Cosmic Queries – Across the Universe

Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice answer fan-submitted questions that take you across the universe to explore merging black holes, Hawking radiation, the Fermi paradox, time dilation, the death of the universe, and more! NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/cosmic-queries-across-the-universe/ Image Credit: NASA.

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

• 0:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, and beaming out across all of space and time, this is StarTalk, where science and pop culture collide.

• 0:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And on this edition of StarTalk, it's office hours, which is another version of Cosmic Queries. We're just calling it Office Hours because you can come in with any question at all on any subject. And I got my man Chuck Nice here.

• 0:43Chuck Nice?

  Hey Neil, what's happening? Of course, brother. How are you, man?

• 0:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thanks for doing this.

• 0:49Chuck Nice?

  It's always my pleasure.

• 0:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I haven't seen the questions yet.

• 0:51Chuck Nice?

  No, you never do.

• 0:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One day you'll show me the question.

• 0:53Chuck Nice?

  No, I will not.

• 0:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'll mug you in the street.

• 0:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what do you have?

• 0:59Chuck Nice?

  That'd be pretty funny, actually. I think I just saw Neil deGrasse Tyson beat the hell out of a guy and run off with some papers. I wonder what was that? What was that about?

• 1:11Chuck Nice?

  Yes, of course, you know, we get, we take questions from all over the internet, wherever you can find us. And so we always start with a Patreon patron question.

• 1:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, let's do it.

• 1:22Chuck Nice?

  And this is Ari Modi, or Ari Maoudi, from Patreon. Ari says, "Hey, I'm from Los Angeles. Some astrophysicists say there will eventually be universe death when the last atoms are ripped apart by the expansion and we enter the big freeze. But we are also told a universe can come from nothing and, taking any volume of empty space and waiting a gazillion years, matter can and does arise from that void."

• 1:57Chuck Nice?

  Aren't these contradictions? Why wouldn't something from nothing happen after heat death? If that is a fundamental part of how the universe works? So Ma- Ari Maudy.

• 2:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He totally entered that question.

• 2:11Chuck Nice?

  He just got everything, man.

• 2:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All up in.

• 2:13Chuck Nice?

  All up in it.

• 2:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the question.

• 2:15Chuck Nice?

  He was like, I'm going shopping for astrophysics and I'm gonna put everything in the cart.

• 2:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everything in. So, right now, the temperature of the universe, if you put a thermometer out there.

• 2:26Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it sort of could receive the, sort of, the energy of the void.

• 2:31Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 2:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, basically the cosmic microwave background.

• 2:34Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That, that energy gives you about three degrees. But we used to be much hotter when the universe was smaller.

• 2:39Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay?

• 2:40Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We've been expanding and cooling. Not fundamentally different in principle? The mechanisms are the same, but when, when you, have you ever let air out of a bicycle tire? Does anyone still ride a bicycle?

• 2:52Chuck Nice?

  Of course, yes.

• 2:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 2:53Chuck Nice?

  I do it all the time and it's not even my bike. I just walk around Manhattan, I see a bicycle tire and I'm just like, you know what?

• 2:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Expanding air is, is cooler than the air that it was before it expanded.

• 3:04Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 3:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the air fall, you know, going past your thumb feels cool. It's not just because it's moving, it's actually dropping in temperature by expanding. And so you, the universe expands and cools, it's a thermodynamic fact.

• 3:18Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 3:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, by the way, we can look to faraway galaxies.

• 3:22Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 3:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whose light came to us from a time in our past.

• 3:27Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 3:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there are measurements you can make and show that that galaxy was feeling a warmer temperature in its time than the temperature that we measure today.

• 3:36Chuck Nice?

  That's pretty wild.

• 3:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is completely wild.

• 3:39Chuck Nice?

  Because you're not talking about a, a, a very, um, a, a big source. Like that light source is.

• 3:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a light source, yeah, but it's ubiquitous, but it's ubiquitous. So everybody feels it.

• 3:50Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 3:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there's certain, uh.

• 3:52Chuck Nice?

  So now, how exactly?

• 3:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's certain atoms where the electron will move in a certain way depending on what bath it's in.

• 3:57Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 3:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The bath of light.

• 3:58Chuck Nice?

  I got you.

• 3:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 4:00Chuck Nice?

  That makes sense now.

• 4:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're a little more excited farther away than they are here.

• 4:03Chuck Nice?

  That makes perfect sense.

• 4:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we're not just making this up.

• 4:05Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 4:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay?

• 4:05Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 4:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So.

• 4:07Chuck Nice?

  You know, I hadn't listened, I just, I had to make sure. You know what I mean?

• 4:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, uh, and the, as we get twice as big, they drop the temperature in half. Three times big, it drops it to a third.

• 4:17Chuck Nice?

  So, so there is a directly.

• 4:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A direct.

• 4:19Chuck Nice?

  Uh, inverse proportional relationship.

• 4:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To that drop. Inverse proportion, very good. Oh, you like that? Very good. Did you see what I did there? Yeah, I saw what you did there. I don't know where it went there. Not just proportional, inverse proportional. Exactly. So, so it's, as this continues, the temperature of the universe drops. All stars will ultimately burn out as they shut off one by one. Wow. In the night sky. Look at that. As they shut off in the night sky. Yeah. Um, you can ask, well, are we making new stars? Well, we are with the gas clouds that are still out there. Right. But then they make a star and then that star dies. So the gas gets sort of trapped up in stars that die. Mm-hmm. All right, so then there's no more gas to make stars.

• 5:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then, the atoms themselves decay. And ultimately, in about ten to the thirty years or so, which is a huge number. Right. Huge number. The protons decay. The very structure of matter itself loses all integrity. Wow. And so the universe ultimately dies, not with a bang, but with a whimper. Right. And not in fire, but in ice. It peters out. That's, wow. After I said those poetic words, you say it peters out? Is that the best you got for me? That was the joke.

• 5:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was the whole joke. Um, so, this, this idea that you can get something from nothing, I just want to get, spend a minute on that. Right. If I can. Okay. So, um, if you start with nothing and then create something that has both positive and negative energy in it. Mm-hmm. All that matters is that the sum, you add them together and you get zero. Zero. That's it. Okay, so you can start with nothing, yet have something, if the total energy goes to zero. Right. So another way to think about that is, let's say you have a level field. Mm-hmm. And say, I wanna dig a hole. Okay. So I'm gonna dig a hole and stack the dirt over on the left. Right. So I keep doing this. I can make a mountain as high as I want. Right, but you're gonna have a hole. I'm gonna have a hole. Yeah, exactly.

• 6:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm gonna have a hole. I got a hole, right. I got a hole. There you go. So, um, so the, what we're not sure about is whether you create another universe within this universe that has expanded. Right. Out of that void.

• 6:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Our best understanding of this multiverse hypothesis is that the universe that's created is not causally, what we say causally connected to what's outside of it. So you could in principle have multiple universes popping up into existence.

• 6:57Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 6:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But in the expansion and the edge of what that universe is, you have no way to interact with it. So, so there you have it.

• 7:05Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 7:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're stuck in this one.

• 7:06Chuck Nice?

  We're stuck in this one and that's all there is to it.

• 7:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 7:09Chuck Nice?

  That's pretty wild.

• 7:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 7:10Chuck Nice?

  Man, that's a, well, listen.

• 7:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He got his money's worth on that one.

• 7:13Chuck Nice?

  You got your money's worth, bro.

• 7:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right.

• 7:15Chuck Nice?

  Yo, Ari, that's a great question.

• 7:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 7:17Chuck Nice?

  Took us, took, wow.

• 7:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Took us to the edge of the universe.

• 7:20Chuck Nice?

  Took us to the edge of the universe and back.

• 7:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not only in space, but in time.

• 7:23Chuck Nice?

  In time. Could you go to the edge of the universe without space and time?

• 7:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Actually, once Einstein put forth relativity.

• 7:30Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where the fourth dimension is time and people say, well, that's weird. Why is that? No, no one has ever been at a place unless it was at a time. No one has ever acknowledged a time unless they were at a place. Think about it. If I say to Chuck, I'll meet you tomorrow at 10 o'clock. What's your next question to me?

• 7:56Chuck Nice?

  What are we doing?

• 7:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No. Okay, what's your question after that?

• 8:04Chuck Nice?

  Of course, where?

• 8:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where?

• 8:05Chuck Nice?

  Where?

• 8:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I give you a time, you ask where.

• 8:08Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I say, Chuck, I'll meet you tomorrow at the corner of 33rd and 3rd.

• 8:12Chuck Nice?

  When?

• 8:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When. We know intuitively that our path through life involves the juxtaposition of space and time. We know that intuitively.

• 8:22Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 8:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We just don't think of it in those terms.

• 8:25Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because they're measured by such different tools.

• 8:27Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 8:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A watch and, and a map.

• 8:29Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? So, but in fact, they're conjoined and Einstein formalized that statement in his theories of relativity.

• 8:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Amazing.

• 8:41Chuck Nice?

  That is great stuff.

• 8:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got it.

• 8:42Chuck Nice?

  All right, let's move on to another question.

• 8:48Chuck Nice?

  Hey, how about Woody? Clearly, this is a Pixar, Disney Pixar, character who's just writing in. Woody would like to know.

• 8:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Woody.

• 8:59Chuck Nice?

  Do lasers and solar panels work together? We could design and build the components for specific purposes of wireless energy transfer at great distances, which frequency on the light spectrum would be best suited for this task. Then how would you resolve the problem of a five watt laser being a dribble like Chuck at 3 a.m. after two few many 500 kilowatt laser? What? What the hell is this guy talking about?

• 9:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I think I got, I think I got his point. So what he wants to do is I have energy, energy here and I want to put it over there.

• 9:32Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. So, by the way, that, when you think about it, is kind of like what war is.

• 9:41Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 9:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What is a battle?

• 9:42Chuck Nice?

  A battle is-

• 9:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I have energy here and I want to put it over there.

• 9:44Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is kind of what the waging of war is all about.

• 9:48Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 9:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, I have a bow and arrow. I put energy in the arrow here and then the arrow goes over there. There's a bullet, has energy. There's a bomb, there's a delivery mechanism. Oh, thanks for the sound effects there, Chuck.

• 10:00Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, no worries.

• 10:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so I think there, what he wants to, is it he? Yeah, Woody, I assume.

• 10:06Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 10:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What he wants to know is, if I have laser energy over here-

• 10:10Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And laser goes fast and it's very directed, can I just have a catcher's mitt somewhere where I want to deliver it?

• 10:15Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then use it there?

• 10:17Chuck Nice?

  And then use it, and then use it as energy?

• 10:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In principle, nothing's stopping that.

• 10:21Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? Except the curvature of Earth's surface, if you believe in a round Earth.

• 10:27Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you can't beam-

• 10:29Chuck Nice?

  You can't bend-

• 10:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Beam light and bend it.

• 10:30Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? Uh, not on Earth.

• 10:32Chuck Nice?

  Unless you have a gravitational force that will bend it for you.

• 10:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, that would work. So on a black hole, you try to send a beam of light and it'll just curve and go around the, uh, the black hole itself. So, but on Earth and sort of normal gravity that we live in, no.

• 10:46Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 10:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it has to be a line of sight delivery.

• 10:49Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If it's enough energy to be useful, it's gonna be pretty dangerous to cross that beam.

• 10:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just saying.

• 10:59Chuck Nice?

  I shouldn't be laughing.

• 11:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know.

• 11:01Chuck Nice?

  It's really serious.

• 11:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's really a serious issue.

• 11:04Chuck Nice?

  But at the same time.

• 11:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If it's enough energy to do good stuff with it.

• 11:07Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 11:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You are.

• 11:08Chuck Nice?

  It's enough energy to do some real harm.

• 11:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You'd be cut you in half just walking down the street.

• 11:12Chuck Nice?

  See, what's funny about that is if you were smart enough to make that happen, but you didn't even think it through.

• 11:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Completely.

• 11:21Chuck Nice?

  And so you actually do it and like on the test run, you got the catcher's mitt there and you're just like, oh my God, look at this. We've actually figured out a way to transfer energy over great distances. And oh damn, we just killed somebody.

• 11:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or, or a more, a more tragic version of that story was, let's celebrate and dance. And then they accidentally dance into the beam. And that kills the inventor of the.

• 11:47Chuck Nice?

  See, your version has poetic justice.

• 11:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right, that one. So, um, yeah, so, so that's an issue. So it's, so insulated wires. I mean, we were kind of already do that with electricity.

• 11:57Chuck Nice?

  Fiber optics.

• 11:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Electricity, well, that's information we send by fiber optics. Not.

• 12:01Chuck Nice?

  Not energy itself. So you're right.

• 12:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, it's a small amount of energy, but it's not enough to.

• 12:05Chuck Nice?

  It's not enough to power anything.

• 12:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To power anything, correct. And what we learned, here's just an interesting, you didn't ask this, but let me put this in the, in the mix.

• 12:12Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 12:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you remember everyone's

• 12:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  expectation of the future as imagined in the 1950s and 60s? Flying cars, motorized walkways. People were thinking that energy would be very accessible. Basically, it takes energy to fly cars. But that's not what became accessible. Information.

• 12:41Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Became accessible.

• 12:42Chuck Nice?

  It's.

• 12:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we're living in an information age and it costs you nothing energetically to send information.

• 12:50Chuck Nice?

  True.

• 12:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And as a, as a, as a communicative species, information is high, it's a highly valued commodity.

• 12:58Chuck Nice?

  Mm hmm.

• 12:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we send information around the world. At, at, you know, with no, with no effort, I was, yes, a big effort, but no, um, the investment of energy that that requires is extremely low.

• 13:10Chuck Nice?

  True.

• 13:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, uh, so back then, no one imagined a world where, uh, so the movie 2001, A Space Odyssey?

• 13:19Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 13:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The computer was this big thing in the center of the of the spaceship and it was controlling everything. No one is imagining that you're gonna carry a computer on your hip.

• 13:31Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 13:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus entertainment on your, this was not, cuz it's information.

• 13:35Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 13:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And distributed information is what that is. Alright, so, um, we do send energy, but we send it in wires and they're insulated. So you don't touch the wire and get electrocuted. That's the electric electricity version of a laser.

• 13:48Chuck Nice?

  Right, right.

• 13:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, here's the wire sending energy here, go grab it with two hands. No, you're not gonna do that.

• 13:53Chuck Nice?

  No, no, go stand in some water. Hold this, hold this and stand in the puddle. Just took out some insurance on you.

• 14:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Got time for a few more questions in this segment.

• 14:02Chuck Nice?

  Okay, alright, let's, um, uh, this is Zachary Sprodlin. Pretty sure I said that right, Zachary. Uh, Zachary Sprodlin wants to know this, given your vast knowledge of physics. What are your thoughts on a holographic universe? Okay, I've never heard anybody ask this question, this is okay.

• 14:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 14:25Chuck Nice?

  Do you believe the universe to be holographic in nature? If so, do you think we should be researching more about the perceived difference between the particles and waves? Or are we already doing as much as our tools will allow? What are your thoughts on nature of waves versus particles and this perceived separation therein?

• 14:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, that's a whole other thing, but let me, let me start with the holographic universe.

• 14:52Chuck Nice?

  Okay, cool.

• 14:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't claim to be like a total expert in the holographic universe, but I'll share with you what I know and my understanding of it. There are calculations you can do that shows that in a black hole and the event horizon, that's the point of no return.

• 15:09Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 15:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That if you fall through that event horizon, all the information contained within you.

• 15:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gets remembered at that event horizon.

• 15:21Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 15:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, okay. So that's a little bit spooky. Because you can ask the question. Are we something real?

• 15:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or are we just some?

• 15:37Chuck Nice?

  Imprint.

• 15:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Imprint.

• 15:38Chuck Nice?

  Just an imprint.

• 15:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of some other thing that's real.

• 15:40Chuck Nice?

  That was real.

• 15:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's correct.

• 15:43Chuck Nice?

  That's it, that's a, that, that's.

• 15:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's almost like the Plato shadows.

• 15:46Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 15:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Argument or, or conversation that you have. Are, is there some higher reality of which we are just shadows?

• 15:55Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Representing it. And so it's, it's, it's a spooky idea that has sort of theoretical tap roots.

• 16:05Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I, I wouldn't know how to test that. Maybe the folks who came up with this have thought that through, but I, I'm not there.

• 16:11Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With them on that. I don't, I don't know how you would test this, but. Usually if the, if the theoretical underpinnings are working and they're based on other theories that are well-tested, like relativity and black holes and all this, you want to take it seriously. They didn't just pull it out of the ether.

• 16:27Chuck Nice?

  Right, right.

• 16:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They were, so, so that's an intriguing fact. Now, waves and particles, the duality? Yeah. Matter is waves and particles.

• 16:38Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, wait, do you know why an electron microscope works?

• 16:43Chuck Nice?

  Um, because it costs a lot of money. I don't know. I just know they're really expensive.

• 16:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why is the word electron in the same phrase as microscope? Microscopes use waves, light waves.

• 16:53Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, well, you can't. Can I blow your mind?

• 16:57Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 16:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh.

• 16:59Chuck Nice?

  Better than.

• 16:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are you, are you, are you seated?

• 17:01Chuck Nice?

  I'm seated.

• 17:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, here you go.

• 17:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Doesn't make sense. That with whatever microscope you're using, you cannot see detail smaller than the wavelength of light.

• 17:17Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 17:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're using to illuminate the object.

• 17:19Chuck Nice?

  That makes sense.

• 17:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Does that make sense?

• 17:20Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely, because you're, it's.

• 17:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's your blunt?

• 17:23Chuck Nice?

  That's what, that's what you're looking at.

• 17:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what you think, okay.

• 17:25Chuck Nice?

  As a matter of fact, you couldn't see it like, no matter what you're looking at, if there is no light, then you don't see anything in the microscope.

• 17:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Anything, okay.

• 17:34Chuck Nice?

  That's it, you see nothing.

• 17:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you need some light, so now you turn on the light. All right, now. If I'm using red light, red has a wavelength, a certain wavelength.

• 17:42Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 17:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But if I use wavelength, uh, light that's shorter wavelength, so orange, or yellow, or green, or blue.

• 17:49Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 17:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of the visible spectrum, blue or violet, has the shortest of the wavelengths.

• 17:53Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 17:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if I have a violet light microscope, I will see detail.

• 17:57Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Better than I would in a red light microscope.

• 18:01Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 18:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay?

• 18:02Chuck Nice?

  You'd also see all the, like, really nasty, cruddy stuff, cause it's a black light, and it's just like, ew. I don't know what was on this slide.

• 18:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's if you go, that's if you go ultraviolet.

• 18:11Chuck Nice?

  Right, right.

• 18:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's if you go ultraviolet, not just violet.

• 18:13Chuck Nice?

  Not just violet, ultraviolet.

• 18:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, get your ultra going there. So, so here's the thing. Um, it also means you can pack more information into a certain

• 18:25Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 18:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  sort of, uh, um, size. It's why Blu-ray players have higher resolution than regular CDs.

• 18:34Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 18:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause regular CDs used, like, didn't use blue lasers.

• 18:37Chuck Nice?

  And who knew streaming was gonna take them both out? Regular CDs and Blu-ray.

• 18:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sorry, let me explain. CDs are what we used to, you know, what DVD's.

• 18:45Chuck Nice?

  For you kids out there. It used to be something called a CD.

• 18:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Used to end you up, end up, hey, yeah.

• 18:50Chuck Nice?

  But go ahead.

• 18:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So, the point is, an electron has a wave associated with it that is on the, in the realm of deep, deep UV into X-rays.

• 19:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if you, if you illuminate a source with electrons.

• 19:11Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 19:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You basically have X-ray wavelength light telescope.

• 19:14Chuck Nice?

  That's very cool.

• 19:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what you have. And you can see, that's why, if you see pictures taken for, uh, uh, uh, uh, an electron microscope, you're seeing the fibers on the, on the microbes.

• 19:24Chuck Nice?

  Right, exactly.

• 19:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's like nasty.

• 19:26Chuck Nice?

  That's amazing.

• 19:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 19:27Chuck Nice?

  Because you're using the wave

• 19:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The wave

• 19:31Chuck Nice?

  of the particle.

• 19:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of the particle.

• 19:32Chuck Nice?

  The wave of the particle. Damn!

• 19:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Damn!

• 19:35Chuck Nice?

  Damn!

• 19:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Damn!

• 19:36Chuck Nice?

  Yo, that's hot.

• 19:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Damn!

• 19:38Chuck Nice?

  That's hot.

• 19:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, my point is.

• 19:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There is no meaning for you to ask, is it a wave or a particle?

• 19:48Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 19:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is both.

• 19:49Chuck Nice?

  It is both.

• 19:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And just because your brain can't wrap your head around it, doesn't mean it's not true.

• 19:53Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 19:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We don't have, when I say your brain, I mean, our vocabulary, our awareness of a reality requires that we choose it is this or is it a that? Is it a book? Is it a chair? Is it, are you a this or you're that?

• 20:05Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 20:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay?

• 20:06Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 20:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is, we, we're forcing this in ourselves.

• 20:09Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 20:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Um, because we'd like compartmentalizing. This is but part of the gender thing. Are you a boy or are you a girl? Which is it? Okay?

• 20:18Chuck Nice?

  Well, I haven't decided.

• 20:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You haven't decided. Um, so this forcing is, seems to be a deeply human thing.

• 20:24Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 20:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But when it's time to understand the universe.

• 20:27Chuck Nice?

  It's not nature.

• 20:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not, not.

• 20:28Chuck Nice?

  Doesn't necessarily have to be nature.

• 20:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not cosmic nature.

• 20:31Chuck Nice?

  Oh, okay.

• 20:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got it. We gotta take a break.

• 20:34Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 20:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, we're in Neil deGrasse Tyson's Office Hour on StarTalk. We'll be back in a minute.

• 20:52Speaker 02

  This is StarTalk.

• 21:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk Office Hour, which is a way of saying cosmic queries, but you can pull that query from wherever you want in the universe. We've got Chuck here to mangle your name.

• 21:12Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 21:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As you.

• 21:13Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely.

• 21:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got a little better, Chuck.

• 21:16Chuck Nice?

  Uh, you know.

• 21:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Little better. I want, I want to, I'm an educator, I want to give.

• 21:20Chuck Nice?

  I think it's part of the charm of the show. The fact that I can't read or.

• 21:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 21:25Chuck Nice?

  Or mention, or that I can't figure out anybody's name.

• 21:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 21:28Chuck Nice?

  So, uh, let's move on to, uh, Kyle Ryan Toth. How easy was that?

• 21:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Kyle Ryan Toth, three syllables.

• 21:38Chuck Nice?

  Three syllables.

• 21:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got it all done.

• 21:39Chuck Nice?

  Hey Kyle, man, thanks, bro.

• 21:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, the Ryan is two syllables.

• 21:41Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, Ryan is two, yeah. Not when I say it, though, it's Ryan.

• 21:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ryan, Ryan, Ryan, come on down, it's time for dinner.

• 21:48Chuck Nice?

  Hey, Ryan.

• 21:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ryan?

• 21:51Chuck Nice?

  Ryan? How you doing, man? Everything's what's there. How you doing, man?

• 21:57Chuck Nice?

  All right. Um, Kyle says-

• 21:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who was it? It was, um, Jeff Foxworthy? Um, who said, "In Texas, there's certain words that are like, single syllable words, but they're multiple syllables."

• 22:08Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 22:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like, "I don't give a shit."

• 22:12Chuck Nice?

  Right, and it's one word, it's one syllable, but yeah. That's like, uh, I have a friend, he was like, uh, "If you're Italian,

• 22:21Chuck Nice?

  uh, "jeep" is, uh, it sounds like one syllable, but it's a whole sentence. You know, it's like, "Jeep?" Yeah, not yet, you know, but-

• 22:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know what that means. Oh, di- oh, oh, "jeep," "jeep," "jeep."

• 22:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why's that if you're Italian?

• 22:36Chuck Nice?

  Uh, I don't know, that's what he told me, so.

• 22:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, you mean Italian descendants speaking like within a Brooklyn accent?

• 22:40Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 22:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  "A jeep?"

• 22:42Chuck Nice?

  "A jeep."

• 22:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah, okay, that's right. I'm thinking, I'm thinking pure Italian, I'm saying, no, I'm not getting that.

• 22:46Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 22:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, sorry.

• 22:48Chuck Nice?

  No, this would be, uh, right, the diaspora Italian.

• 22:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got one.

• 22:52Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 22:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Know what I'm saying?

• 22:53Chuck Nice?

  Nah, yeah, and wait.

• 22:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, that is, "Do you know what I am saying?"

• 22:56Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  "Do you know what I am saying?" Know what I'm saying?

• 23:00Chuck Nice?

  Know what I'm saying?

• 23:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Know what I'm saying?

• 23:01Chuck Nice?

  Uh, and, "Y'all mean?"

• 23:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Y'all know what I mean?

• 23:04Chuck Nice?

  Yep.

• 23:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yep, yep, yep.

• 23:05Chuck Nice?

  There you go. There you go, "Y'all mean." Uh, all right, here we go.

• 23:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Know what I'm saying?

• 23:09Chuck Nice?

  So, uh-

• 23:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'll go to the rest of the show. Only give the answer, "Know what I'm saying?"

• 23:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 23:19Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go.

• 23:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Know, you know what I'm saying?

• 23:21Chuck Nice?

  Here we go.

• 23:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How do you even spell it? N-O-M, apostrophe, S-A-I-N, know what I'm saying?

• 23:27Chuck Nice?

  Know what I'm saying?

• 23:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Know, know what I'm saying?

• 23:28Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:29Chuck Nice?

  All right, uh-

• 23:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm. How do you spell "mm-hmm"?

• 23:32Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's, it's unspellable.

• 23:34Chuck Nice?

  No, you, it's "mm-hmm."

• 23:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:36Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:39Chuck Nice?

  And if you're a black woman, it's "mm-hmm."

• 23:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, the hands gotta get all in there.

• 23:43Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:44Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the same thing, you just went a higher octave.

• 23:46Chuck Nice?

  Well, no, the pitch actually connotes the feeling behind it, "mm-hmm." So there's the affirmation, "mm-hmm," it's like, "Baby, you look good." "Mm-hmm."

• 23:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 23:56Chuck Nice?

  And then it's just like, uh, um-

• 24:00Chuck Nice?

  So, uh, I, I, I didn't go to work today. I'm sorry.

• 24:04Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 24:06Chuck Nice?

  See, yeah.

• 24:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so the pitch carries meaning.

• 24:09Chuck Nice?

  Carries meaning.

• 24:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Even though you're saying exactly the same thing.

• 24:11Chuck Nice?

  Same thing, but it's, it's all in the pitch. You know what I mean?

• 24:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. That's good. I learned, I learned something today.

• 24:16Chuck Nice?

  And then there's, mm-hmm.

• 24:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, that's good. That's a, that's a, that's a, you are lying through your.

• 24:22Chuck Nice?

  That's it. You're absolutely right. It's.

• 24:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You are lying.

• 24:25Chuck Nice?

  Right. Uh, better known as Negro Please. So, there you go. Um, here we go. This is.

• 24:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got a word where the pronunciation changes just by capitalizing the first letter.

• 24:35Chuck Nice?

  Wait a minute. Go ahead.

• 24:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No. You'll get that later. Okay, go.

• 24:39Chuck Nice?

  Aw, what a tease. All right. Oh, well, okay, here we go.

• 24:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You want the word? I'll tell you the word.

• 24:43Chuck Nice?

  No, no, no. Let's make it a tease. We'll, we'll do it after the question.

• 24:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  After the break. After the next break.

• 24:48Chuck Nice?

  After, ooh, after the next break. Well, that's a real tease.

• 24:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it'll keep you coming back.

• 24:51Chuck Nice?

  You gotta stay here now.

• 24:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You are forced.

• 24:55Chuck Nice?

  You are forced to be here. Mm-hmm. Okay, here we go. Imagine a planet orbiting close to a black hole and experiencing extreme time dilation. How would outgoing signals of electromagnetic communication be affected? Would we still receive such signals? Would they be distorted and/or appear very slow-paced?

• 25:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, no, yeah. It still goes at the speed of light.

• 25:17Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If the planet is outside the event horizon, it's not trapped, and it's in orbit. Yes, it is in a deep gravitational well.

• 25:24Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There is very serious time dilation relative to anyone looking at them.

• 25:29Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They will send out a signal, and the energy of their light as it comes out will, uh, it will continuously lose energy so that by the time, that, not speed.

• 25:42Chuck Nice?

  Not speed.

• 25:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It'll still come out the speed of light.

• 25:43Chuck Nice?

  Just energy.

• 25:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But if it starts out at a high-energy band of light, by the time it gets out, it'll be a very low-energy band of light.

• 25:50Chuck Nice?

  Interesting.

• 25:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so you're gonna get very low, uh, low energy.

• 25:54Chuck Nice?

  See, so, and that's counterintuitive to what you would think, because you would think that it would lose speed, but you can't, light can't lose speed.

• 26:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not light. That's right.

• 26:03Chuck Nice?

  Light cannot lose speed.

• 26:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, a way to think about this is, if I send a, a beam of light, there's a certain amount of energy, and I do that in one second, let's say.

• 26:11Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 26:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? But now I'm looking at you, and what you're calling one second now takes an hour for me. That amount of energy that if it's packed into one second delivery time has a certain intensity to it.

• 26:27Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 26:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But for now, it's taken you an hour to send out that energy. As far as my watch is concerned.

• 26:32Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 26:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the energy gets diluted.

• 26:34Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 26:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Over that ascent from the black hole.

• 26:36Chuck Nice?

  Interesting.

• 26:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, yeah, it's called a gravitational redshift.

• 26:40Chuck Nice?

  Right. Oh, cool.

• 26:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It has a term.

• 26:42Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 26:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's probably a wiki page on it. I got good people.

• 26:45Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 26:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My astrophysic, my community, I think we got some of the best wiki pages, accurate wiki pages out there.

• 26:51Chuck Nice?

  And by the way, it is, it's a hard page.

• 26:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No. I compare it with other sciences, I think we do a good job.

• 27:01Chuck Nice?

  No, no, you guys do a good job.

• 27:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We do a good job. Gravitational redshift.

• 27:04Chuck Nice?

  What you don't try to do on that wiki page is make it easy for regular people like me to understand.

• 27:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gravitational redshift.

• 27:11Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, gravitational redshift. All right, that's a great, hey, first of all, that was a great question, Kyle.

• 27:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 27:16Chuck Nice?

  So, thank you so much. All right.

• 27:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What else? Bring it on.

• 27:19Chuck Nice?

  Let's go with Annie C Hickman, and Annie wants to know this. She says, I am a teacher and a manual.

• 27:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Give it up for the teacher.

• 27:27Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, give it up, boom, blow it up for the teachers and a manual, because god, are they making such a sacrifice to just waste your life on these kids.

• 27:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Damn, Chuck.

• 27:41Chuck Nice?

  You know, I'm joking. My mother was a teacher, I have nothing but the utmost respect for teachers. She says, I am a teacher and a manual wheelchair user. From time to time, my students and I wonder if a wheelchair could be powered in space with fireworks, or perhaps they are ready to get rid of me.

• 28:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To send, send her up there.

• 28:06Chuck Nice?

  Because they would send her to space and put fireworks on a wheelchair, since fireworks are rockets.

• 28:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She's thinking about propulsion here.

• 28:13Chuck Nice?

  She is thinking about propulsion. Also, would having mobility issues on earth be erased in space since there is no gravity? If you float around the space station, for example, aren't you using your legs for the need to balance? You know, that's a great question, because people would think that in zero gravity, that your movements might do something in terms of affecting the way you drift about in zero gravity. So what what is the answer there?

• 28:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So first, great question. And so I presume it means she has power, she has arm power.

• 28:48Chuck Nice?

  Arm power.

• 28:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To propel her wheels.

• 28:49Chuck Nice?

  To propel her wheels.

• 28:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, so that's a key element of this. So first of all, in space, you don't need the wheelchair. You you have a wheelchair so that you don't, you're not on the ground, right? So it, and when I say in space, I'm referring to zero G in space.

• 29:04Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 29:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just take that as a given here. So if you're in space, um, generally, people are not maneuvering themselves with their legs.

• 29:12Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 29:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're, the spaceships are designed, space station is designed to have grips.

• 29:17Chuck Nice?

  Oh, you're right.

• 29:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 29:18Chuck Nice?

  I've never seen them use their legs. They're always grabbing little grab-ons.

• 29:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then they.

• 29:22Chuck Nice?

  And then they pull themselves.

• 29:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then, and they swim through the air.

• 29:24Chuck Nice?

  Like swimming.

• 29:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, exactly. And so you don't want to go too fast because you have to stop somewhere at the other time and you gotta, like, be ready to stop.

• 29:31Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 29:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if you have full use of your arms and your arm muscles, uh, you do, you'll be doing what every, everybody else is doing on the, on the space station.

• 29:38Chuck Nice?

  Oh, man, that's so cool.

• 29:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So now, the difference is, you won't be able to do some of the sort of acrobatics that they do to show you. So, so for example, one of them is, they'll, they'll start rotating and then they'll bring their knees up to their chest. You might be able to pull your own legs up if you don't have use of your legs. You would just reach out and grab them. But otherwise, they're pulling their knees up and then they see that they spin faster.

• 30:00Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that's just have, they're just having spinning fun.

• 30:02Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Um, like when an ice skater brings their arms in, they spin faster.

• 30:06Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you bring your, your extremities in, and you had a slight rotation before, you have a faster rotation.

• 30:13Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And in case you are not, you don't feel nausea enough for being in zero G, now you can just spin. And then.

• 30:21Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 30:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You throw up right on the spot. Paint the walls.

• 30:23Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, go ahead and paint the walls.

• 30:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, if you're spinning while you throw up, then there's this spiraling.

• 30:28Chuck Nice?

  Ah, that's a beautiful picture.

• 30:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a beautiful picture. So I don't think NASA.

• 30:33Chuck Nice?

  So now, okay, so now, that's her wheelchair and the rockets now. So here's the thing, because I'm thinking in my head.

• 30:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not about the chair.

• 30:40Chuck Nice?

  No, no, no, I'm, I'm, shoot, so I'm talking about what, what she was saying. If you put rockets on a wheelchair, but on the wheels themselves. Would you propel yourself through space in that chair even though you don't need it? Or would the rocket just spin the wheel in place?

• 30:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, what will happen is, you're, because the wheel is on an axle.

• 31:00Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 31:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so now you're putting something called torque.

• 31:03Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 31:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Onto it. Torque is a force that causes something to rotate.

• 31:06Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 31:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've always loved the word torque.

• 31:08Chuck Nice?

  It sounds powerful.

• 31:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a badass word.

• 31:11Chuck Nice?

  It is, you know?

• 31:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, give me some torque.

• 31:13Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 31:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus, you know, the car folks all like torque too.

• 31:15Chuck Nice?

  They love that, you know? Yeah, 600 pounds of torque.

• 31:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Foot pounds.

• 31:18Chuck Nice?

  Foot pounds, thank you.

• 31:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it needs a distance and a thing, right, because it's a distance from the point of rotation. How many feet away and how many pounds force to push it. So, um, what you'll do primarily is rotate the wheels. But there's something called conservation of angular momentum. So, if you're in space and you wanted to keep your wheelchair, if you sent wheels rotating one direction, something has to compensate and rotate backwards. Okay, so you'll push the wheels that way and you'll just.

• 31:47Chuck Nice?

  You'll just.

• 31:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You'll, you'll just rotate in opposite.

• 31:49Chuck Nice?

  So the two of you will be going in opposite directions, spinning around.

• 31:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct. So what you want is, if there's a force operating on you, you want that, this is inside baseball here, you want that line of force, if you extended it, to go through your center of mass.

• 32:02Chuck Nice?

  Right, right.

• 32:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that way, your entire system moves.

• 32:06Chuck Nice?

  It's just moving all at once.

• 32:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All at once.

• 32:07Chuck Nice?

  Everything's moving at once.

• 32:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you're off the center of mass.

• 32:09Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 32:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're gonna start rotating.

• 32:10Chuck Nice?

  You're gonna rotate.

• 32:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you have some movement forward, but a lot of that's gonna go into your rotation. And you don't want, you want it to be stable out there.

• 32:16Chuck Nice?

  So there you go, Anna, you're, you, you, what you want to do is lose the wheelchair.

• 32:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lose the wheelchair.

• 32:20Chuck Nice?

  All together, you don't need it.

• 32:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't need it.

• 32:22Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 32:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 32:23Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, very cool.

• 32:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And she likes fireworks rather than just those jetpacks. So you can take like roman candles or whatever, light it. And since that has a, a, roman candle is, is intermittent, right? So you can just adjust it.

• 32:36Chuck Nice?

  Hold it where you want.

• 32:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where you want.

• 32:37Chuck Nice?

  And let it pull you.

• 32:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And let it pull you, yeah.

• 32:39Chuck Nice?

  Very cool.

• 32:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very cool.

• 32:40Chuck Nice?

  God, I want to go to space now. God, okay, and throw up all over everyone. All right, do we have time for another one?

• 32:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, a couple more, let's do it.

• 32:49Chuck Nice?

  Okay, here we go. This is, ugh, Jay DeGater. Jay DeGater wants to know this. What?

• 32:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We'll go with that, Chuck.

• 32:59Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 33:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 33:01Chuck Nice?

  Hey, man. Hey, Jay, I'm sorry.

• 33:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We'll go with that.

• 33:03Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, so, yeah.

• 33:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know what I'm saying?

• 33:05Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that's, yeah.

• 33:08Chuck Nice?

  It's DeGater, y'all mean?

• 33:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, yeah, I know what you mean, no, I'm saying.

• 33:12Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go.

• 33:15Chuck Nice?

  What does the merging of black holes mean for the future of the universe? Could the universe eventually, if it does start a sort of contraction phase, be the victim of a collective, hypermassive black hole? Could we be left with a singularity or a black hole containing all the information in the universe waiting for the next big bang to trigger? Or does the universe have more not-so-distant problems to worry about?

• 33:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You prioritize your issues.

• 33:50Chuck Nice?

  You prioritize, right.

• 33:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, uh, black holes are not as voracious as lore leads us to believe.

• 33:58Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a black hole in the center of our galaxy.

• 34:01Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 34:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's what we call a supermassive black hole. I forgot the, I forgot the exact mass. Hundreds of thousands of times the mass of the sun.

• 34:10Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 34:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Seth, I'd last at 600,000, but it might be a mil, I forgot the number. But it's large, okay? And the formation mechanism is still a little bit of a frontier in my field. You can merge two black holes if two galaxies collide.

• 34:24Chuck Nice?

  Right. And we've seen that happen.

• 34:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's happening all the time, every day, all the time. And so as they collide, the black holes will ultimately find each other.

• 34:33Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 34:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then they will merge. And then you have a black hole twice as big. But the black hole's not reaching out. If you would not otherwise fallen into a black hole, you're not gonna now start falling into the black hole. We are safe.

• 34:45Chuck Nice?

  It's not a drain.

• 34:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not a toilet bowl drain, right. So we're not, we're not gonna one day land-

• 34:51Chuck Nice?

  We're not cosmic poop.

• 34:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right.

• 34:53Chuck Nice?

  Well, some of us are.

• 34:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Land in that, so, so no. In fact, in the very distant universe, black holes ultimately will evaporate, according to Hawking radiation. It's a, and it's a really interesting phenomenon.

• 35:07Chuck Nice?

  So now, okay.

• 35:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Can I tell you what the phenomenon is?

• 35:10Chuck Nice?

  Go please, yeah.

• 35:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, a black hole has very strong gravity.

• 35:14Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 35:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, how much gravity does it have? Well, you can think of the gravity having a density of energy. We call it the energy density of gravity, okay? In its vicinity.

• 35:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Every now and then, spontaneously, that energy becomes particles. According to equals mc squared. Okay. It'll do that just spontaneously. And you make a particle pair. A matter and antimatter particle pair, and they go in opposite directions. Oh. Okay? Okay. By the way, they have to go in opposite directions so that the momentum cancels. Because it started out as just a pocket of energy sitting there doing nothing. Right. You can't have two, a particle just go in one direction and nothing cancelling out that motion in the other. Oh, like a bazooka. Yes, the recoil in the other direction. Otherwise, the person. Right. Becomes. That's pretty funny. That would be funny. Note to the next design. Exactly.

• 36:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is awesome. Let me redesign that. Why do you guys have 25 bazooka shooters? Yeah. Oh, because we got 25 shots. Yeah, so there's a recoil of that to send it forward. Gotcha. So, the same with the spaceships, rockets that take off. You recoil at the back all the exhaust. So, what point was I making? You were talking about, so the particle, as it evaporates. Oh, yeah. So, what happens is, so the energy density spontaneously makes a particle pair. One particle falls into the black hole and the other escapes. Right. That takes mass away from the black hole. And that, there. That is the evaporation. Evaporation of the black hole. Yes. It's very slow, but it's real. But this spontaneous particle, you know, basically. It's called Hawking radiation. It's Hawking radiation. That's what it's called.

• 36:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, it's the dissemination of the particles that are opposites, and one going away, one going in. Yes. And then, all of a sudden, if it keeps continuing, then the black hole's gone. It evaporates to nothing. To nothing. Correct. Okay. Yeah, yeah. We, so we gotta take a break. When we come back, you will learn what words, pronunciation, changes just by capitalizing the first letter. Yes. Oh, yeah. In Neil deGrasse Tyson's Office Hours from Star Trek.

• 37:28Speaker 02

  Bringing space and science down to earth. You're listening to StarTalk.

• 37:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk. Cosmic Queries Edition. Neil deGrasse Tyson's office hours. Where we take questions on anything. It doesn't have to be in a category. And they're coming at, they're coming from everywhere.

• 37:59Chuck Nice?

  Everywhere.

• 37:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck is helping me out here. Chuck, keep it going.

• 38:01Chuck Nice?

  All right, let's jump right, no, first you gotta give the answer to the tease.

• 38:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I like words a lot.

• 38:07Chuck Nice?

  Okay. So what is this word that you can capitalize the first letter?

• 38:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 38:13Chuck Nice?

  And change the meaning of the word?

• 38:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Completely, yeah.

• 38:16Chuck Nice?

  Completely.

• 38:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The word is?

• 38:17Chuck Nice?

  I feel like I'm on NPR's word puzzle.

• 38:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The word is P O L I S H.

• 38:24Chuck Nice?

  Polish.

• 38:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 38:25Chuck Nice?

  And then you capitalize it, and it's Polish.

• 38:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 38:28Chuck Nice?

  So one is what you do to shine something, and the other is?

• 38:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is your nationality from Poland, right.

• 38:36Chuck Nice?

  Right. Very nice.

• 38:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's weird.

• 38:39Chuck Nice?

  It is weird.

• 38:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It has nothing to do with this show, but I don't know why I?

• 38:44Chuck Nice?

  So don't start a sentence with polish.

• 38:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, because it has to be capitalized.

• 38:49Chuck Nice?

  It has to be capitalized.

• 38:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Polish your shoes. Polish my shoes.

• 38:54Chuck Nice?

  You racist son of a.

• 38:57Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 38:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 39:00Chuck Nice?

  Let's go to, um, Feodor Popov.

• 39:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Feodor.

• 39:05Chuck Nice?

  Feodor?

• 39:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is FY?

• 39:06Chuck Nice?

  Yes, it is. It's Feodor.

• 39:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 39:08Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 39:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And last name?

• 39:10Chuck Nice?

  Uh, Popov.

• 39:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Popov, okay.

• 39:13Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 39:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Feodor Popov.

• 39:14Chuck Nice?

  Feodor Popov.

• 39:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hey, Feodor.

• 39:15Chuck Nice?

  Hey, Feodor. Here we go. Feodor says this. If you had to guess, where lies the great filter? Now, first of all, what is the great filter?

• 39:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, I have no idea yet what he's asking in this question. So please proceed.

• 39:30Chuck Nice?

  All right, okay, let's, there you go. There you go.

• 39:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, let me hear the whole question.

• 39:35Chuck Nice?

  That's it.

• 39:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 39:36Chuck Nice?

  If you had to guess, where lies the great filter? I don't know what the great filter is. I mean, unless it's, you know, um.

• 39:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The great.

• 39:46Chuck Nice?

  Britta. If it's Britta, I'm good. Where lies the great filter in my refrigerator?

• 39:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Filter.

• 39:52Chuck Nice?

  Filter in my water.

• 39:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The great filter. Chuck, I have no understanding of that question. So we gotta go to Wikipedia. Maybe, maybe from that, again, I'll be able to say something.

• 40:03Chuck Nice?

  Something.

• 40:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, all right.

• 40:05Chuck Nice?

  All right. So in, in, in that case, what I'll do right here is go to Wiki.

• 40:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wiki. So you help me out here from Wiki.

• 40:12Chuck Nice?

  And I'll read it to you.

• 40:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go.

• 40:13Chuck Nice?

  What they say it is.

• 40:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 40:14Chuck Nice?

  The great filter, in the context of the Fermi paradox, is whatever prevents dead matter from undergoing abiogenesis, uh, genesis, abiogenesis, in time to expanding lasting life as measured by the, uh, Kardashian's scale.

• 40:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. All right. I can say something about this.

• 40:37Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 40:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I just didn't know it was called.

• 40:39Chuck Nice?

  The great filter.

• 40:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. Okay. So, uh, in.

• 40:43Chuck Nice?

  Now, all I got from that was Fermi paradox.

• 40:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 40:46Chuck Nice?

  I know what that is.

• 40:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. So the Fermi paradox, uh, was a question posed by, uh, the great physicist Enrico Fermi.

• 40:53Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 40:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who, uh, born in Italy, came to the United States.

• 40:56Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 40:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Basically Cold War, not Cold War, Manhattan Project. So Enrico Fermi posed the question. Cause you can run the math. You can say, all right, how long has Earth been here? How long did it take life to form?

• 41:08Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 41:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How long did it take what we call intelligence to form? Now that we're intelligent, how long does it take to travel to another planet? Let's say we have a spaceship.

• 41:18Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 41:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. Is it a generational ship? Fine. So it takes 10 generations to get there. Then you become pilgrims. Set up tent. Now, from there, you go to two other planets.

• 41:29Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 41:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From each of those two planets, they go to two, to four more, from one to two, to four, to eight. So it grows exponentially. You can populate the entire galaxy

• 41:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  with intelligence.

• 41:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In a shorter time than evolutionary timescales.

• 41:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, you can do it in like a million years. Okay. Or so. Right. Okay? Yes. And that's, that's on an evolutionary, uh, the dinosaurs went extinct sixty-five million years ago. Exactly. So. That's a very short time. Very short. And it's small compared with the lifetime of a planet. Exactly. So, and especially the future of the universe. Right. So, if that's the case, why hasn't it happened yet? And where are the visitors trying to, trying to populate this planet, uh, that we're on? So it's the Fermi paradox. Where are they? Maybe they were already here. Maybe we are. And maybe we are them. Okay. You know? So, there's some religions that are based on that. That God is actually the aliens. Yeah. Okay. Just. Right on. Okay, alright. Hey, listen. So.

• 42:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't judge. Just by the fact that you said that.

• 42:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't judge how crazy people. That's what you said. That was implicit in your. Oh, man. So. Okay. Wait, wait, so, so you, so this dead matter, what, they don't mean dead matter, because that implies it was once alive. They mean inanimate matter. Okay. Inanimate matter evolving to become self-replicating life. Okay. So the question is, maybe that takes so long, that it puts a damper on this whole. On the other processes. On, on the, all the other processes. Right. However, that happened really fast on Earth. Okay. We went from inanimate molecules to self-replicating life within a couple of hundred million years. Wow. And once you have life, life was there for billions of years.

• 43:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, that's not really that long. No, it isn't. Right, right. So, the filter, I don't see that as the big filter. You know what I think the filter is? What? Whatever urge you have to colonize planets. Okay. And then all your descendants have that same urge. Right. There's gonna be a point where, there's a planet I wanna colonize, oh, but you wanna colonize that same planet. So then, what do we do? You're gonna, you're gonna have a blood feud with your own family. With your own family. Right. Correct. And so it could be that the urge to want to expand. Is self-limiting because you will fight wars.

• 44:05Chuck Nice?

  You cancel yourself out.

• 44:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You cancel yourself out.

• 44:08Chuck Nice?

  The very urge that causes you to strike out and discover is the same urge that destroys you in the end.

• 44:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct.

• 44:14Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 44:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. And there are whole categories of these kinds of problems in life. For example, I don't know if it still happens, if you lose a quarter in the, between the base and the back of the seat in your car.

• 44:25Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 44:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you reach for it.

• 44:26Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 44:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The act of reaching for it separates the two cushions more and then it falls further in.

• 44:32Chuck Nice?

  See, I'm cheap. That whole seat's coming out.

• 44:37Chuck Nice?

  Okay, I'm gonna be honest.

• 44:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Get in that corner.

• 44:39Chuck Nice?

  I have actually pulled a seat out to get the money that's falling.

• 44:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We got one minute left. Let's do lightning round, go.

• 44:47Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. You know what? This is an education question, so let's do it.

• 44:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do it.

• 44:52Chuck Nice?

  This is, uh...

• 44:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lightning round.

• 44:53Chuck Nice?

  Steven Donham. He says, "Hey Neil, love your show, listen all the time. My question is about Common Core math being taught in school. It seems like a waste of time and kids have to go through all of these extra steps to get the right answer when there were simpler ways to get the right answer when it comes to life and death and space. Wouldn't it not be better to get the right answer the fastest possible way?"

• 45:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, good question.

• 45:11Chuck Nice?

  Very good question.

• 45:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I'm not doing a lightning round on that question.

• 45:14Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 45:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's too important.

• 45:15Chuck Nice?

  It is very important.

• 45:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm gonna end with my answer to that question.

• 45:18Chuck Nice?

  Okay, so this is the end of the show and that's why I picked this.

• 45:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm doing deep dive on educational philosophies.

• 45:24Chuck Nice?

  Well, that's why I picked the question.

• 45:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In my recent months and years.

• 45:27Chuck Nice?

  Well, you're in education. You're an educator.

• 45:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A deep dive, and I'm looking at what people have said, what have worked, what hasn't, best practice, and I have come to conclude with regard to that question.

• 45:37Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 45:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That what matters more than the right answer

• 45:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  is the right question.

• 45:50Chuck Nice?

  Interesting.

• 45:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, taking a cue from Isaac Asimov, in an essay he once wrote called "The Relativity of Wrong."

• 45:58Chuck Nice?

  The relativity of wrong?

• 45:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes. Okay, so here you go. You're in elementary school.

• 46:02Chuck Nice?

  Uh huh.

• 46:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I have a spelling bee. And I ask you to spell "cat," and you spell it K-A-T. It's marked wrong.

• 46:14Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 46:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't get any credit for that, because the correct answer is C-A-T.

• 46:17Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 46:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But suppose instead you had spelled it X-Q-W.

• 46:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's still marked wrong. And that's so much farther away than KAT. It's so much farther away than KAT. In fact, you could argue that KAT is a better spelling than CAT. You know why? Because if you look up cat in the dictionary, C A T, the phonetic spelling is K A T.

• 46:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? That's awesome. But you got it marked wrong. Right. So, this urge to get the right answer. Yes, I don't want to diminish the importance of right answers. That has value, but it has less value than you think it does. Because in exploration, you have no answers. You're on the precipice of the boundary between what is known and what is unknown, and you're taking a step into that unknown. You don't know what's there. You don't even know what question to ask. I know what's there, a cat. But you're pro- you're probing, you're poking, you're trying to figure out what question to ask.

• 47:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, and most questions don't even have unambiguous answers. Right, exactly. Okay, I'll give you an example? Go ahead. Okay? What's the diameter of the sun? Ask me that. What is the diameter of the sun? You look it up, it'll say 864,000 miles. Okay. Okay, fine. But, in what wavelength of light did you make that measurement? Okay. Other wavelengths of light emerge from deeper in the star. Right. Okay? That's it. And if you're using X-rays, it's bigger. The corona emits X-rays. We found that out earlier in the show because of the different wavelengths. It's a different wavelength. So, you have to specify. How high up does the atmosphere go? Earth's atmosphere? It's about 62 miles, 100 kilometers.

• 48:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's, we've just agreed, because that's a round number in kilometers. There's still air molecules above 62 miles? That's why we have to boost the Hubble telescope every now and then, because air molecules are knocking it out of orbit. Okay? So, there is no demarcation line. It fades until it blends with the inter- with the interplanetary medium.

• 48:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we like tidy answers. But most of science is not even about the answer. It's about the general understanding of what's going on. And then you take it from there. So no, Common Core math is a good thing. It's got you thinking in ways that it will enable you to tackle a problem in the future that you have never seen before. And if you're in space, it's not about knowing the right answer to a pre-designated question. It's about figuring out an answer to a question no one has asked before.

• 48:59Chuck Nice?

  Right, right.

• 49:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so you need the tools and the methods and the power of inquiry to accomplish that.

• 49:06Chuck Nice?

  Wow. There you go. Drop the mic. That was, that's a very good answer.

• 49:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm saying.

• 49:12Chuck Nice?

  I like it.

• 49:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm writing this up.

• 49:13Chuck Nice?

  It makes sense.

• 49:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's going in the next thing.

• 49:15Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 49:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck.

• 49:17Chuck Nice?

  That was, this was good, man.

• 49:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Always good to have you.

• 49:19Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 49:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

• 49:22Chuck Nice?

  You know what I mean?

• 49:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I'm sorry.

• 49:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This has been StarTalk. We're recording this in the, my office.

• 49:31Chuck Nice?

  The Cosmic crib.

• 49:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At the Cosmic crib, at the Hayden Planetarium in New York City. Part of the American Museum of Natural History. And as always, I bid you to keep looking up.