Cosmic Queries – The Science Around Us

Bill Nye the Science Guy and comic co-host Chuck Nice answer fan-submitted Cosmic Queries about The Planetary Society and space exploration, climate change, the competitive nature of scientists, the EPA, NASA, extra-terrestrials, dark matter, and much 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-the-science-around-us/ Photo Credit: Ben Ratner.

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

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 0:21Bill Nye?

  Greetings everyone, Bill Nye here. I'm your guest host this week on StarTalk and I'm joined with your friend and mine, our beloved Chuck Nice.

• 0:30Chuck Nice?

  Hey, look at that, applause and everything. Thank you Bill, thank you.

• 0:34Bill Nye?

  Chuck, it's good to see you.

• 0:35Chuck Nice?

  Always good to see you.

• 0:36Bill Nye?

  This week on StarTalk, we're just talking.

• 0:39Chuck Nice?

  Yes, we are.

• 0:40Bill Nye?

  About stars.

• 0:40Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 0:41Bill Nye?

  And you're gonna start with a question from our beloved audience?

• 0:44Chuck Nice?

  Yes, we are. We're gonna do a cosmic queries where we have gathered questions from all over the interwebs and...

• 0:49Bill Nye?

  Over the cosmos.

• 0:50Chuck Nice?

  Over the cosmos.

• 0:51Bill Nye?

  That's why they're queries of cosmic nature.

• 0:54Chuck Nice?

  There you go. Our first one is actually from Alpha Centauri.

• 0:57Bill Nye?

  Really?

• 0:58Chuck Nice?

  Really.

• 1:01Bill Nye?

  Wow.

• 1:01Chuck Nice?

  Before we get going though, let me just say, one, you're wearing a very fetching sweater. It's quite fashionable. And two, I really did the Planetary Society pin that you are sporting and I would like to know where I can get one because, well, first of all, I will have to join the Planetary Society, so maybe you can tell me how I can do that?

• 1:22Bill Nye?

  Oh yes, well, you should check out planetary.org.

• 1:24Chuck Nice?

  Planetary.org.

• 1:25Bill Nye?

  We're the world's largest non-governmental space interest organization advancing space science and exploration so that people everywhere know the cosmos and our place within it. Elevator door closing. Go! I took one class from Carl Sagan back in the disco era.

• 1:40Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 1:40Bill Nye?

  I joined the Planetary Society when it started in 1980 and now I'm the CEO of the Planetary Society. And Chuck, we advance space science, we advance exploration in three ways.

• 1:55Bill Nye?

  We make things. Okay. We create. We made a spacecraft. I know that. Solar sail spacecraft. And it's a, it's a light sail, right? Light sail, and we are on the second Falcon Heavy rocket. Uh, now, the Falcon 1 had how many engines, Chuck? One? Falcon 9 had how many engines? I'm gonna say two. How about nine? Yes! The Falcon Heavy is, in a sense, three Falcon 9 strapped together. Twenty-seven first-stage engines, yeah. And so, the spacecraft is built by people like you, who just thought it would be cool. Uh, and so, we are gonna prove that we can, uh, orbit the Earth with a solar sail. Right. This'll be the Earth. Right. So, uh, we come, you're the sun out there.

• 2:40Bill Nye?

  We come karate chop towards you this way, twist in space, get a push. Our orbital energy takes us out here. We go like this, whoa! And increase our orbital energy, and, uh, we're excited. So, may I ask you, when the solar winds come rolling in? Solar wind is barely a hundredth of the effect of the photons. Okay, so is that what that is? It's the sun. It's the sun itself? Crazy. Right. And you can do it either from classical physics with pointing vectors, or you can do it with relativity. Okay. E equals mc squared. Uh, do you know what, do you know how we express momentum in physics? No. It's mass times velocity. Okay. So now, let us divide both sides of E equals mc squared by c.

• 3:26Bill Nye?

  A constant, and so, you get? E over c equals mc. Right. mc is an expression for momentum. Gotcha. So the, so it's about nine micro Newtons per square meter. Wow, but because you're doing that in the vacuum? Vacuum, and it's day and night. It's day and night. But wait! Go ahead. We're in space, there's no night! Ah! Whoa! Whoa!

• 3:50Bill Nye?

  And so then at the planetary side, we educate. We have, I believe, the world's foremost long-form journalists on the web.

• 3:58Chuck Nice?

  Uh huh.

• 3:58Bill Nye?

  And then we advocate. People like me go to Washington DC and get congressmen, senators on board with planetary exploration. Two things I want in my lifetime with respect to planetary exploration, Chuck.

• 4:12Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 4:13Bill Nye?

  I want to look for signs of life on another world.

• 4:16Chuck Nice?

  Very cool.

• 4:17Bill Nye?

  Or yet I want to find signs of life, like fossil bacteria on Mars, or stranger still, something still alive.

• 4:23Chuck Nice?

  Something alive. Living bacteria.

• 4:25Bill Nye?

  Yes. Twice as much ocean water as the Earth. Are there Europeanians swimming around out there? Around the moon of Jupiter, on the moon of Jupiter? And the other thing, Chuck, don't want the Earth to get hit with an asteroid.

• 4:38Chuck Nice?

  You know, that, I got a feeling that that might, yeah, that might, that might raise our insurance premiums.

• 4:44Bill Nye?

  Yeah. So it's like, it's Ctrl, Alt, Delete for civilization.

• 4:49Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 4:50Bill Nye?

  You don't want that. Just this thing in Cheltenham, it's a couple of years ago, three years ago. Relatively small rock. Thousand people go to the hospital.

• 4:58Chuck Nice?

  Right. Windows shattered everywhere, sonic booms, the whole deal.

• 5:03Bill Nye?

  The whole thing.

• 5:04Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Well, that's very cool. All right. Well, let's get into-

• 5:06Bill Nye?

  Thank you for the promo. I'm glad you liked the pin. I'll set you up. I know a guy.

• 5:10Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 5:11Bill Nye?

  CE freaking O.

• 5:12Chuck Nice?

  Oh, God. I'm gonna take you up on that. All right, let's get into our cosmic queries. Uh, let's go with, uh, David, uh, Zun- Zun- Zuniga. Zuniga.

• 5:26Bill Nye?

  David Zuniga.

• 5:27Chuck Nice?

  Zuniga. Uh, he is a PhD, and he is at Dr. David, Dr. David Z.

• 5:34Bill Nye?

  Promoting David.

• 5:35Chuck Nice?

  We're promoting David. He's a, because he's promoting himself. This is, he's smart enough to actually write down all this good stuff.

• 5:42Bill Nye?

  Read it. You didn't even, you know, but go ahead.

• 5:45Chuck Nice?

  There you go. He says, from a perspective of, um, from your perspective, what are the problems that faces the US the most pressing, and what should we do about it?

• 5:59Bill Nye?

  Well, the most pressing problem for any country, any, anybody, is climate change, as far as I'm concerned.

• 6:05Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 6:06Bill Nye?

  And ignore, the longer we ignore it- There's two problems. First of all, the climate will change faster and faster. The second thing is our competitors, and I'm, you, I believe, are also native USian.

• 6:16Chuck Nice?

  I am.

• 6:17Bill Nye?

  Our competitors in other countries will produce better, cheaper solar panels, better, cheaper wind turbines.

• 6:23Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 6:23Bill Nye?

  Better, cheaper electrical distribution. And we will have to be buying, the US will have to be buying these commodities from other.

• 6:31Chuck Nice?

  So interesting you say that. So interesting you say that. I just read a thing in Financial Times about the fact that.

• 6:37Bill Nye?

  Chuck reads Financial Times. You're a nerd, man.

• 6:41Chuck Nice?

  I, you know, I don't want to promote that, Bill. Let's, let's keep that on the DL.

• 6:45Bill Nye?

  You're a hipster.

• 6:48Bill Nye?

  So anyway, what happened was. You were reading, no, especially the wife.

• 6:52Chuck Nice?

  Anyway, a great article on FT about the fact that China is trying to corner the market. Uh, when it comes to solar panels. And, and we are, we are, we were ahead and because of how our government has basically treated. We, they've suppressed our, um, uh, attempts to continue to be the leader in this area. China has, in that void, stepped in and now they are not only surpassing us, but they are about to make it so that we're not going to be able to catch up.

• 7:28Bill Nye?

  Well, we'll see. I mean, you know, uh, the US has been behind before.

• 7:33Chuck Nice?

  That's true.

• 7:34Bill Nye?

  But the opportunities are huge. And so if you're out there, you want to make solar panels, get on it. I am the first to confess or point out, I did a bit for a company that was going to have this new manufacturing technique using, instead of a saw. To cut silicon.

• 7:50Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 7:50Bill Nye?

  We're going to use protons.

• 7:52Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 7:53Bill Nye?

  And put them, you know, you put your silicon in your particle accelerator atom smasher that you have.

• 7:58Chuck Nice?

  Okay, yeah.

• 7:59Bill Nye?

  And they go to, it's very apparently, for people who are into it, you can control the depth that the protons penetrate.

• 8:06Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 8:07Bill Nye?

  And you give it an electric charge and poink, you get this perfect thin slice of silicon without any sawdust.

• 8:13Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 8:14Bill Nye?

  But that company, my estimate, and we'll see what happens, was when I recorded this thing, didn't have enough money, undercapitalized.

• 8:22Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:23Bill Nye?

  And so maybe it'll come around. It's a cool idea.

• 8:26Chuck Nice?

  It is a cool.

• 8:26Bill Nye?

  Anyway, here's, I mention it because it's just one idea.

• 8:30Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 8:30Bill Nye?

  If we were encouraging, uh, innovation in solar panels, we would be innovating in solar panels.

• 8:38Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:39Bill Nye?

  If we're giving tax breaks to fossil fuel industry and, and deregulating that industry so that they can impact other people's environments recklessly or aggressively. And we're

• 8:53Chuck Nice?

  That's what we're gonna be doing.

• 8:54Bill Nye?

  Going the wrong way. So let's get to work, peoples.

• 8:56Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 8:57Bill Nye?

  Be optimistic.

• 8:57Chuck Nice?

  All right. Let's go, uh, now to, uh, Chris Marcello, or Marcello, if you so will.

• 9:03Bill Nye?

  Chris Marcello.

• 9:05Chuck Nice?

  Chris Marcello from Facebook wants to know this.

• 9:07Bill Nye?

  Facebook.

• 9:08Chuck Nice?

  At this time.

• 9:09Bill Nye?

  I'm sorry, that was, I apologize. It's just irresistible when you, I apologize. Science guy ends career with off man.

• 9:18Bill Nye?

  Okay. Take it.

• 9:19Chuck Nice?

  At this time, should we, as a world, treat science as anything but a global pursuit? Should we abandon the competitive nature of science discovery? Or have we reached that point where science should be pursued with as much collaboration as possible? Uh, uh, is there, uh, is there cooperation among scientists worldwide to the point where there have eliminated the competitive aspect?

• 9:46Bill Nye?

  No, science are, scientists are so competitive.

• 9:49Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 9:50Bill Nye?

  And BT dubs, there's an old, there's an adage, where the money is small, the politics are big.

• 9:57Chuck Nice?

  Woo!

• 9:58Bill Nye?

  A lot of scientists, now you might associate scientists with inventors who invent something that makes somebody rich because not only are they inventors with some insight into material science or electricity or software, but they're also extraordinary business people.

• 10:12Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 10:12Bill Nye?

  But actually, most scientists are academics. Some of them drive, you know, Honda Civics.

• 10:18Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 10:19Bill Nye?

  And so they're very competitive. And that's good.

• 10:24Chuck Nice?

  That's good, yeah.

• 10:25Bill Nye?

  But in the case, like, Neil's not here. Do you remember Neil deGrasse Tyson?

• 10:29Chuck Nice?

  I think I've heard of him.

• 10:29Bill Nye?

  Yeah, well, there's pictures on the web. Anyway. He is an astrophysicist, he may have mentioned that seven or eight times a paragraph. And in astronomy especially, people cooperate worldwide because when you're looking at the heavens on a, from a spinning platform.

• 10:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:47Bill Nye?

  To wit, the earth. Only a third of the earth is practically in looking at the sky at any one time. And so they, these guys and gals really do cooperate.

• 10:57Chuck Nice?

  Well, you need the, you need the help of the other person. It's, it's actually an, an additional set of eyes.

• 11:01Bill Nye?

  That's exactly what it is. And you know, would, space exploration would not really be possible without Canberra in Australia.

• 11:09Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 11:09Bill Nye?

  And I mention it because Australia just started its own space program. Way to go.

• 11:14Chuck Nice?

  Oi!

• 11:15Bill Nye?

  Right there, September, October. Way to go, Australia.

• 11:17Chuck Nice?

  There you go. All right, hey, great question there, Chris. So let's move on and have, uh, Don Violetto. Wow, look at that, two, uh, very.

• 11:26Bill Nye?

  Your, your, your accent's compelling.

• 11:29Chuck Nice?

  Well, yeah, yeah, actually.

• 11:30Bill Nye?

  Anyway, go ahead.

• 11:31Chuck Nice?

  Don Violetto says this, "What effects will the dismantling of the EPA have on this country and our globe as well as future research and, I like that she threw this in here, education?"

• 11:48Bill Nye?

  Yes.

• 11:48Chuck Nice?

  What a, what a, what a wonderful, uh, inquiry about education and I don't know where that, uh...

• 11:53Bill Nye?

  You choked him up.

• 11:54Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I like it, but go ahead, Don.

• 11:56Bill Nye?

  He choked up.

• 11:57Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 11:58Bill Nye?

  So, uh, the EPA, you might think it's being dismantled, it's just being run by, or it's, somebody's been put in charge who doesn't much care about it.

• 12:05Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:05Bill Nye?

  But I think the environmental protection professionals, the bureaucrats.

• 12:10Chuck Nice?

  People who've been there.

• 12:11Bill Nye?

  They're just gonna be there.

• 12:12Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:12Bill Nye?

  And they're all just looking at their watch, "We'll be here after you're gone, sir. Carry on, Mr. Pruitt."

• 12:17Chuck Nice?

  It's like agents in my business.

• 12:19Bill Nye?

  That's right, yeah.

• 12:19Chuck Nice?

  As they say, uh, talent comes and goes, but agents are forever.

• 12:23Bill Nye?

  So I think the bureaucrats know what's up and they're doing their jobs despite their leader. The problem is gonna be that all the environmental damage that's done over the next few years because of this upheaval at the agency is gonna have to be undone.

• 12:40Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:40Bill Nye?

  And it will be because people will realize the great value of the environment and they won't put up with it. So, I predict, and it's not extraordinary, that the the days of the anti-environmental movement within the Environmental Protection Agency are numbered.

• 12:59Chuck Nice?

  Alright.

• 13:00Bill Nye?

  They, this is not sustainable.

• 13:03Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 13:04Bill Nye?

  You know, by the way.

• 13:05Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 13:05Bill Nye?

  EPA was set up by Richard Nixon. For crying out loud, everybody. You know, the word conservative used to have to do with conservation. Peoples, peoples. Come on, we'll reverse this. You'll see.

• 13:20Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 13:21Bill Nye?

  Lead on, Chuck.

• 13:21Chuck Nice?

  So let me, before we go on, let me just ask you this. Do you think that, uh, as we see a, I will say, um, a depression of activity at the EPA, uh, along with a burgeoning economy, which although we've been in it for many, many years, uh, you know, it can't continue forever. Uh, that what will happen is, as we enter into some type of recessive, um, uh, contraction in the economy.

• 13:49Bill Nye?

  A, a correction.

• 13:51Chuck Nice?

  Correction, as they, as they say it.

• 13:53Bill Nye?

  They won't, they don't talk plainly.

• 13:54Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, they don't, okay.

• 13:55Bill Nye?

  I mean, stocks are gonna be worth less. No, no, it's a correction.

• 13:58Chuck Nice?

  Correction. So as we see this, uh, kinda correction, um, uh, or economic, uh, downturn, we will also probably be at a place where maybe we're not in this, uh, this type of administration, and we'll have to reinstitute, um, the proper regulations, and then you'll have people blaming those regulations for the economic downturn.

• 14:23Bill Nye?

  Uh, as we say at this point, you may be right.

• 14:27Bill Nye?

  Keep in mind, the economy is expanding, and stock market especially is doing well, but the disparity between rich people and poor people is growing.

• 14:35Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:35Bill Nye?

  And that, I also claim, is not sustainable. I don't think that's an extraordinary economic point of view.

• 14:40Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 14:41Bill Nye?

  This is, you concentrate more wealth with wealthy people, and less with, uh, middle-class and poor people. You're just not, the tax base is not sustainable, and public works will, this, everybody loves the word, infrastructure will not be maintained, and that this is obvious to everybody is interesting.

• 14:58Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 14:59Bill Nye?

  Uh, so we'll see what happens in the coming years, but I think the pendulum's gonna swing back hard.

• 15:04Chuck Nice?

  Alright.

• 15:05Bill Nye?

  In the US.

• 15:05Chuck Nice?

  Oh, nah, giving us hope.

• 15:07Bill Nye?

  Well, you gotta be optimistic, but, you know, you guys, I'm not the world's foremost authority in economics, but... Banking, I guess literally, on extraordinary growth in the economy to pay off the debts you're accumulating now, sounds cool, but I don't think it's gonna work. You know, I'm of an age where it didn't work in the 1980s. This notion that you could just cut and cut and cut.

• 15:34Chuck Nice?

  Alright.

• 15:34Bill Nye?

  We'll see what happens. And along that line, if you degrade the environment, everything is worth less. So the, uh, this value that you think you're creating isn't there. If an oil company can't extract oil, it's not worth anything. You know, it's, uh, assets are underground, literally. Read on.

• 15:51Chuck Nice?

  Alright. Kafkaesque me from Instagram. That's the name.

• 15:56Bill Nye?

  It's creepy. It's creepy Kafkaesque. If you haven't read Kafka and, and you're feeling great, read Kafka and you won't. Take a Chuck.

• 16:05Chuck Nice?

  Here we go.

• 16:06Bill Nye?

  A paraphrase.

• 16:07Chuck Nice?

  Which, uh, uh, if, if humans never existed, speaking of Kafka, Kafkaesque, if humans never existed, would there still be climate change?

• 16:18Bill Nye?

  Yeah, this is what we talk about all the time. Climate change is naturally, but humans are causing it to change much faster than it would otherwise.

• 16:27Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 16:28Bill Nye?

  And our guest, Kate Marvel, pointed out that humans are changing the climate more than a hundred percent faster than it would have happened normally because solar activity, the sun is not as hot and bright as it is sometimes because it has its own cycles. It has storms and weather, as it's called. And so the sun's actually cooling us off a little bit, but humans are warming the world up so fast that we're outstripping the sun's effect.

• 16:55Chuck Nice?

  Look at that.

• 16:55Bill Nye?

  More than a hundred percent.

• 16:57Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 16:57Bill Nye?

  If you like to worry about things, Chuck, you're living at a great time. Fantastic time.

• 17:04Chuck Nice?

  Human beings doing more than the sun.

• 17:07Bill Nye?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 17:09Chuck Nice?

  That's basically what.

• 17:10Bill Nye?

  We're holding in all this heat with all this carbon oxide and stuff.

• 17:12Chuck Nice?

  Okay. Uh, this is Brad, cause we're almost out of time, right? So here we go.

• 17:16Bill Nye?

  Almost out of time for the first segment.

• 17:18Chuck Nice?

  For this first segment. But I like Brad Croft's, uh...

• 17:20Bill Nye?

  There's more to come.

• 17:21Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, Brad wants to know this. Why is it that the scientific community? stays out of politics. And I'll add to that, especially when you guys know more than the politicians.

• 17:33Bill Nye?

  Well, okay. I don't stay out of politics.

• 17:37Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 17:37Bill Nye?

  Uh, cause I'm involved in the politics of space exploration. And the reason I am in the politics of space exploration, it brings people together.

• 17:45Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 17:45Bill Nye?

  Politicians that would otherwise not get along about anything can agree that space is good. And if you're in the United States, NASA is the best brand the United States has. This is StarTalk Cosmic Queries Edition with Chuck Nice. I'm your guest host, Bill Nye. We'll be back right after this.

• 18:06Bill Nye?

  Greetings, greetings, greetings. Bill Nye here. I'm your guest host of this edition of Cosmic Queries on StarTalk along with everybody's favorite Chuck Nice.

• 18:16Chuck Nice?

  Ah, thank you, Bill.

• 18:17Bill Nye?

  Chuck, you have a stack of questions there stored outside of your body on this plant-based medium. And you will, you have a good one, you said.

• 18:28Chuck Nice?

  I do.

• 18:29Bill Nye?

  A three-parter.

• 18:30Chuck Nice?

  I have a three-parter for you, and this is from Anthony Fisher. And Anthony comes to us from Facebook and would like to know this. Hey, Bill, if you could ask any extraterrestrial intelligence, just three questions.

• 18:43Bill Nye?

  Three questions.

• 18:44Chuck Nice?

  Three questions. What would those three questions be?

• 18:48Bill Nye?

  What's the significance of water on your world?

• 18:52Chuck Nice?

  Ooh.

• 18:53Bill Nye?

  Uh, uh, what? Do you have a situation, uh, what do you use for your standards?

• 19:03Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 19:03Bill Nye?

  Like your meters and your kilograms.

• 19:05Chuck Nice?

  Standards of, what is your standards of measurement?

• 19:08Bill Nye?

  And then, um, I guess what's your favorite color?

• 19:17Chuck Nice?

  You got me. You got me on that one.

• 19:18Bill Nye?

  From the scientific standpoint, what if they look in the infrared?

• 19:21Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 19:22Bill Nye?

  What if their favorite color is some extraordinary thing that we, you know, some ultra X-ray? Some deal, they live near some pulsar and they're radiated with, illuminated with X-rays all, or every, or 30 times a second.

• 19:36Chuck Nice?

  I'm interested in your standards of measurement and a question. Is that because you are an engineer?

• 19:42Bill Nye?

  I guess. It's also because Dr. Tyson and I disagree on this.

• 19:47Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 19:48Bill Nye?

  Uh, and it's.

• 19:49Chuck Nice?

  Wait, first of all, let me just say, I am shocked that you and Dr. Tyson would disagree on anything.

• 19:55Bill Nye?

  So, he embraces Fahrenheit.

• 19:59Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 20:00Bill Nye?

  Nobody else does. Nobody else does. Furthermore, I claim, and he's not here to defend himself. Part of what threw him off, pun intended, with the deflate gate.

• 20:12Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 20:12Bill Nye?

  Was his unfamiliarity with degrees Rankin.

• 20:16Chuck Nice?

  Okay. Now, I'm gonna have to, uh, I'm gonna have to acknowledge my own ignorance. Degrees Rankin?

• 20:22Bill Nye?

  Yeah, so, in other words, my answers to the extraterrestrials, which were not thought through, I was under pressure here on StarTalk. I went with something that I thought would be a topic of controversy here on the Talking of Stars. So, uh, when you make an air conditioner or refrigerator and you want it to work, you have to do all of your calculations in absolute temperature scales.

• 20:48Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 20:49Bill Nye?

  So, are you familiar with this idea of absolute zero?

• 20:51Chuck Nice?

  Absolute zero, I, I think it's, is it minus 273 degrees, uh, Kelvin? Or is it zero degrees Kelvin and minus 273 degrees?

• 21:00Bill Nye?

  Hit, you, you, here it is. So, let's start with, absolute zero is where there's no molecular motion.

• 21:06Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 21:07Bill Nye?

  And it is nominally a theoretical place. Because anything you have in the box is gonna be connected to the world. The, the, in your, the freezer's gonna be sitting on a table which is on the earth, so, in a sense, there's no way to get to absolute zero, but, what these people love to do, and who wouldn't, you get an atom in a vacuum, and you bzzt it with a laser, except in a vacuum, there's no sound.

• 21:36Bill Nye?

  And it stops for a moment, and then you try to understand its properties at absolute zero. All right, so, in the Fahrenheit scale, absolute zero is minus 460. All right, so, there was a Scottish engineer, and to honor him, we have the Rankin scale. And so, degrees Rankin. And if you live in the US, Israel, Australia, most of your air conditioners are gonna be run in degrees Rankin. But that's changing. We're going to Celsius now. And you mentioned minus 273.1 degrees Celsius. That is, the other expression for that is zero Kelvins.

• 22:18Chuck Nice?

  Or Kelvins, right.

• 22:18Bill Nye?

  So it is not degrees Kelvin. A Kelvin is a unit.

• 22:22Chuck Nice?

  Is a unit.

• 22:23Bill Nye?

  You don't believe me?

• 22:24Chuck Nice?

  Right, okay.

• 22:25Bill Nye?

  Go to the hardware store. Look at the little package for your light bulb. It says 2,700 K.

• 22:32Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:32Bill Nye?

  That K are Kelvins.

• 22:34Chuck Nice?

  Right. Same thing on my camera. There you go. When you cut, when you, the color temperature is 5,600 K is daylight.

• 22:40Bill Nye?

  So this is, there's a fabulous thing in physics described in English as a black body. Have you ever heard this? And it's not about our

• 22:47Chuck Nice?

  It's not about, it's not

• 22:48Bill Nye?

  ancestry.

• 22:49Chuck Nice?

  It's not about this beautiful machine that I live in.

• 22:53Bill Nye?

  So

• 22:55Bill Nye?

  So a black body is a theoretical thing that either, if it's colder than its surroundings, absorbs 100% of the heat that, that strikes it, that strikes it.

• 23:05Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:06Bill Nye?

  Or if it's hotter than its surroundings, it radiates, well, radiates all that energy. So you've seen the fireplace poker?

• 23:12Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 23:13Bill Nye?

  Orange hot.

• 23:14Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:14Bill Nye?

  That's 1,700 Kelvins. The yellowish light bulbs, 2,700 Kelvins.

• 23:20Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:21Bill Nye?

  The, uh, white hot fireplace poker or lightning, you're getting into your 5,700, your 9,000 Kelvins.

• 23:29Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:30Bill Nye?

  And so, uh, it's a cool idea, or hot idea.

• 23:32Chuck Nice?

  Ah, I see what you did there.

• 23:34Bill Nye?

  Yeah, so, uh, anyway, it's a fascinating thing what we choose for standards. And so the, the meter, which was the start of the whole thing, was intended to be a 10 millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the equator if measured through Paris.

• 23:50Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 23:51Bill Nye?

  Li. Uh, and, uh, it was pretty close. But now we use a certain number of wavelengths of the light emitted by krypton gas when zapped.

• 24:02Chuck Nice?

  What?

• 24:03Bill Nye?

  Cool, yeah.

• 24:04Chuck Nice?

  That is really cool.

• 24:05Bill Nye?

  So, these lights that are here, some of them are fluorescent.

• 24:08Chuck Nice?

  I love them, yes.

• 24:09Bill Nye?

  They work with mercury vapor. You jolt the mercury vapor with a few hundred volts of electricity. Volt is also a metric unit.

• 24:18Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:19Bill Nye?

  So are amps, so are watts, everybody. You jolt the mercury vapor, it gives off a black lightish ultraviolet thing. It hits paint inside the tube and the paint glows in the visible.

• 24:33Chuck Nice?

  There you go. Man, that is... Wow, look at that, all of that from standard measurements.

• 24:39Bill Nye?

  Science is the coolest thing ever.

• 24:41Chuck Nice?

  It really is.

• 24:41Bill Nye?

  When I was under pressure talking to the aliens.

• 24:43Chuck Nice?

  I'm glad, though.

• 24:44Bill Nye?

  Sines, cosines.

• 24:45Chuck Nice?

  Oh, what a-

• 24:46Bill Nye?

  No, math stuff.

• 24:47Chuck Nice?

  What a-

• 24:47Bill Nye?

  How about, how about Laplace transforms things?

• 24:53Chuck Nice?

  Well, what a great, great answer. All right, let's move on. This is, uh, Lines by Lund wants to know-

• 24:59Bill Nye?

  How creative are the Sober K's? The nicknames.

• 25:02Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, the nicknames are great.

• 25:04Bill Nye?

  In plural in French, I guess it's Sober K.

• 25:06Chuck Nice?

  Lines by Lund wants to know this.

• 25:09Bill Nye?

  There's a word after it, yes.

• 25:10Chuck Nice?

  Shouldn't New Year's be on the 21st of December? When the distance to the sun is the greatest?

• 25:20Bill Nye?

  Uh, that changes because of the wobble of the Earth's orbit. Now, so you guys, what happened is, the thing of it was, uh, they had this great idea of 360 days a year.

• 25:33Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 25:34Bill Nye?

  Babylonians.

• 25:34Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:35Bill Nye?

  Divide 360 by 60.

• 25:37Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:38Bill Nye?

  And 6. And, but they loved the 60. Divided by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 15, 20. Babylonians thought this was fabulous.

• 25:48Chuck Nice?

  This is a great number, this is-

• 25:49Bill Nye?

  They still have 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour. It's, we still have this. But if you do three hundred and sixty days a year, there aren't enough days.

• 25:58Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:59Bill Nye?

  And in the tropics, my understanding is you don't notice it right away. You can go through a whole generation without quite noticing that, you know, it's not as hot or cold as it was.

• 26:11Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 26:12Bill Nye?

  But so they would just have a big party for five days. And the Romans had Saturnalia.

• 26:19Chuck Nice?

  Saturnalia.

• 26:19Bill Nye?

  Yep, and then the Christians reconfigured the birthday of Jesus so that it happened at the same time to get everybody on board with this.

• 26:30Chuck Nice?

  Hey, listen, no better way to popularize your religion than attaching it to a five day party.

• 26:36Bill Nye?

  Yes. And then the pagans got this thing where is the, is winter ever gonna be over? I'm gonna bring evergreens in my house.

• 26:45Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 26:46Bill Nye?

  And that's why we have these traditional Isaac Newton's birthday trees. Bring the Isaac Newton birthday day. Yes.

• 26:54Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 26:55Bill Nye?

  So one of my favorite things, and I got into a little thing with our beloved Neil about this many years ago, is the Catholic Church likes to tell everybody, and quite reasonably, that Isaac Newton was born on the fourth of January, sixteen forty-three.

• 27:10Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 27:11Bill Nye?

  But his mom thought it was the twenty-fifth of December, sixteen forty-two. Cause they weren't reckoning calendars the same way.

• 27:19Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 27:20Bill Nye?

  And to this day, pun intended, we rely on the Gregorian calendar after Pope Gregory the thirteenth, who, now, did I get this right, fifteen seventy-two, is it fifteen eighty-two, declared that October fifth shall be followed by October fifteenth. Threw away ten days to adjust the calendar.

• 27:42Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 27:42Bill Nye?

  They could tell, you know, yeah, my dad told me to plant the crops when the sun's past that hill over there. But, you know, the sun's way past the hill and I'm, it's gotta be time to plant the crops.

• 27:52Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:53Bill Nye?

  So this ten day thing, if you're a landlord, this is great. You owe me another month. If you're a tenant, I do not owe you another month.

• 28:03Chuck Nice?

  That's funny.

• 28:04Bill Nye?

  They literally had wars about it, and it wasn't until seventeen fifty-six, I believe, that the British. Uh, government decided to get on board with the Gregorian calendar. So you guys, thi- this is the coolest innovation. Understand, appreciate the insight of our ancestors. Who, who came up with the following rule. Chuck.

• 28:28Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 28:28Bill Nye?

  We were around for 2016.

• 28:32Chuck Nice?

  We were.

• 28:33Bill Nye?

  Was it a leap year? It's not a trick question.

• 28:35Chuck Nice?

  Uh, no, right?

• 28:36Bill Nye?

  Yes, it was.

• 28:37Chuck Nice?

  No, uh, no, yeah, was it, yeah.

• 28:38Bill Nye?

  Twenty twelve.

• 28:39Chuck Nice?

  Twelve.

• 28:40Bill Nye?

  Twenty oh eight.

• 28:41Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 28:41Bill Nye?

  Twenty oh four.

• 28:42Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 28:42Bill Nye?

  Two thousand. Leap years.

• 28:44Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 28:44Bill Nye?

  One and all. What about nineteen hundred?

• 28:50Chuck Nice?

  Uh.

• 28:51Bill Nye?

  It's your question, no.

• 28:52Chuck Nice?

  Nope.

• 28:53Bill Nye?

  The Gregorian calendarians decided that if the century is not evenly divisible by the number four hundred.

• 29:01Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 29:02Bill Nye?

  It shall not be a leap year. So that you would not be adding too much time as the Julian calendar is doing, still does. If you subscribe to Julian calendration.

• 29:14Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 29:14Bill Nye?

  Horology, if I may, study of time. So, um, so it's just this amazing insight. They did it without spacecraft.

• 29:24Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 29:25Bill Nye?

  They did it without flat-earthers on the internet. They figured it out with this extraordinary precision by studying the night sky. You've got to respect that.

• 29:35Chuck Nice?

  That's very, very.

• 29:36Bill Nye?

  You've got to respect that. So if you add a leap day all the time, you add eleven minutes too much. And after a few centuries, you get a lot of eleven minutes.

• 29:47Chuck Nice?

  That's a lot of, that's a lot of time over a little.

• 29:48Bill Nye?

  Eleven minutes plus some change, yeah.

• 29:50Chuck Nice?

  End up having to throw away some time again.

• 29:52Bill Nye?

  Which is, uh, so I'm all for, hey, I'm all for having a big party at the end of the year and starting the party on the twenty first to this guy's, I think it's great.

• 30:05Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 30:05Bill Nye?

  Go.

• 30:06Chuck Nice?

  There we go.

• 30:07Bill Nye?

  I'll have nine days of craziness. Cool.

• 30:11Chuck Nice?

  Let's go to Jim Fitz. Jim Fitz on Instagram would like to know this. Why do I feel closer to the universe now that I've done acid several times in my life?

• 30:24Bill Nye?

  Okay, so let me say, oh, by the way, everybody, you should, of course, when you're not listening to this podcast and enjoying the video, you should be watching Bill Nye Saves the World on Netflix. Yes, I know. So on one of the shows, we had a guy who subscribes to. Prescribing, uh, was suric acid, is that how we say it?

• 30:44Chuck Nice?

  LSD.

• 30:45Bill Nye?

  Yeah. And, uh, due respect, you may feel close to the universe, but my interaction with this guy, I just think he has brain damage. I'm not joking, I just think there, and I bet it's genetic, this is like alcohol, I bet there's some people that can tolerate LSD without any changes.

• 31:06Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 31:06Bill Nye?

  And there's other people that can't. Like, some people can tolerate alcohol, and some of you inherit, and some people can't.

• 31:13Chuck Nice?

  Right, yeah. Some people are addicted to alcohol for the moment from their first drink.

• 31:16Bill Nye?

  Yeah.

• 31:17Chuck Nice?

  They just don't know it yet.

• 31:18Bill Nye?

  And cigarettes, and so on and so on. So, uh, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a huge genetic component, but if you feel close to the universe, and you're able to function, I guess it's a pun, uh, knock yourself out.

• 31:32Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 31:33Bill Nye?

  But I would be tres carefuls, I'd be very careful with that stuff. I don't think you're really close to the universe. I think your mind has changed, your brain has changed enough, or your perception's changed enough.

• 31:43Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 31:44Bill Nye?

  The old man bill.

• 31:45Chuck Nice?

  Alright, so dude, uh-

• 31:46Bill Nye?

  Well, the kids today.

• 31:47Chuck Nice?

  Answer to your question is, you're high, dude.

• 31:50Bill Nye?

  Well, you might.

• 31:53Chuck Nice?

  It's called a flashback, okay?

• 31:55Bill Nye?

  Well, I've, I've, I knew somebody that lost eyesight in a part of her eye.

• 31:59Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 32:00Bill Nye?

  From LSD.

• 32:01Chuck Nice?

  From, from tripping acid?

• 32:02Bill Nye?

  She says she has a spot. It's very interesting.

• 32:04Chuck Nice?

  That is interesting. Oh, okay. Oh, there you go, don't-

• 32:07Bill Nye?

  She looked at a bright light when she was high, I mean, a too bright a light, and damaged her eye.

• 32:11Chuck Nice?

  Beware, beware, kids, that's all, okay? Just beware. Jim Beam from seventeen, Jim, Jim Beam seventeen, speaking of,

• 32:19Chuck Nice?

  says, uh, can you please talk about NASA and science funding being redirected to outer space? What happens to the satellites providing data about Earth? Do they continue to get the same funding?

• 32:31Bill Nye?

  So, this is what we do at the planetary side of Jack Daniels. What's his name?

• 32:35Chuck Nice?

  Jim Beam.

• 32:36Bill Nye?

  Yes, um, that's what we do at the planetary side, is advocate for supporting- The exploration of the planets in the solar system and the Earth. The Earth is a planet. So, uh, there's controversy about certain people being nominated to be the administrator of NASA and there's been a proposal to move NASA's Earth Science Budget to NOAA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. But NASA generally lets the contracts that build the Earth studying satellites. So unless the money goes to NOAA, you don't want to do that. You want to, the quo is status enough, if I may interponify.

• 33:17Bill Nye?

  So we fight for this. Space exploration is an extraordinary investment, whether exploring farther and deeper in space or we're exploring our own world. Space exploration brings out the best in us. We don't want to cut the NASA budget. It's the best brand, the best, most recognizable logo at anybody in the world. So let's, let's fund this. Consider Planetary.org. Check us out. We advocate for you. Washington's a small town based on relationships and that's what we do is establish relationships in order to imbue in Congress people and their staffers the passion, beauty and joy, the PB and J of the cosmos.

• 33:59Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 34:00Bill Nye?

  So with that said, you're listening to StarTalk Cosmic Queries. Chuck Nice and I will be back right after this.

• 34:12Bill Nye?

  Greetings, greetings, StarTalk listeners. Bill Nye here. I'm your guest host this week on Cosmic Queries and I am joined with the Cosmic Inquirer himself, Chuck Nice.

• 34:24Chuck Nice?

  That's right, Bill.

• 34:25Bill Nye?

  We have a stack of plant-based information storage media.

• 34:28Chuck Nice?

  Yes, we do.

• 34:29Bill Nye?

  Papers with your questions on them and they are really, I gotta say Chuck, the questions are generally pretty great.

• 34:36Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, they are. I'm really digging.

• 34:37Bill Nye?

  You don't have to sound surprised. These are StarTalk listeners.

• 34:40Chuck Nice?

  This is true.

• 34:41Bill Nye?

  These are your fans, man. Of course they're good questions.

• 34:42Chuck Nice?

  We have a better quality of listener. That is for sure.

• 34:45Bill Nye?

  We have the best.

• 34:46Chuck Nice?

  Best. Yes.

• 34:47Bill Nye?

  So are we under some obligation to take a patron?

• 34:52Chuck Nice?

  You know what? Uh, I forgot to take our Patreon.

• 34:55Bill Nye?

  Is that a tequila brand?

• 34:57Chuck Nice?

  Patreon.

• 34:57Bill Nye?

  Patreon.

• 34:58Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, it's not the Patreon. You know what? So, let's uh, let's do our Patreon question for us.

• 35:02Bill Nye?

  Yes, just go for it.

• 35:04Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, from Ben Ratner at Ben Makes TV. He wants to know this. At Ben Makes TV wants to know this. Can we terraform NYC? I'm currently cold and I would like to not be cold.

• 35:16Bill Nye?

  Here, NYC is New York City. Can we terraform it?

• 35:18Chuck Nice?

  Can we terraform it?

• 35:19Bill Nye?

  This is in the range of an ironic charming question, not really intended to provoke a reasonable answer.

• 35:27Chuck Nice?

  No, exactly.

• 35:28Bill Nye?

  Well, we do kinda terraform NYC. You go on the subway train, it's warm.

• 35:32Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 35:33Bill Nye?

  That's where you, uh, you go into buildings, it's warm. Chuck. Chuck's.

• 35:40Chuck Nice?

  I'm sorry.

• 35:41Bill Nye?

  Chuck's gonna take a sip from his official size and weight StarTalk mug.

• 35:46Chuck Nice?

  Okay. I hope we don't cut any of that out.

• 35:49Bill Nye?

  Oh, you really think you're back?

• 35:52Chuck Nice?

  I'm gonna press on.

• 35:54Bill Nye?

  And Chuck, you can tell us all. Now that you've tried New York City water, you feel you can't live without it.

• 35:59Chuck Nice?

  I gotta tell ya, that's good water.

• 36:02Bill Nye?

  It's good water.

• 36:03Chuck Nice?

  I wonder if it's raw water?

• 36:04Bill Nye?

  No, you don't want raw water, people.

• 36:06Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. What's your feelings on the raw water, Bill?

• 36:08Bill Nye?

  Okay.

• 36:09Chuck Nice?

  Seriously?

• 36:11Bill Nye?

  Seriously? Okay. Let's take for example Louis Pasteur.

• 36:15Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 36:16Bill Nye?

  It's 300 years ago, 250 years ago. He figured it out with a microscope, but uh, believe me, Aug and Augette, they're in what is now France and they're cave dwelling. People in what is now Congo or Zimbabwe, they knew what, that you don't wanna drink water with bacteria in it.

• 36:37Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 36:38Bill Nye?

  They conducted that test repeatedly. They're all over that. So raw water with water with bacteria in it.

• 36:46Chuck Nice?

  Mm hmm.

• 36:46Bill Nye?

  It's just not, probably not good for you. Wow.

• 36:51Chuck Nice?

  All right, this is a Craig F one hundred and Craig wants to know this. Um, other than our own universe, could it be possible to contain a black hole? Can black holes contain enough matter to have any density?

• 37:06Bill Nye?

  Okay, what was the universe part?

• 37:08Chuck Nice?

  Ah, that, ah, he said, other than our own universe, I guess, being the universe itself. Within that, you have black universe, you have black holes in the universe, but that notwithstanding.

• 37:21Bill Nye?

  There's a lot of mass in a black hole. A black hole is a star so massive.

• 37:25Chuck Nice?

  How massive is it?

• 37:26Bill Nye?

  It's so massive that not even light can escape.

• 37:29Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 37:29Bill Nye?

  Super massive, I think it. I think you may, uh, have interchanged some big ideas there and if there's another universe.

• 37:38Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 37:38Bill Nye?

  That would be cool. Can we get there by falling into a black hole or this mythic other idea wormhole, which would be another modification of spacetime.

• 37:48Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 37:49Bill Nye?

  So called warping. But as, um, Lisa Randall, the astrophysicist remarked, uh, having multiple universes is the most satisfying worldview or cosmic view.

• 38:03Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 38:03Bill Nye?

  Not only are we not alone in the universe, because there might be some extraterrestrials, but wait. We're not alone because we're not even the only universe.

• 38:11Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, you got it.

• 38:12Bill Nye?

  Wow, that makes you feel good.

• 38:13Chuck Nice?

  All right, there you go, buddy. Um, let's move on to Jason Edwards from Facebook who says this. Asking for my daughter's eighth grade class. How will we make water in either a spacecraft or a planet since it will be hard to take with us when we go to wherever it is that we're going.

• 38:33Bill Nye?

  So on Mars, by way of example, there is a lot of water under the sand.

• 38:37Chuck Nice?

  Oh, really?

• 38:37Bill Nye?

  Yeah.

• 38:38Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 38:38Bill Nye?

  If you could get to it, then it's been proposed that you use. A jacket of water, a, a, a, a shell

• 38:47Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:48Bill Nye?

  Of liquid water to protect astronauts from radiation. And then when you get to Mars, you'd have a

• 38:53Chuck Nice?

  You'd have water.

• 38:54Bill Nye?

  A bunch of water.

• 38:54Chuck Nice?

  Drink the shell that protects you.

• 38:56Bill Nye?

  And this idea of recycling urine

• 38:59Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 38:59Bill Nye?

  On a spacecraft is a fine one. That's a good idea. They didn't need, we didn't need to use it on the space shuttle 'cause it was only up there for a little while, but

• 39:08Chuck Nice?

  So you recycle it and

• 39:09Bill Nye?

  Been thinking with this for years.

• 39:10Chuck Nice?

  You filter it then, I would assume.

• 39:12Bill Nye?

  Yeah, and you want it, you want to filter it and then, shooting from the hip, you might just distill it.

• 39:17Chuck Nice?

  Okay, alright.

• 39:18Bill Nye?

  Uh, but, uh, distillation takes a lot of energy and so this is a problem that space, uh, space utility workers have been addressing for fifty years. So if you're out there, get on it. I mean, the problem is sort of solved, but you want to solve it in an efficient and very, very reliable way. And not throw water away once you're on a spacecraft.

• 39:42Chuck Nice?

  I don't always drink my urine on a spacecraft, but when I do, I make sure it's distilled. Stay healthy, my friends. Okay.

• 39:50Bill Nye?

  I love that guy.

• 39:51Chuck Nice?

  He isn't even the best.

• 39:53Bill Nye?

  Well, it's good. My favorite joke was for the most, uh, interesting man.

• 39:57Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 39:58Bill Nye?

  Sharks have a week for him. That was a really good joke. I didn't write it. I thought

• 40:03Chuck Nice?

  I wish, ah, that's really funny. Alright, cool. Let's move on with Rocket Labs, uh, wants to know this. When are people gonna really start seeing the impacts of global warming?

• 40:13Bill Nye?

  They're affecting right now, everybody.

• 40:15Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 40:16Bill Nye?

  You ca- it's very, very difficult to connect any one weather event with climate change. However, what is happening now? Fires in California. Wet winter, all this vegetation grows, extraordinarily dry summer. Lightning strikes and you got fires that go like crazy because, uh, it's dried out and there was all this low shrubbery vegetation that grew in the wet season of the previous year. Then, another rainstorm comes and there's not enough vegetation to hold the hillsides. You know, I live out there some of the time. And these are not

• 40:56Bill Nye?

  solid rocks. The whole, every big hill is just a big sponge and it fills with water and then days later It goes sliding down the hill. It soaks, soaks, soaks, heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy, and then it breaks loose.

• 41:09Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 41:09Bill Nye?

  So that's what you'd expect. Furthermore, uh, there have been more days above average temperature last year than below. This is to say, you can measure that the world's getting warmer. And the other place where you really notice it is Miami, Miami Beach, where the tides are coming in higher because the ocean is getting a little bigger. And it's getting bigger because it's getting just a little bit warmer. And more pests show up on our farm sooner and stick around later because it's a little warmer.

• 41:42Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 41:43Bill Nye?

  We're already feeling the effects of climate change.

• 41:45Chuck Nice?

  All right. Well, there you have it.

• 41:47Bill Nye?

  Right.

• 41:48Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Look at that. Way to go, climate change. Winning the battle. All right, um, let's see here. Uh, this is at Skull and Crossbones from Twitter, uh, better known as Caleb, uh, says this, "Is it possible?"

• 42:02Bill Nye?

  Probably.

• 42:04Chuck Nice?

  Okay, there you go. And there's your answer, Caleb. All right, moving on. No. "Is it possible that the universe has collapsed on itself in the past and there have been multiple big bangs? If so, could the remnants thereof explain dark matter?" Uh, thanks, from West by God, Virginia.

• 42:25Bill Nye?

  Uh, maybe.

• 42:27Chuck Nice?

  Okay, there you go.

• 42:28Bill Nye?

  So, right now, the universe seems to be, uh, accelerating in its expansion. So if this universe is accelerating, not seems to be, is accelerating in its expansion.

• 42:38Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:39Bill Nye?

  So if our universe is accelerating in its expansion, why would a previous universe or manifestation of this spacetime have not accelerated? And there may be a very good reason. And, uh, right now, we subsume this unknown idea, these unknown ideas with dark energy and dark matter. These are unknown things, and Dr. Tyson likes to refer to it as Fred.

• 43:04Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 43:05Bill Nye?

  Why not Steve, or Hank, or Al?

• 43:07Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 43:08Bill Nye?

  Or Mary?

• 43:09Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 43:09Bill Nye?

  And so, uh, there's something pushing everything apart. We don't have an especially good understanding of it yet.

• 43:17Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 43:18Bill Nye?

  But I think back. When my grandfather was working, coming of age, nobody knew anything about relativity.

• 43:27Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 43:27Bill Nye?

  But relativity still existed.

• 43:28Chuck Nice?

  Still there.

• 43:29Bill Nye?

  Yeah. And so just think what will happen 100 years hence. People will very reasonably understand dark matter, or strings, the strings of vacuum, energy that stretched out over kilometers, hidden from us, and are dark energy. The reason we believe there's dark matter is we observe these stars which are held together a little bit, and the thing that we know of that holds them together is gravity, so we presume there's some mass.

• 43:58Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 43:58Bill Nye?

  So, stay tuned. This summer, last summer, humankind detected gravitational waves, predicted by the theory of relative, and we found them. Using our intellect and treasure, we built these two huge observatories, and we're building a couple more. Four kilometers on a side. Super cool.

• 44:15Chuck Nice?

  Cool.

• 44:16Bill Nye?

  Crazy cool.

• 44:17Chuck Nice?

  All right. All right, Caleb. Good stuff. Good stuff, brother. All right, here we go. Very interesting question here from "I've always been your Sancho."

• 44:28Bill Nye?

  "I've always been your Sancho."

• 44:30Chuck Nice?

  "I've always been your Sancho." That's what he says.

• 44:32Bill Nye?

  That's your...

• 44:34Chuck Nice?

  I don't...

• 44:34Bill Nye?

  Okay, yeah.

• 44:35Chuck Nice?

  "Would it one day be possible for humans to photosynthesize light for sustainable energy the same way plants do?" So, I guess he's looking at world hunger. Could there be some type of apparatus that we could apply to our skin? We kind of photosynthesize vitamin D right now.

• 44:49Bill Nye?

  When you say, "Yeah, I guess," but when you say photosynthesis, we in science education think of green plants.

• 44:56Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 44:57Bill Nye?

  So, you want to have green skin like a Vulcan, and so then absorb sunlight and metabolize it?

• 45:03Chuck Nice?

  I don't know.

• 45:03Bill Nye?

  Interesting irony for you irony buffs.

• 45:06Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 45:07Bill Nye?

  In a sense, green light is the most common frequency of light brought to us from the sun, by the sun.

• 45:15Chuck Nice?

  The green light?

• 45:16Bill Nye?

  Yes, so why...

• 45:17Chuck Nice?

  Is that why everything is green on Earth?

• 45:18Bill Nye?

  Well, why do plants reflect it? Why wouldn't they absorb the most plentiful wavelength? Do, do, do, do, do, do, do. And the best idea anybody has is that evolution... Processes of of molecules making replicas of themselves stumbled on this chlorophyll compound that works. Okay. And here we are. There you go. In evolution, you only have to be good enough. That's it. That's all you gotta be. You don't have to be a guy who can do more sit-ups. Yeah. You just have to be able to do enough sit-ups. Just do one more than the other guy. Yeah. So, it's very, it's a cool question, but I, instead, I think what you'll find in a more practical sense is our crops will become increasingly efficient. Ah.

• 46:00Bill Nye?

  This is to say, uh, we plant crops on industrial scales, much, uh, plants and crops much closer together than we did fifty or a hundred years ago. We now engineer the genes of crops so that we can use less pesticide or less herbicides or different herbicides and different pesticides. Right. And we are gonna feed more people, nine billion people, on less arable land, less farmland, because, uh, cities are expanding into farmland and the ocean is encroaching on, like Delaware is a big farmland shoreline. Right. And it's, things are gonna change there. Uh-huh. Ha, ha, ha, ha. And so, uh, we will, in the biggest picture of your question,

• 46:43Bill Nye?

  Sanchez, we will use technology and agricultural innovation to use photosynthesis to feed us. We eat plants, or we eat things that eat plants, or we eat things that ate things that ate plants. We are at the top of the pyramid and the plants are at the bottom. If you live in some exotic place, St. Louis, or Paragon, Indiana. Mm-hmm. In the wintertime, a third of the oxygen you breathe comes from the ocean. Wow. The summer, it's half. It's an old, that's, those numbers were old, that may have changed, but that's, they're, it's, it's a huge fraction of the oxygen you breathe is made at sea by phytoplankton. Right. How cool is that? It's cool. (laughing).

• 47:28Bill Nye?

  We use, we're gonna, humans are gonna use photosynthesis. Very cool. Well, there you have it. That's, uh, that's your answer. I am always, or I've always been. By the way, look at a tree. It's big. It doesn't run around. No. We take all that energy and concentrate it. That's why there are people who eat meat. You've probably met them. And they do it because that protein, all that energy is concentrated in such a small volume and mass. It's fascinating. So Chuck. Yes, Bill. This is a fabulous episode of Cosmic Queries. Certainly was. I want to assure you that there's more to come on a next episode of Cosmic Queries. But for now, this has been Chuck Nice, and I've been your guest host, Bill Nye, and

• 48:11Bill Nye?

  we encourage you to keep looking up and listening to StarTalk.