Season 2 Time Capsule

Revisit some highlights of our Season 2 shows. This show includes interview excerpts with Whoopi Goldberg, John Hodgman, Nichelle Nichols, Phil Plait, and Morgan Freeman.

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.

• 0:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk Radio. I'm your host Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist and director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium. Today, we bring you our third annual Time Capsule Show, which is a look back at some of the greatest hits of the past year on StarTalk Radio. For example, I'll share with you some highlights from my interview with John Hodgman, and some key moments with a friend of the show, Phil Plait, otherwise known as "The Bad Astronomer," and some celebrity moments with Moby, Whoopi Goldberg, and even Morgan Freeman. Let's start with a man most of you know from the Apple versus PC commercials, John Hodgman. Of course, he's PC. Let's check it out.

• 0:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  John, I have to confess, being a Mac user since 1985, when I see you, it's like, "PC, PC."

• 1:07Speaker 01

  What the radio audience cannot see at the moment is that Neil is actually stabbing me at this moment. He's not just making the psycho noise, he's stabbing me with a knife.

• 1:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Stabbing with a-

• 1:17Speaker 01

  Please send help.

• 1:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So-

• 1:19Speaker 01

  I have you beat. I've been a Mac user since 1984.

• 1:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that right? You can't be a Mac user earlier than that.

• 1:26Speaker 01

  I had a 128K Mac-

• 1:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right.

• 1:28Speaker 01

  -that I convinced my father to buy for me.

• 1:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, you made an awesome PC dude on the TV commercials.

• 1:34Speaker 01

  Thank you very much. Well, the reality is, I was an avid Mac enthusiast. Indeed, I would literally get into bar fights, not fistfights, but fights with words while drunk in bars. 1994, 1995, when I first moved to New York, my friends and I would go see a good friend of mine, Jonathan Colton, perform songs at McGovern's on-

• 1:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know Jonathan Colton, he wrote a song about Pluto's moon, Sharon.

• 1:58Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, indeed.

• 1:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A beautiful song. It's a love song. Pluto's moon, Sharon, was upset that Pluto was demoted, but said, "But I'm still your moon."

• 2:06Speaker 01

  Yes, but Sharon has left Pluto now.

• 2:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that's the follow-on song.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know Moons.

• 2:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so you know Jonathan Colton's music?

• 2:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, he and I went to Yale University together. You see, we're very good friends. Friends of mine, including him, would get into long drunken arguments about Mac versus PC, and they're the same arguments that you make today, and I always took the Mac side. My feeling was that technology should conform to us, rather than us conform to technology.

• 2:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is so correct.

• 2:36Speaker 01

  And so I went on like that, and then I worked in an office environment, and I had to learn to use another platform.

• 2:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 2:44Speaker 01

  And then I ended up buying one of these things. I had had a Mac 128K, then I had a Mac SE, then I had a PowerBook 140.

• 2:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You never had the Mac Plus then?

• 2:53Speaker 01

  I made the quantum leap from the 128K to the SE, which had a hard drive, which was very exciting.

• 2:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Internal hard drive.

• 3:00Speaker 01

  I remember it because I was like, what is a hard drive? What's going on? You mean, I don't have to put in a floppy disk? That's half the fun.

• 3:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that leads me to the next question.

• 3:07Speaker 01

  Then I had to buy a PC. I'm sorry about your next question, but I need to finish this. We need to get through this together. I had to buy a PC, I thought, in order to do my work from home for my office job as a literary agent. So I struggled mightily with that platform for a long time. I was all for it, but then I learned all of the problems. Like, I'd sort of thought I had matured and come around and said, you know what? You can use this other thing. No. By 2003 or early 2004, I realized, no, thank you.

• 3:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you had a...

• 3:37Speaker 01

  It was Colton who made me go back, actually. He bought one and said, you should try this again.

• 3:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You had it deep within you on how to behave like PC?

• 3:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I had... Every gag that they came up with or that I helped to improvise on came from a deep personal pain.

• 3:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Deep inside.

• 3:51Speaker 01

  Right. I've also flown on airplanes and seen businessmen working on gigantic, non-Macintosh laptops, and I know those guys.

• 3:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you pity them. You pity them, yes.

• 3:59Speaker 01

  No, I'm with... They're my people now.

• 4:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You think robots will take over one day? Are they...

• 4:04Speaker 01

  Oh, you're talking about the Singularity.

• 4:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, you tell me.

• 4:06Speaker 01

  How dare you do that back on me?

• 4:11Speaker 01

  Well, as you know, I am mainly aware of popular culture interpretation of advanced technology.

• 4:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  And all I know is that futurist slash transhumanist slash keyboard inventor Ray Kurzweil is taking a thousand vitamins an hour in order to stay alive until the singularity can happen. And the singularity is, I believe, when artificial intelligence becomes self-aware enough to be self-replicating.

• 4:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:40Speaker 01

  And at that point, I think robots take over.

• 4:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we become their slaves.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  We become their slaves, or we're able to transfer our consciousness into a robot body.

• 4:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Leaving us unnecessary, as was the plot of The Terminator.

• 4:52Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly so. Skynet goes online.

• 4:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  As soon as Ray Kurzweil goes full cyborg. I don't know what's gonna happen. So what was your question?

• 5:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, no, so-

• 5:03Speaker 01

  Are robots gonna take over?

• 5:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so do you believe that that is the future?

• 5:05Speaker 01

  I think that it's probably more likely that robots will take over than aliens invade.

• 5:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so then-

• 5:13Speaker 01

  But that's only because aliens aren't gonna bother to get here, and the robots have an investment.

• 5:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So when the robots take over, then the aliens might come and meet the robots and think that's the sort of the organism of the Earth.

• 5:21Speaker 01

  Look, we're all gonna be in a lobster pot by then, so... Sure, maybe.

• 5:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's that episode of The Twilight Zone where, "It's a cookbook!"

• 5:30Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, to serve man.

• 5:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To serve man.

• 5:32Speaker 01

  Exactly so.

• 5:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, the aliens came and fattened us up and gave us new growing methods, and the wheat harvest was as big as ever, and everybody's happy and fat, and they didn't have to work anymore, and they shipped them off to get eaten.

• 5:44Speaker 01

  Happens soon, doesn't it?

• 5:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know what psychologists know? That what scares a child the most is not dying.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  Robots.

• 5:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no. It's not simply the act of dying or getting shot. It's getting eaten. That's why they fear big monsters, because a monster will eat them. They don't fear guns, they don't fear traps, they fear things that will eat them.

• 6:04Speaker 01

  Usually, when you're eaten, you die also.

• 6:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, yeah, that's true. That's true, but-

• 6:08Speaker 01

  But it is that particular method.

• 6:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The method of death.

• 6:11Speaker 01

  Do you think that it is a child perceiving that its existence is limited that is so scary, or the feeling that it is going to be chewed up and swallowed?

• 6:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'd have to go with the chewed up and swallowed.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  That is, that is the hallmark of being eaten.

• 6:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so what I wonder is if as adults, we capture some of that fear with aliens. Five minutes, you're telling me how much they're gonna put us in their lobster pot? Because we'll then get eaten. You didn't say those vaporizes with their ray gun? So maybe you're still a kid and you think that the biggest fear is that we're gonna be eaten by aliens.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  Of course, we're a childlike race. We're largely irrational. There are very few of us who are even stopped to contemplate our mortality and then those of us who do think we're gonna go to a special place afterwards, so therefore, we don't need to worry about what we do on this planet.

• 6:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That sums up the world.

• 6:53Speaker 01

  You have to agree with me on this, right?

• 6:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  If they ever do find us, they are so technologically advanced.

• 6:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We are worms beneath their feet.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  Unless they are extremely politically correct, they are going to. But why would they come here? We've used up all of our resources.

• 7:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  (laughing)

• 7:09Speaker 01

  We're not very smart. Maybe for comedy. Maybe they don't have comedy.

• 7:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the answer. No resources, what good are we to anybody else?

• 7:17Speaker 01

  Let me tell you-

• 7:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not even ourselves.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  Let me tell you how we're gonna handle. First step to handling alien invasion? Recall all the probes.

• 7:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  (laughing)

• 7:25Speaker 01

  Or you know what? At least stop putting plaques on them with naked men and women. Because that's gonna make us look like we're walking around naked all the time, waving hi to everybody. Do you know what I'm talking about?

• 7:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know.

• 7:36Speaker 01

  The plaques are- that's an invitation to disaster.

• 7:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For some listeners, the plaque is, he's referring to the plaque on the Voyager and on the Pioneer, the space probes that escaped the solar system. And it's got an illustration of a naked man and woman on it.

• 7:49Speaker 01

  We need to stop sending pornography out into the universe. What are they going to think of us?

• 7:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In this next clip, we have our very close friend of the show, Phil Plait. His handle is The Bad Astronomer. He joins us for a conversation on our time travel show.

• 8:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you know, the topic today is time travel.

• 8:09Speaker 02

  I'm loving it.

• 8:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not only the science of time travel, but we'll also get into all the best movies that ever portrayed it. And, cause, because our man here, Phil Plait, The Bad Astronomer, spends his, part of his life assessing how well movies capture science.

• 8:25Speaker 02

  I know, I follow him on Twitter. I'm up on it.

• 8:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Bad Astronomer.

• 8:30Speaker 03

  That's where you'll get it. It's a well-spent life, watching movies and critiquing the science, let me tell ya. Awesome.

• 8:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, let's get the science out of it. Phil, you're a trained astrophysicist, and I got you on the show not only because you review movies, but because you know some science. So, let's just talk about time travel in the world of science. So, what can you bring to the table?

• 8:50Speaker 03

  Well, it depends on what you mean by time travel. I mean, traveling into the future...

• 8:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What do you mean, "depends"? What do you mean?

• 8:55Speaker 03

  Well...

• 8:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which word did you not understand in that sentence?

• 8:59Speaker 03

  Well, there's a positive and negative, right? We all travel in time. We're going forward, you know, a minute every 60 seconds. So, we're going into the future, like it or not. You're gonna see it. But, you can travel...

• 9:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But we're trapped in the present as we move to the future.

• 9:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, but when you said that, it was the present, but now it's the past. Ooh, spooky.

• 9:18Speaker 02

  You guys really shouldn't do Hallmark cartoons. I'm just saying.

• 9:22Speaker 03

  Well, but we're traveling into the future, and if you wanted to see what it's gonna be like 100 years from now, there are ways to do that. And if you wanna see what things were like 100 years in the past, there are kinda ways to do that. But if you wanna see what the Earth was like 100 years ago, we can talk about that, too.

• 9:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, let's do it.

• 9:42Speaker 03

  All right. Well, traveling into the future, if you wanna see the distant future, there are ways to do it. Suspended animation, for example, would work, if there were some feasible way of doing it biologically.

• 9:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, we just slow down your bio-functions, so that you basically age more slowly.

• 9:57Speaker 03

  Right.

• 9:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is a common way in sci-fi movies decades ago, where they go on long trips, and they put you in some kinda suspended animation.

• 10:08Speaker 03

  Right. It takes, you know, 100 years to get from here to there, so you freeze the people, and they can wake up when they get to their destination. We don't know how to do that. You freeze somebody, they're frozen. That's bad.

• 10:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm told Walt Disney knows how to do it, right?

• 10:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, I suppose we could send his head to Alpha Centauri and see what happens.

• 10:24Speaker 02

  Bad freezer burn, fellas.

• 10:26Speaker 03

  That's true. Uh, yeah, you've got something on your nose. Oh, sorry, frostbite over your entire brain. All right. But that is, you know, possibly one way. Another way would be to travel very quickly. And according to Einstein's...

• 10:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Good old Albert.

• 10:39Speaker 03

  You know, yeah, relativity. If somebody who's moving very rapidly relative to someone on Earth would age more slowly. And so, if you were to get in a spaceship and move very close to the speed of light, you could literally travel across the galaxy, and somebody on Earth would experience 100,000 years elapsing, while you might only experience a few months elapsing. And that is time travel into the future, because if you went to the star... Poked around, planted your flag, turnaround, came back. Two hundred thousand years would have elapsed on Earth. And, and you would have only experienced a short.

• 11:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Couple of months for you.

• 11:09Speaker 03

  Fraction of that.

• 11:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But by then, everyone would have forgotten about you.

• 11:12Speaker 03

  Well, basically, everybody's dead. So, yeah.

• 11:15Speaker 02

  So, no child support.

• 11:17Speaker 03

  Ooh, yeah. Um, and yeah, no taxes. Hey, there may be some advantages to this. Uh, but the problem with that is we have no clue how to go that fast.

• 11:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I bet everyone who wants to travel to the future wants to be able to come back to the present.

• 11:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's my sense of it.

• 11:29Speaker 03

  So, really, yeah, the honest definition of time travel is being able to travel backwards in time. And, you know, I'm not.

• 11:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or, or just treat the timeline as, as an accessible dimension, like a road.

• 11:44Speaker 03

  You can get off and get back on some other place, or go back to where you were as many times as you want.

• 11:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 11:48Speaker 03

  Cloverleaf.

• 11:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 11:50Speaker 03

  A chronic, a chronological cloverleaf.

• 11:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:53Speaker 03

  Um, write that down. I'm gonna patent that and make that into a URL.

• 11:58Speaker 03

  I don't know how I feel about that. Traveling backwards in time, you know, the thing is, if you go back in time, the, the, the usual paradox is, I'd make a time machine, I'd go back in time, I'd kill my grandfather before he meets my grandmother, and I'm never born. And I, you know, and I always wonder about that.

• 12:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if you're never born, you couldn't have gone back in time to prevent them from meeting each other.

• 12:14Speaker 03

  Exactly, it's a paradox. So, it, it's impossible to happen. I always wonder about that. Why do they always say grandfather? Why don't I just go back in time and kill my father? Now, I, I liked my father, I wouldn't have any desire to do this, but.

• 12:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's why they don't portray that in film.

• 12:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, maybe, maybe.

• 12:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause it's a little more diabolical to kill your parents than.

• 12:30Speaker 03

  Oedipus time wrecks, I don't know.

• 12:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus, plus, why even kill them? All you have to do is prevent them from meeting.

• 12:35Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 12:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's all.

• 12:36Speaker 03

  If you, if they don't meet at the enchantment under the sea prom dance, right, then they'll never meet.

• 12:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Put them on different trains, then they don't meet.

• 12:43Speaker 03

  Exactly, and so, uh, there are.

• 12:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Give one of them bad breath before they encounter, you know?

• 12:47Speaker 03

  And, and there, there are other paradoxes involved. That's, that's sort of the canonical one, the one that everybody always brings up. Um, there are, there are other ones. I mean, what happens to the atoms that you're made of in the future, and you bring them back into the past? They're the same atoms existing in two different places at the same time, and that doesn't make sense.

• 13:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, because presumably, your present still exists in the present.

• 13:04Speaker 03

  Yes. So, if, if everybody in the future went back in time, suddenly, there's more people, there's more mass in the universe than there was.

• 13:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At that time.

• 13:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, at that time, and so that can't, maybe averaged over the age of the universe.

• 13:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, it's been said that in the future, they have actually invented a time machine, and the most curious historical event that has piqued people's interest is the sinking of the Titanic.

• 13:24Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 13:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, they all went back to the Titanic. To see it sinking, that's why it sank, because everybody overloaded the Titanic.

• 13:30Speaker 03

  This was my idea for a short story, in fact. The reason the Titanic sank is because nobody knew how to steer the ship, because they were all time travelers from the future.

• 13:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We'll be right back with more of the Time Capsule Show. Remember, if you'd like to hear any of these shows in its entirety, you can visit our archive page on StarTalkRadio.net. We'll be right back. Don't move.

• 14:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. You're listening to our special Time Capsule Show, highlighting the greatest hits from our past season on StarTalk Radio. Let's keep the focus on movies as we visit our time travel show. Once again, our friend Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer, helps us explore that subject. So, what did you think of Planet of the Apes?

• 14:35Speaker 03

  I love that movie. The original with Charlton Heston and Ronnie McDowell.

• 14:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They had people suspended in suspended animation, as we discussed in the first segment, because they didn't know how long, you don't want to use up your resources. And so, and then some of them died, I think, when they landed. Is that right?

• 14:50Speaker 03

  There was, there was a woman on board who dies in suspended animation. One of their, one of his fellow astronauts gets shot, and then another one gets shot and stuffed and put into a museum.

• 14:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I remember that. And you see the cotton in his eyes, yeah.

• 15:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, that was so grim.

• 15:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that's what they, because they're the damn dirty apes. So, tell me about the time travel in that. Was it, comment on its accuracy. What do you think?

• 15:11Speaker 03

  It was fine. They're, they're traveling to a different star, so they're moving very rapidly.

• 15:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, they must have gone in some loop, because they landed back on Earth but didn't know it?

• 15:20Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah.

• 15:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's not another planet. Let's make this, let's make this clear. This is not some parallel planet that had a different evolutionary track. This is Earth that he comes back to in the future.

• 15:29Speaker 03

  Right.

• 15:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And what, humans evolved back into apes? Is that?

• 15:33Speaker 03

  Well, yeah.

• 15:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Leanne, is it, does your data support this, that humans are evolving back to apes?

• 15:38Speaker 02

  Uh, I'm actually-

• 15:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Back to hairy apes?

• 15:39Speaker 02

  I'm actually not convinced of what you just said. How do we know it's not an alternate, uh, developmental track? How do we know that?

• 15:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 15:47Speaker 03

  Well, in the-

• 15:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Phil, yeah.

• 15:48Speaker 03

  There are some, there are some lines in the movie-

• 15:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mr. Movie Critic?

• 15:50Speaker 03

  So, we know it's the Earth in the end because he's at Statue of Liberty. And, and so there's some other things that indicate it's Earth. Um, there's some, there's some gotcha lines in it when they're, they're on a raft and they're going down the river and they're trying to figure out where they are. One of them looks up at the, at the sun in the sky and says, "It's a little too yellow. Do you think it's Bellatrix?" Which is a real star in Orion. And, and they're sort of misleading you, making you think they're on a different planet. Uh, and in the sequels, in Beneath the Planet of the Apes, and Battle for the Planet of the Apes, and, uh, Apes and the, Apes of the Planet. I don't even, there was like five sequels. Uh, they actually establish how, uh, there's, one of the apes comes back in time. And that's where you have to assume there's time travel. The ape goes back in time and becomes the first ape that can talk.

• 16:32Speaker 03

  And then leads the revolution, which becomes the Planet of the Earth.

• 16:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, so what you're saying is that the entire premise of that movie required backwards time travel?

• 16:43Speaker 03

  I don't think in the first movie it does.

• 16:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That they, that they thought that through?

• 16:46Speaker 03

  I, I don't think so. And in the original book, uh, it's actually-

• 16:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow, you read the books too?

• 16:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's actually, it's actually a decent book.

• 16:52Speaker 02

  He's a Renaissance fan.

• 16:52Speaker 03

  It really, yes, I still read. Um, but then this was like 20 years ago when I still read. Now I prefer to just, you know, sleep. But, uh, I, I believe, uh, they go to another planet. And it's a parallel evolution. And they come back to Earth. And the big twist is apes have taken over during the time they were gone.

• 17:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right.

• 17:09Speaker 03

  Uh, maybe not as much impactful as, you know, pounding the sand and, and screaming at the Statue of Liberty. But, uh, still, it's a decent book.

• 17:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. And so, uh, now how about Groundhog, Groundhog Day? That's a fun one. That's, that's the time travel I think we all wish we could be part of. Because you get to slightly change what happens.

• 17:27Speaker 03

  Speak for yourself.

• 17:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To ch- you get to change the past. He wakes up every morning, relives the day. But he has a memory of what happened the last time. What do you think of that?

• 17:38Speaker 03

  It's an interesting premise. It's never really explained. Uh, it's clearly not the groundhog itself because he kills the groundhog, uh, in, in a, what, he steals a truck and- Dives over the edge of a quarry and he still wakes up, uh, listening to Sonny and Cher. And you know, if you want to wake up, I've got you babe.

• 17:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You remember this much about the movie?

• 17:55Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 17:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is scary, Phil.

• 17:57Speaker 03

  It's a good flick.

• 17:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Phil, this is scary.

• 17:58Speaker 03

  Well, you know, it's, it's, his name is Phil in the movie. Uh, and so.

• 18:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The groundhog or him?

• 18:02Speaker 03

  Both. It was kind of a cool idea and you don't really ever find out how long he was in there. But he was in there long enough to be able to become a, you know, an incredible piano player at the end of the, end of the movie. And I think there was an interview, was it Rob, was it Robert Zemeckis or John Landis who directed this movie? Well, whoever. There was an interview with him saying he was actually trapped in there for years, maybe even hundreds of years.

• 18:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Long enough to be able to heck, acquire that expertise?

• 18:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 18:27Speaker 03

  And, and to me, that would be the ultimate torture to be able to, to be trapped in a, in one place like that and have to live that over and over again. It would make me crazy.

• 18:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How about Superman?

• 18:35Speaker 03

  Uh.

• 18:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Original Superman, the movie.

• 18:37Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 18:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The one where you will believe man can fly.

• 18:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, Christopher Reeve is, I, okay, I love this movie. I, nineteen seventy, whatever. It's still one of John Landis' best soundtracks. I just think it's the, it's one of the best superhero movies. It takes it, it, it just takes itself exactly the right amount of seriously.

• 18:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, Superman two was a little better, but we're referring specifically to the time.

• 18:57Speaker 03

  The time travel.

• 18:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The time reversal.

• 18:58Speaker 03

  I just want to get that out there that I like this movie. Um, he, he flies around the earth and somehow.

• 19:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Backwards.

• 19:04Speaker 03

  The earth spins the other way.

• 19:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He flies around the earth backwards from the rotation.

• 19:08Speaker 03

  And I think there was a little bit of confusion there. I think that he was supposed to be traveling so close to the speed of light that he was reversing time.

• 19:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:14Speaker 03

  But it looks like he's flying around the earth so quickly that the earth somehow gets dragged backwards and spins backwards. As if you're just spinning the earth backwards would spin backwards time.

• 19:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Leaving everyone to think, yeah, if, that if you just turn the earth backwards, that time would reverse.

• 19:26Speaker 03

  Yeah. And why doesn't he reverse time a couple of days so he has more time to fix things? And then let me tell you something, the whole reason this thing happens is because Lex Luthor is shooting two missiles in opposite directions.

• 19:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 19:36Speaker 03

  And he promises Miss Testmacher, and yes, believe me, I know this movie, that he's going to stop the missile heading towards New Jersey.

• 19:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hackensack, where her mother lives.

• 19:44Speaker 03

  Where her mother lives, that's exactly right. And so he has to stop that when he can't stop the one that hits the San Andreas Fault. That's why Lois Lane gets killed and he has to make the earth go backwards. He can't catch up to a missile, but he can fly around the earth fast enough to make it spin backwards. Hello?

• 19:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that's crazy. That's crazy.

• 19:59Speaker 03

  Still love the movie.

• 20:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus at the time, I had a girlfriend and we saw the movie together and he starts flying backwards and reverses time. And she turns to me and says, can he really do that? And I said, why didn't you ask me earlier whether a man in blue pantyhose can fly?

• 20:11Speaker 03

  Right.

• 20:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why is this the first issue that you have with the physics of the film?

• 20:16Speaker 03

  And if you ever watch A Big Bang Theory on TV, in the first episode, they go through this.

• 20:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I did not see the first episode. I have to go back to the archives.

• 20:23Speaker 03

  They're talking to somebody about this and saying, you know, can Superman fly or does he just jump?

• 20:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mmm.

• 20:28Speaker 03

  And, and, and, it, it, there's this whole thing about, she says, "Oh, well, people can't really fly." And, and, and one of the nerds actually says, "Oh, no, let's assume that." It's like, the first thing that a science nerd would actually say, "No, blah, blah, blah." And so they actually, they just sweep right past that. I love that scene. It's very funny.

• 20:43Speaker 04

  Do you want to join us for Thai food and a Superman movie marathon?

• 20:46Speaker 05

  A marathon? Wow, how many Superman movies are there?

• 20:49Speaker 04

  You're kidding, right?

• 20:52Speaker 05

  You know, I do like the one where Lois Lane falls from the helicopter and Superman swooshes down and catches her. Which one was that?

• 20:57Speaker 04

  One. You realize that scene was rife with scientific inaccuracy?

• 21:03Speaker 05

  Yes, I know, men can't fly.

• 21:05Speaker 04

  No, no, let's assume that they can.

• 21:08Speaker 04

  Lois Lane is falling, accelerating at an initial rate of 32 feet per second per second. Superman swoops down to save her by reaching out two arms of steel. Miss Lane, who is now traveling at approximately 120 miles an hour, hits them and is immediately sliced into three equal pieces.

• 21:24Speaker 04

  Unless Superman matches her speed and decelerates. In what space, sir? In what space? She's two feet above the ground. Frankly, if he really loved her, he'd let her hit the pavement. It'd be a more merciful death. Excuse me, your entire argument is predicated on the assumption that Superman's flight is a feat of strength. Are you listening to yourself? It is well established that Superman's flight is a feat of strength. It is an extension of his ability to leap tall buildings, an ability he derives from exposure to Earth's yellow sun. And you don't have a problem with that? How does he fly at night? A combination of the moon's solar reflection and the energy storage capacity of Kryptonian skin cells.

• 22:01Speaker 05

  I'm just gonna go wash up.

• 22:03Speaker 04

  I have 2,600 comic books in there. I challenge you to find a single reference to Kryptonian skin cells. Challenge accepted.

• 22:12Speaker 04

  We're locked out. Also, they're pretty good left.

• 22:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On StarTalk Radio, we've been fortunate enough to have time to sit down with some major celebrities. Here's a clip with musician Moby as he joins us to talk about music and the science behind it.

• 22:29Speaker 06

  Music is so ubiquitous, you know, it's such a normal part of our lives, but it can do so much. They play it at funerals, they play it at weddings. People play music to have sex, they play music to cry. People play music when you're trying to get armies to march into war. And what's amazing about music to me, it doesn't exist. All it is is air moving a little bit differently. But somehow, moving air a little bit differently can make someone weep, can make someone jump up and down, can make someone move across the country and cut their hair.

• 22:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what you mean there, of course, is that there's not a thing that you look at and you say, "That's music."

• 23:00Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 23:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a construct of our brain responding to moving air.

• 23:05Speaker 06

  Yeah, that's all it is. Most art forms, you can put your hand on them. You can touch a sculpture. Music, by definition, doesn't exist, and it never can exist. Like, the moment that air hits your eardrum, it's done. It's gone. For that microsecond, it affects you emotionally, and the music is gone. Because we think music exists, because we're like, "Oh, what about CDs and vinyls?" Like, those are just delivery vehicles, convenient ways of recording and storing electronic impulses that will move air a little differently.

• 23:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you say that music doesn't exist physically, yet has the greatest power over our emotions than anything anyone has ever devised? That's scary.

• 23:42Speaker 06

  That's why...

• 23:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Scary beautiful.

• 23:44Speaker 06

  That's why I'm a musician.

• 23:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When I hear your music, I'm thinking, "He might be able to compose the epic musical track for my nine-month journey to Mars." Now, if NASA said, "We're looking for that person," are you gonna run to the front of that line?

• 23:56Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah. I'm a space nerd, so basically, if NASA came to me and asked me to do anything... If they asked me to like-

• 24:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To mop the latrines?

• 24:04Speaker 06

  Yeah, mop the latrine, make coffee somewhere, I'd be happy to do that. But if they wanted me to write music for spaceflight, of course, I would like nothing more than to do that. But it does raise a bigger, nerdier question that very few people apart from me might be interested in, which is, as we go into space, do we have to carry our physical bodies around? And that's, I think, a debate within NASA as well. Like, a Mars mission, do humans have to go to Mars? Or can we send representatives to Mars? I just think there's a bigger question of what it means to be human, which I know sounds vague, but basically, we're defined by our cognition. All of our things, our skin, our eyes, our nose, our senses are what informs our cognition.

• 24:48Speaker 06

  And through technology, we have the capacity to build other things that will also inform our cognition. So that's the question, it's like, do we need to send our biological bodies into space to inform our cognition? Or can our cognition be informed technologically? And our sensory experiences are really limited, they're amazing, but our visual spectrum is pretty limited compared to what's out there.

• 25:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're practically blind.

• 25:11Speaker 06

  Yeah, and even our sense of hearing is also quite limited, so like-

• 25:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's why we bring dogs to hear things, right? And smell, right.

• 25:17Speaker 06

  So that's the other question, is like, can we go into space in a modified or augmented form that will actually like improve the experience that you're talking about?

• 25:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thanks for listening to our Time Capsule Show. We'll be back with more of our favorite clips. If you want to stay up to date with all of the latest StarTalk Radio news, visit our website at StarTalkRadio.net, or follow us on Twitter, or like us on Facebook. We'll be back with more StarTalk Radio.

• 26:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. You're listening to our special time capsule show highlighting some of our most recent shows. Actress Nichelle Nichols, better known to Trekkies as Lieutenant Uhura, also sat down with us on StarTalk Radio. And we talked about everything from Star Trek to the civil rights movement. In this next part of the interview, Nichelle Nichols reveals exactly what Martin Luther King Jr. told her about the importance of Star Trek to society. Let's see what she had to say.

• 26:39Speaker 07

  He said, "You have one of the most important roles." This is a verse. "It's non-stereotypical, it's brilliant, it's beauty, and it's intelligence, and you do it with warmth and grace." And I'm just standing there watching him, listening to him. I'm thinking, "The only visions I've seen of this man really are nightly in the news with marching and black people in the South marching and demanding their rights to sit at a-"

• 27:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lunch counter.

• 27:17Speaker 07

  ...lunch counter and coming out, being herded out and having hoses-

• 27:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Water hoses.

• 27:25Speaker 07

  -fire hoses turned on them. Dogs, attack dogs turn on them, men, women, and children. And this man, leading them and marching and the face of all of this, being arrested. Every night I ever saw him, I said, "They're gonna kill him. It won't happen past this time." But it did. And so he became this power of hope. And here I am, playing this character that I'm gonna give up. And I said to him, "Dr. King, thank you so much. I'm going to miss my co-stars." And before I could say "because," he said, "What are you talking about?"

• 28:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What are you talking about?

• 28:06Speaker 07

  And I said that I just told Gene that I'm leaving the show after the first season because I've received, and he said, "You cannot."

• 28:17Speaker 07

  I felt like that little boy who later said, "What you talking about, Will?" Because I felt like saying, "What you talking about, Dr. Martin Luther King?" But my mouth just dropped. And he said, "You cannot leave. Do you understand? It has been heavenly ordained. This is God's gift and onus for you. You have changed the face of television forever because this is not a black role. It is not a female role. Anyone can fill that role."

• 28:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a role with power and dignity.

• 28:54Speaker 07

  He said it can be filled by a woman of any color, a man of any color. It can be filled by another Klingon or...

• 29:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Some alien.

• 29:05Speaker 07

  An alien. He said, "This is a unique role in a unique point in time that breathes the life of what we are marching for: equality." He says, "Beside your chief communications officer, your fourth-in-command." I'm thinking, "Nobody told me that."

• 29:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I mean, he's paying attention to these episodes.

• 29:32Speaker 07

  He knows Star Trek is built on the Air Force.

• 29:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm, on the rankings, yes.

• 29:37Speaker 07

  Rankings, so he knew the rank. And he said, "You have no idea the esteem that we hold for you." And I'd start shivering. And I'm just looking at him and my mouth was quivering. And he said, "Beside the shelf, you have no idea the power of television. This man has shown us in the 23rd century..."

• 30:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This man, Gene Roddenberry.

• 30:05Speaker 07

  "...what started now. This man who's created this. This man has created a reality."

• 30:13Speaker 07

  And because it's in the 23rd century and you are Chief Communications Officer, fourth-in-command of a starship and going on a five-year mission where no man or woman has gone before, it means that what we are doing today is just the beginning of where we're going, just how far we're going.

• 30:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We have to make sure that that's enabled.

• 30:35Speaker 07

  You cannot leave. Besides, and then he smiles again, Star Trek is the only show that my wife Coretta and I allow our little children to stay up late and watch. And Michelle, I can't go back and tell them this, because you are their hero.

• 30:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So overnight, your life became bigger than yourself.

• 31:00Speaker 07

  Exactly.

• 31:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Your role became bigger than you.

• 31:02Speaker 07

  I couldn't think of anything for the rest of the weekend. I was just shivering. Sometimes I was furious. Sometimes I was crying. Sometimes I just sat numb and thought about it. And I went to Gene Roddenberry on wobbly legs and I walked into his office and he was behind that same desk. And Gene was a six-foot-three muscular hatchet-faced man with a wicked sense of humor and a brilliant mind. And he sat there and he looked at me and I said, "Gene, if you still want me to stay, I'll stay." And I told him the story, what had happened to with Dr. Martin Luther King. And he just looked up at me

• 31:47Speaker 07

  and didn't say anything for a long time. And he opened his desk drawer and took out my letter of resignation and handed it to me. And I looked at him, at this man, and the tears rolling down his face. And he said, "God bless Dr. Martin Luther King. Someone knows what I'm trying. Someone realizes what I'm trying to achieve."

• 32:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm getting misty eyed just listening to your story.

• 32:12Speaker 08

  I can hardly ever tell it. And he handed me my letter of resignation, which had been torn up into a million pieces from the day, from that moment I had handed it to him. He wasn't gonna accept it anyway. And, and I said, Gene, do you, do you know Dr. King? And he says, I've never met him, but I bless him.

• 32:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In this part of our time capsule show, we'll replay highlights from our conversation with Whoopi Goldberg. She shares some of her thoughts on science, celebrity, and her role in science fiction.

• 32:47Speaker 08

  My friend LeVar Burton came to see me one day.

• 32:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So he's, he was already a cast member?

• 32:52Speaker 08

  Yeah, I said, what are you doing?

• 32:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jordy, was he Jordy?

• 32:54Speaker 08

  Jordy. He said, oh, I'm doing the new Star Trek. I said, the what? Cause you know.

• 32:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Star Trek had been dead for 20 years.

• 33:00Speaker 08

  Yeah. And he said, the new Star Trek. I said, dude, you have to tell them I want to be on it.

• 33:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why?

• 33:06Speaker 08

  Because of Lieutenant Uhura.

• 33:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uhura.

• 33:08Speaker 08

  Now, when you watch Star Trek.

• 33:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The original.

• 33:11Speaker 08

  The original. What most people don't know, because they're not kind of geeky like I am, is that before Uhura, there are no black people in the future in any sci-fi.

• 33:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At all.

• 33:24Speaker 08

  At all.

• 33:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I heard a comedian, if not you, forgive me for not remembering who said this, they were worried about the future because nobody included us in that.

• 33:32Speaker 08

  Before Lieutenant Uhura, that's absolutely true.

• 33:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's hard to put your brain back in that mind state at the time because you just look at it, oh, just a good actress doing her thing.

• 33:41Speaker 08

  And now you look at it and you say, well, of course there are black people in the future, but when, what is 62 that this?

• 33:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it's 66.

• 33:48Speaker 08

  66. Think of all of the science fiction movies that predate.

• 33:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, tons, there are tons, especially the era of the 50s.

• 33:55Speaker 08

  There are not one black person anywhere.

• 33:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you saw that and you.

• 34:01Speaker 08

  Well, I saw, as a kid, I saw Lieutenant Uhura. I just assumed I was gonna be in the future. It wasn't till I got older that I recognized that before Star Trek, there was none. So I wanted to be part of that legacy.

• 34:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It had been in you for that long.

• 34:16Speaker 08

  Oh, yeah.

• 34:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And when there's no show, there's no reason to keep thinking about it. Somebody says, the show's reborn.

• 34:21Speaker 08

  Yeah.

• 34:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There it is.

• 34:22Speaker 08

  Yeah, they had the same doubts. So for a year, I didn't hear from anybody because he told them.

• 34:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They can't have taken you seriously.

• 34:29Speaker 08

  No, they didn't.

• 34:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They thought you were just messing with them.

• 34:31Speaker 08

  And so I saw him like a year later and said, you know, they never called. He said, they didn't believe me. I said, call the office right now.

• 34:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus, who walks off the Academy Award stage and said, put me in a TV show?

• 34:41Speaker 08

  Well, you know, everybody started on TV. You know, you look at Robert Redford, you look at a lot of those actors. They started on Twilight Zone.

• 34:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, with good roles, good well-written roles.

• 34:52Speaker 08

  Fantastic roles. So television has always been a great place to be. But I was always a character actor. I wasn't thinking of myself as a star because as a character actor, I could do anything.

• 35:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 35:03Speaker 08

  You know, as a star, you're limited.

• 35:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, right, because there's only one star, but there's a hundred different characters doing their thing.

• 35:07Speaker 08

  That's right. There's lots to be done. So I made an appointment with Gene Roddenberry. He said, why do you want to be on the show? And I explained to him, just as I explained to you. About a week and a half, two weeks later, I get a call and says, well, Gina's written you a part. And the character's name is Guinan, after Texas Guinan, who always greeted her patrons with the words, hello, suckers. You know, she was a great bar owner. I think the early part of the 1900s.

• 35:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bartenders are generally, they hear everyone's stories, so they have a certain wisdom. And I think if I remember your part, this is what you were.

• 35:45Speaker 08

  Yeah, and well, she was very old, very old. We're not, we're not really sure what her origins are, except that she and Q have a very rough relationship. And Q is one of those, you know, omnipresent, God figures. And so one thinks that I could have smote him if I wanted to.

• 36:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love that word.

• 36:09Speaker 08

  I, no one uses it.

• 36:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know.

• 36:11Speaker 08

  Never hear of being.

• 36:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Good one syllable words are hard to come by.

• 36:15Speaker 08

  You know.

• 36:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I will smoke you.

• 36:17Speaker 08

  Yeah, I think, you know, I think smiting is a lost art. But you know, folks are living this lifestyle.

• 36:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's the fact that they were living it is what created the buoyancy to have the resurrected shows to begin with.

• 36:32Speaker 08

  Well, because people love the idea of a society of people from different races and different styles and different...

• 36:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm glad, but I can say it's not everybody loves that idea, not in today's world.

• 36:44Speaker 08

  Well, you know, well, people will get over it. They have to because it's not like any of the races are disappearing.

• 36:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right, right. We're all here and everybody's getting more mixed.

• 36:53Speaker 08

  Yeah, and pretty much you can hardly tell who's who.

• 36:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the original Star Trek, the stories were about us. It wasn't about aliens.

• 37:02Speaker 08

  No, but see, people often don't recognize themselves. And the only way to get people to recognize themselves is to make them alien. So you have people who are blue, you have people who are silver. As it turns out, people are much more comfortable with blue and silver people than they ever are with black people, which I find extraordinary. But that's just me.

• 37:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  More of our Time Capsule show is coming up after the break. You can hear all of our latest shows by subscribing to our podcast on iTunes. While there, leave a comment and tell us what you think about the show. Our final segment of StarTalk Radio, after the break.

• 38:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. For the last hour, you've been listening to our Time Capsule. It's highlights of our favorite shows from StarTalk Radio over the past season. Now, let's revisit more of our conversation with Whoopi Goldberg.

• 38:18Speaker 08

  I love science fiction because to me it's the predictions of the future.

• 38:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 38:24Speaker 08

  I always worry because I love the movie Soylent Green.

• 38:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, that's the one where it's people?

• 38:31Speaker 08

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 38:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Spoiler alert.

• 38:33Speaker 08

  Yes, yes, and Edward G. Robinson.

• 38:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 38:37Speaker 08

  I just love it.

• 38:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But so many of those futures were apocalyptic. They were not utopian. Soylent Green, they were like melting down people and making green patties out of it to feed other people.

• 38:46Speaker 08

  Yeah.

• 38:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's creepy.

• 38:48Speaker 08

  It is creepy, but stranger things have happened and science fiction movies have sort of told us what's going on.

• 38:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what it's about. It's about going to, maybe if they make it creepy enough, you're alerted to avoid it.

• 39:00Speaker 08

  Well, you would think so, but it doesn't always happen. I mean, look at computers. You look at the computers in 1930's sci-fi or 20's sci-fi, you know, and you think, oh, really? That's never gonna happen. You'd watch the movie and then next thing you know, you're walking around with an iPad.

• 39:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right. They would have resurrected the witch burning laws if that came out even 10 years ago.

• 39:20Speaker 08

  Yeah.

• 39:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Think about it.

• 39:21Speaker 08

  Well, they tried to mess them up, you know, because now everybody's trying to catch up.

• 39:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 39:26Speaker 08

  The curse that everybody says, may you live in interesting times, you know, that's an old, supposedly an old Chinese curse. But the truth of the matter is, we do live in interesting times and interesting times have happened all the time.

• 39:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. We live in an era of interesting times. That's what it is.

• 39:40Speaker 08

  Yes, and an accelerated era because I think we're seeing in children and also in adults, an acceleration of evolution. Because little kids are born now, it seems, with an ability to connect to the computer.

• 39:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:58Speaker 08

  They know things. To me, it is a prelude to our lives.

• 40:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A window to what can be.

• 40:06Speaker 08

  Of what can be and no longer do people go, oh, come on, that's never gonna happen.

• 40:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, they don't say that anymore.

• 40:11Speaker 08

  No, because we know.

• 40:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We know it.

• 40:12Speaker 08

  It is all possible.

• 40:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Isn't that interesting? Because in the pre-moon launch era, people said, oh, the moon will never, once we started going to the moon, everything became possible in our mind.

• 40:23Speaker 08

  Yes. I'm still waiting for my jet pack, so man.

• 40:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the flying car.

• 40:27Speaker 08

  Yeah, well, no, the flying car I didn't like.

• 40:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You didn't like that, why not?

• 40:30Speaker 08

  I liked, because I wanted the control aware of all that. I wanted to just be me moving through space and landing somewhere. I want the jet pack.

• 40:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You want the jet pack.

• 40:40Speaker 08

  Yes, but I don't want it to be fueled by hydrogen.

• 40:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now you're getting picky, come on.

• 40:46Speaker 08

  Well, I, I feel that, you know, there, there should be some new discovery.

• 40:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Some new source of energy.

• 40:52Speaker 08

  Some source of energy.

• 40:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't have to slap a nuclear device on your back.

• 40:55Speaker 08

  Because what happens if you, you know, have a rough landing? Kaboom, there you go.

• 41:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There are few people in this world who need no introduction. Morgan Freeman is one of them. In this clip, we discuss his role in helping bring attention to science through his celebrity. So, let's get back to this bit about aliens and what kind of intelligence they would have. One of my great concerns is, we always think that they're the same, approximately the same intelligent as we are, intelligent as we are, so that we can have a conversation. Is there any species less intelligent than we that we can have a conversation with? I don't think so.

• 41:29Speaker 09

  I believe you two have been doing that all show.

• 41:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Morgan.

• 41:34Speaker 09

  You mean the philosophical conversation?

• 41:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, or, yeah, exactly. Not just, here's food, eat it. Are you worried when the aliens come, that they might enslave us?

• 41:42Speaker 09

  No, I'm not worried about it at all.

• 41:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why?

• 41:46Speaker 09

  Because...

• 41:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hawking's worried about it.

• 41:47Speaker 09

  Well, Hawking's in a chair.

• 41:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I don't know.

• 41:51Speaker 09

  I'm supposed to make an act.

• 41:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, he can't run? He can't turn around and run? Is that what you're...

• 41:56Speaker 09

  Can't shoot a gun.

• 41:58Speaker 09

  All right, now, you know what? I did like you, Morgan Freeman, until that comment right there, because I didn't think of it, and that was the funniest thing said all show.

• 42:10Speaker 09

  I don't, I don't think, personally...

• 42:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 42:15Speaker 09

  That we need fear the universe. Right. Or, we, you know, I, yea though I walk through the valley, I feel no evil, but I'm the baddest thing in the world.

• 42:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a good point.

• 42:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That, that would be fair in me. So, okay, so when the aliens come, we will put you forward.

• 42:34Speaker 09

  Well, you know, listen, we don't go out there with, you know, the, yo...

• 42:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's, he's doing, let the record show, he's doing the Vulcan sign.

• 42:41Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 42:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Live long and prosper. How do you know that's not go, you know, F off?

• 42:44Speaker 09

  Well, because...

• 42:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To an alien.

• 42:47Speaker 09

  As long as you got an open hand, I think it's universal that, yo, I'm, you know, I don't mean you any harm.

• 42:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I just want to clear out the alien part of our discussion before the break. Just to, just to, the aliens, if they come and you're gonna like say hi to them and you think they're gonna be nice.

• 43:05Speaker 09

  No, I don't know what they're gonna be, but I don't, I'm not gonna imagine that they're gonna be hostile. It's just as easy to imagine that they're going to be beneficent, that they're going to be just people out exploring like we would do.

• 43:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, but our first explorers were not beneficent, were they?

• 43:24Speaker 09

  Huh?

• 43:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They were like totally tearing up the places they... Oh, you mean the explorers here on Earth? On Earth, yeah, yeah.

• 43:31Speaker 09

  Well, the Polynesians did a lot of exploration, I don't know if they killed everybody they met.

• 43:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's true, that's true. Well, they had to be just Northern Europeans.

• 43:39Speaker 09

  Well, you know, it's people with hot blood.

• 43:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hot blood, hot blood. So this segment, I want to talk about the end.

• 43:46Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 43:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The end of the universe, the end of life. You know, the universe is just gonna expand forever.

• 43:52Speaker 09

  Says who?

• 43:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Forever, the data say that, that's what I'm saying.

• 43:56Speaker 09

  The data said that we knew all of the, all of the matter, we had already mapped the universe and we knew what all the matter was until the advent of the Hubble telescope and all of a sudden, oop, wait a minute, we were wrong.

• 44:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think you want to be wishful that the universe goes through cycles, is that what I feel that?

• 44:13Speaker 09

  I don't want to be wishful, but I think that's a usable...

• 44:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It could have worked, it's just not, all the data don't show that, because if we expand forever, we continue to get cold and the temperature of the universe, which is now three degrees Kelvin, will approach zero degrees and closer and closer and all physical processes in the universe will wind down. And as it winds down, there'll be no life, no stars.

• 44:37Speaker 09

  You're holding forth here with some stuff that doesn't sound right to me. For instance, all of these stars, they're burning hot.

• 44:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 44:45Speaker 09

  I don't care where they go, they're still gonna burn hot.

• 44:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, they run out of fuel and one day they stop burning.

• 44:48Speaker 09

  No, no, no, no, no, no, no, they're being born every day.

• 44:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but...

• 44:51Speaker 09

  Every day.

• 44:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then they're being born out of gas that is not in the star and one day you run out of gas. So the last set of stars that made out of the last set of gas, when they burn out, that's all she wrote. And the stars will burn out one by one in the night sky and what started out as a starry night will become an abyss of darkness.

• 45:11Speaker 09

  I'm gonna use the...

• 45:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Have a nice day.

• 45:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thanks for listening to our best of Time Capsule show. Hope you've enjoyed this past hour. And if you'd like to hear it again, or listen to any other shows that were featured in the Time Capsule, or any other shows during all of our previous seasons, just visit our website, StarTalkRadio.net. StarTalk Radio is brought to you in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation. From me and the entire StarTalk Radio team, we wish you a happy new year and hope you can join us for an exciting 2012. And remember, as always, to keep looking up.