over again, man, I really wish I'd spent a fierce to the few cycles, the beginning cycles, learning how to fold a fitted sheet, because it is brutal. I never learned it.

• 37:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, the fitted sheets? Yeah, you have to tuck one corner into the other.

• 37:59Paul Mecurio?

  Is that what you do?

• 37:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes. Yes, you have to reverse it, tuck it under, and that way

• 38:02Paul Mecurio?

  Were you a boy scout?

• 38:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The two corners will stay together.

• 38:04Paul Mecurio?

  Were you a boy scout?

• 38:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No. I'm just cultured.

• 38:12Paul Mecurio?

  I don't know. I, okay, look, if you want to repeat, the idea of repeating life infinitely at Infinitum is-

• 38:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They just say it's you're there each time.

• 38:20Paul Mecurio?

  Well, it sounds like a good idea.

• 38:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no, that's a different Paul Mecurio.

• 38:24Paul Mecurio?

  No, I understand.

• 38:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's all your atoms, but it's not you. You are here now.

• 38:28Paul Mecurio?

  There's a version of me that's still on hold with Comcast, and that's, I don't want that. I don't want that living on Infinitum.

• 38:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but that's not, that's not happening to you right now. That's not you.

• 38:38Paul Mecurio?

  How do we know that, though? How do you know that there's not some part of me that's that person?

• 38:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because we've already done the experiment.

• 38:45Paul Mecurio?

  What are you doing in your basement that we don't know about with human beings?

• 38:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We have twins. Identical in every way.

• 38:53Paul Mecurio?

  My father was an identical twin.

• 38:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In every way, and they're not feeling the pain of the other one. They're not having the same thoughts. They're different people.

• 39:01Paul Mecurio?

  But they-

• 39:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But they're identical. So go to another universe, and you're identical there, and it's not you. Period.

• 39:06Paul Mecurio?

  I don't think you could be physically identical and not mentally or emotionally similar in some way. I don't think it sort of gets parceled out that way. My father was an identical twin.

• 39:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 39:16Paul Mecurio?

  Looked alike, aged the same way, identical in every way, same cadence. I can't believe that a physical body can replicate, and then in the future, that body you're telling me, that person becomes a twin, the twin of that person. Somehow emotionally or mentally, there isn't still some DNA of that person.

• 39:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There would be. Identical DNA, but you're not the same person. You're, I have the one and only Paul Mecurio that matters to me in this moment. If you are-

• 39:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you are in any other universe, I don't give a rat's ass.

• 39:53Paul Mecurio?

  I can't, I'm, I'm, I gotta compose myself.

• 39:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're beclamped?

• 39:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so if you're in another universe, I don't care.

• 40:01Paul Mecurio?

  Look at me, I love you too. Take it in, take it in.

• 40:08Paul Mecurio?

  Alright, I think, I think I get that now.

• 40:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and your father's twin was somebody else. They weren't the same person.

• 40:14Paul Mecurio?

  I was utterly fascinated because he was like the Elvis version of my father. I'm not kidding you. He wore a diamond pinky ring, he drove El Dorado Cadillacs.

• 40:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 40:22Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah, he was my...

• 40:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The twin?

• 40:24Paul Mecurio?

  The twin. My father stayed in Rhode Island, he moved to California and he became like the whole nine yards. So it was like someone sent my father into Central Casting and came out and, but I don't want to take up too much time.

• 40:58Paul Mecurio?

  Alright, Vince T. Greetings, Dr. Tyson. Vincent from Cincinnati with a question. It's a good town, Cincinnati, they have a nice comedy club there. Do you consider atomic fission to be a natural phenomenon? And if so, why is Einstein's theory still a theory and not a law? Isn't the detonation of A-bombs proof of theory?

• 41:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We don't use the word "law" anymore. We don't really. It's a little outdated in the following way. Go back to the 19th century and earlier, we were discovering how the universe worked. We had Newton's laws of optics and laws of gravity and, and, and thermodynamics, a whole branch of physics that, that studies heat. And we had, uh, electrodynamics that would be later. All of this...

• 41:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We call them laws. Because they applied everywhere. A law is here and there.

• 41:52Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 41:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then we found the limits to those laws.

• 41:55Paul Mecurio?

  But why does not?

• 41:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, if it's a limit, can't it be a law? Should we call a law if it has limits? There's not a law.

• 42:02Paul Mecurio?

  Well, who said law presupposes that something is absolute?

• 42:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the assumption, if you'd say that to somebody.

• 42:08Paul Mecurio?

  In science?

• 42:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, well, back to this what it was what it was presumed to be. Then we learn that these ideas had limits. They still applied in the regimes where they had ever been tested, but they had limits. So we no longer call them laws. It was just the theory of relativity. We have quantum theory. We have, so it's all called theories. And a theory is the organizational understanding of how nature works. Represented by a mathematical imprint of what's going on. And so it's not, we're waiting for the theory to become a law. That's not how this works anymore. No one is, that's not how we think about it anymore.

• 42:49Paul Mecurio?

  Okay.

• 42:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the theory of relativity, it works every place we've ever tested and it has limits at the singularity. We have quantum theory. It's worked every place we've ever tested it. We don't know where to test it where it doesn't work yet.

• 43:04Paul Mecurio?

  But you can't call it a law.

• 43:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're not calling them laws anymore. Just not using the term.

• 43:10Paul Mecurio?

  Maybe I am.

• 43:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so nuclear fission, it's not a thing in the universe because using large atoms and breaking them apart. There aren't many large atoms in the universe, but we can make them here on Earth. And we can find them and purify them. And so, yeah, fission is real. All of that. It's all real, but it's still the theory of relativity and quantum theory. And it'll always be that. So when you have people saying, well, we should teach creation in the school because evolution is just a theory. This, that sentence in modern times has no meaning.

• 43:47Paul Mecurio?

  Mm-hmm.

• 43:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's no, there's no such thing as just a theory. And even there's some scientists that don't fully recognize this distinction, okay?

• 43:59Paul Mecurio?

  Between theory and law.

• 44:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But no, between theory and hypothesis, okay? People say, "I have a theory that if I do this, then that will happen." No, you have a hypothesis that that will happen. You're gonna test your hypothesis.

• 44:09Paul Mecurio?

  And then it becomes a theory.

• 44:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Only, if, if, if, if, only if there's that and a hundred other things that come together in a deeper understanding of the world, and if it's all shown to be correct, you have a new theory of the universe.

• 44:24Paul Mecurio?

  Got it.

• 44:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's, it's, it's a subtle, but a very important point. There's no such thing as it's just a theory.

• 44:30Paul Mecurio?

  Mm-hmm.

• 44:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And anytime I hear someone say, "I have a theory that," I say, "No, Einstein had a theory, you have a hypothesis."

• 44:36Paul Mecurio?

  I'm shocked that scientists, bright science, billions, I can't make that distinction.

• 44:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, because it's, it's, it's a pedagogical point.

• 44:44Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah.

• 44:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because people wanna think one thing.

• 44:46Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah.

• 44:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the scientists are just doing what they do, and they don't know how the public is miss thinking what they're doing. So they don't have, they're not thinking about how to correct for that. But I think about it all the time. And plus, there's no such thing as proof. Prove it! That's not a thing in science. It's, "Give me enough evidence to support what you say, so that I no longer need to question it, and I go on to the next question."

• 45:09Paul Mecurio?

  But you're always open to it being disproved if something comes along.

• 45:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Don't use the word "prove." We're open to shown to be wrong if there's better evidence that comes later. However, multiple, multiple experiments getting the same answer?

• 45:26Paul Mecurio?

  Then you've got...

• 45:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're, you're good to go here, and it gets, it becomes part of what is objectively true about the world. That's... So Newton's laws, we went to the moon on, quote, "Newton's laws." Because going to the moon didn't test the edges of Newton's laws. But you wanna play with black holes? You wanna build a black hole detector? You need Einstein to get that to work. It's still Einstein's theory of relativity.

• 45:51Paul Mecurio?

  Mm-hmm.

• 45:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, we could call them Newton's theories of matter, but...

• 45:57Paul Mecurio?

  But those laws will work in black hole with regards to...

• 45:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They won't, but what I'm saying is, we went centuries calling them laws, and so we just still call them laws.

• 46:04Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah. Okay, let's move on. That was a great question, by the way. Uh, Raka Darkoda. "G'day, Dr. Tyson. Chris here, from the land down under, Australia. Been listening for a couple of months now while I work." Wait, okay. First of all, I hope you're not an air traffic controller. Okay? I don't want to be like, "Yeah, American Airlines. You land wherever. I'm trying to figure out this..."

• 46:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got Neil on the line here.

• 46:28Paul Mecurio?

  Trying to figure out this event horizon stuff and drafting behind trucks like some crazy man. Um, "Dr. Tyson, do you think it's possible that black holes are actually the ancient remains of collapsed wormholes? Kind of like the dead mauds of cosmic tunnels that once connected different parts of spacetime? Could what we call black holes today be fossils from an earlier, more interconnected universe?"

• 46:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love it. So, wormholes, we know are not stable. They have to be actively propped up with some material that does not exist, yet, that has negative gravity. Because gravity makes space collapse. Negative gravity would make space expand, would make space separate. And so, if you want to build a black hole, we know how to make one. We just don't have the substance that will allow it. So, you can't just imagine a universe that had these highways called black holes that all collapsed, because somebody had to have made them. Somebody had to make them.

• 47:29Paul Mecurio?

  Well, there's quantum gravity and the string theory, right? And they suggest that wormholes and black holes might be the two sides of the same sort of geometry, right?

• 47:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it would be, uh, white holes and black holes possibly connected with a wormhole.

• 47:42Paul Mecurio?

  Mm-hmm.

• 47:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but we've never seen a white hole, so, it works.

• 47:48Paul Mecurio?

  Maybe you ought to look a little harder.

• 47:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah!

• 47:50Paul Mecurio?

  Just try.

• 47:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It works arithmetically, but we've, and we...

• 47:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We make a prediction of what it should look like in space, and we've never seen one. So it's a mathematical curiosity.

• 48:03Paul Mecurio?

  Well, is a black hole a one-ended wormhole then, in some way? Because some have suggested that, right?

• 48:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A wormhole, when I see wormholes, I want to step through and end up and land somewhere else and be able to step back through. And black holes don't give you that option. It'll give you the two-way street option.

• 48:19Paul Mecurio?

  They're very one-dimensional. Emotionally, they're a mess.

• 48:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But what's cool, it's a hole that you can fall in from any direction.

• 48:26Paul Mecurio?

  A wormhole?

• 48:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, well, yes, but also a black hole. From any direction you can fall in.

• 48:32Paul Mecurio?

  But that's true.

• 48:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it's not. If there's a hole in the ground, you can only fall straight through. You step over it and then you-

• 48:39Paul Mecurio?

  So is that gravity causing that? Or it's in relation-

• 48:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a hole in spacetime. So no matter the direction you approach it-

• 48:45Paul Mecurio?

  There is no top or bottom.

• 48:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct. There's no top or bottom. You come in from the left, the right, the top, the bottom.

• 48:51Paul Mecurio?

  There's like a top sheet and a bottom sheet, but that's a whole other thing. All right. Margot Lane. That sounds like a superhero's girlfriend. Margot Lane.

• 49:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Margot Lane.

• 49:02Paul Mecurio?

  "Readings, Neil, from Elk, California, given that the sun will eventually consume us." Wow. Shouldn't all of our energy everywhere-

• 49:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It started out dark.

• 49:13Paul Mecurio?

  Oh, my God. You're a real- Margot, you're not getting invited to any of my parties. What's up, everybody? Margot's here. Um, "Given that the sun will eventually consume us, shouldn't all of our energy everywhere be focused on trying to stay alive? The speculation is five billion years will be consumed by the sun."

• 49:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How... How optimistic she is.

• 49:38Paul Mecurio?

  Well, this is very, for me, the sun is consuming us. Why am I uploading new emojis to my phone on Apple? Why do I care about any of that stuff?

• 49:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because it's in five billion years.

• 49:49Paul Mecurio?

  But still, people, half the people won't use sunscreen and they know they're gonna get burned alive.

• 49:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Burned alive. Actually, the sun in that future will be very red and will not be emitting much ultraviolet. So it's not how bright the sun is.

• 50:02Paul Mecurio?

  The sun will be-

• 50:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it's how much ultraviolet light it's giving.

• 50:04Paul Mecurio?

  Is it gonna be burning out as a star?

• 50:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, just the surface will be cooling. The surface will get cooler, but it'll get so big, like the surface of the sun will be very close to Earth. So the oceans will come to a rapid boil, and then evaporate, and the atmosphere will evaporate, and we'll be this charred ember orbiting within the confines of the star.

• 50:27Paul Mecurio?

  Can I just say something right now? I wanna kill myself.

• 50:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, what? It's five billion years. What I'm saying is-

• 50:32Paul Mecurio?

  I came here happy.

• 50:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What I'm saying is, five billion years, that's long enough that we will surely go extinct for 22 other reasons well before then.

• 50:43Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah, TikTok filters.

• 50:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It should be less.

• 50:45Paul Mecurio?

  We're gonna die, and people are worried about TikTok filters.

• 50:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Eventually, but there are other things. For example, an asteroid could strike. There could be a killer virus. There could be-

• 50:55Paul Mecurio?

  Alright, I'm done. I'm leaving. I'm getting out of here.

• 50:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There could be-

• 51:00Paul Mecurio?

  A plague.

• 51:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, plague, like a killer virus, same thing. There could be, what else could it be? Oh, we could just go extinct because climate change, and we can't adapt to it, okay? You know what the average life expectancy of a mammal species? It's about 3 million years, on average.

• 51:18Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 51:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if we beat that average, good. But if not, we don't have to worry about the sun dying.

• 51:24Paul Mecurio?

  Do you think in 5 billion years, there'll be Amazon Prime deals? You know, we have 3 days.

• 51:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, because maybe we'll have wormholes, and you won't need delivery services.

• 51:33Paul Mecurio?

  There you go.

• 51:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I fantasize about, I think about this all the time.

• 51:37Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah, but they're still gonna get it wrong and leave it in the wrong house.

• 51:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, because that's not where it's happening. Open your refrigerator, and the back of your refrigerator is a door to the grocer. That's the wormhole from the grocer to your refrigerator.

• 51:49Paul Mecurio?

  Wow.

• 51:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. So the Amazon delivery is like the Amazon warehouse, and then they pop open the door.

• 51:55Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah, but wait a minute, back up. The grocer, you open the door, is he sleeping with my wife?

• 51:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no. No, no, there's a way to unlock it, so they can't just come through-

• 52:04Paul Mecurio?

  Oh, thank God.

• 52:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Completely through the hole, but-

• 52:07Paul Mecurio?

  I have marital issues, but go ahead.

• 52:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so they'll swap out the milk, and the eggs, or cheese, whatever is the thing that's going bad. And so, so that would be the future of wormholes. And so, yeah, I love them. I can't wait. You wouldn't need roads.

• 52:24Paul Mecurio?

  You just, what's transporting me through a wormhole?

• 52:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is the warp in the fabric of space and time. You borrow a hole through and you just step through and then you unwarp space.

• 52:37Paul Mecurio?

  But are we, but are my molecules being disassembled and reassembled like Star Trek?

• 52:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, because wormholes are way better than that. You would never.

• 52:45Paul Mecurio?

  So you will enter dressed?

• 52:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is you. Will step through and you come out the other side.

• 52:50Paul Mecurio?

  Dressed exactly the way? And you'd still wear that shirt on that side of this? Alright, good for you.

• 52:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My mother. You visiting the other half the galaxy? You'll wear that shirt?

• 53:02Paul Mecurio?

  You're my son and you are not gonna go dress to the other side of the universe like that, young man.

• 53:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In a wormhole universe, there are no delivery trucks. There's no roads.

• 53:13Paul Mecurio?

  Is there any downside to a wormhole universe?

• 53:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everyone who had a job driving.

• 53:22Paul Mecurio?

  That's, that's true. You have to put, you have to put that on your unemployment filing every week.

• 53:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It might happen well before then as self-driving cars kick in.

• 53:32Paul Mecurio?

  Damn wormholes.

• 53:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, we gotta wrap it up here.

• 53:34Paul Mecurio?

  Alright.

• 53:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, dude, thanks for coming through.

• 53:37Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 53:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, we'll find you on the In-N-Out. Up and down.

• 53:42Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah, In-N-Out Burger in California. I'm serving french fries. Why don't you pay attention when I talk? It's Inside Out.

• 53:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Inside Out.

• 53:50Paul Mecurio?

  Inside, you know all of these things and you can't remember two words. Inside Out.

• 53:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the name of the Disney movie.

• 53:56Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah, you just stepped.

• 53:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Pixar movie.

• 53:58Paul Mecurio?

  You stepped into a mental wormhole. Inside Out with Paul Mecurio.

• 54:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright.

• 54:03Paul Mecurio?

  And you've been on it, it's my podcast and Permission to Speak, my show is online.

• 54:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, yes, we got you.

• 54:08Paul Mecurio?

  My YouTube channel and people can follow me.

• 54:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We love your show. Your live show.

• 54:12Paul Mecurio?

  Thanks.

• 54:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, dude, and are you Mecurial?

• 54:15Paul Mecurio?

  You know what people think I am.

• 54:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 54:17Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah, my wife is special.

• 54:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Look up the word.

• 54:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's your SAT word for today. Alright, this has been StarTalk Cosmic Queries Grab Bag Edition, leaning very heavily to black holes.

• 54:28Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah.

• 54:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very good.

• 54:29Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah.

• 54:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, until next time, Neil deGrasse Tyson, keep looking up.