Cosmic Queries - Nerd Olympics with John Eric Goff

Do athletes use artificial intelligence? On this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-hosts Gary O’Reilly & Chuck Nice answer patron questions about the Olympics and have a nerd fight with physics professor and martial artist John Eric Goff.

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.

• 0:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk Sports Edition. Neil deGrasse Tyson here, your personal astrophysicist. I got with me Gary Reilly. Gary? Hey Neil. All right, he's the one and only former professional athlete among us, okay? So you give authenticity to this program. I just have to remind people every now and then of that fact. And I got Chuck, of course. How you doing, man? Hey buddy. Always good to have you here. Clearly not a professional anything, so... Professional comedian! No, I just get paid to do that. I am not professional at all.

• 0:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I didn't know you could distinguish those two cases. Today, we're continuing our Olympic spirit, and it's gonna be cosmic queries about Olympic sports. And our studio guest is Professor Eric Goff, not a stranger to StarTalk. Eric, welcome back to StarTalk.

• 1:17Speaker 01

  Glad to be with y'all. Very glad to be back.

• 1:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you are a professor of physics, the University of Lynchburg, Virginia.

• 1:23Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But what I wonder is, your particular expertise of many, just in the general sports world, being a physicist, physics and everything, but in particular, and why we have you on this program, is your expertise in the martial arts.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And in particular, a black belt in karate. And I'm thinking, man, how did you originally become Chair of the Department? Was it a threat? Wow, look at that. Ah ha! Was it a karate threat? What? You know, I mean, I think folks in the physics- There is no fear in this dojo, and I will also be the Chair of this Department! Well, we'll get to that in a minute. Just you're author of the book Gold Medal Physics. I love it. It's just bringing science to where people want it and need it. Um, in, uh, in high-performance competition. Uh, this is, it's just great to have you here.

• 2:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and this Cosmic Curious, we'll get to the questions in a minute, but I just want to, uh, just sort of get some, some foundational information out there. How many other physics, black belt karate people do you know?

• 2:40Speaker 01

  Um, the only one I ever knew of, uh, was Roddy McNair, who was on the 86 Challenger, um, unfortunately. Um, but I, I'm not, I'm not that familiar with too many other, uh, people who've studied physics and, uh, and, and martial arts. My second book is the Physics of Krav Maga, which I've, I've really gotten into recently. I, I really like Krav Maga. That, that's a fun thing to do.

• 3:06Chuck Nice?

  Well, cause you get to beat, see karate, you don't beat people up. Krav Maga is the whole point.

• 3:13Gary O'Reilly?

  That's why it's not in the Olympics.

• 3:15Chuck Nice?

  The whole point is to beat people up.

• 3:18Speaker 01

  We're not gonna see Krav Maga in the Olympics for a while, I'm afraid.

• 3:20Gary O'Reilly?

  No. Can you imagine the destruction if Krav Maga were in the Olympics?

• 3:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so what's going on in Tokyo? Are we getting, no, there've been combat sports in the Olympics, like forever, you know, starting out with wrestling. We've got boxing. We've had judo. So what karate, you're telling me has never been in the Olympics before Tokyo?

• 3:40Speaker 01

  So karate, I guess, is in there the first time this year, and I, I don't think it's permanent. I believe this is a, you know, it's a trial. They're gonna see what it's like.

• 3:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's an exhibition kind of thing. Okay.

• 3:50Speaker 01

  You know, so there's been a lot of qualifying going on and, and I've had a chance to watch some of that and it's, it's, it's pretty impressive to see all the, the various, uh, movements in karate now getting into the Olympics. Uh, it's gonna be fun to watch.

• 4:04Chuck Nice?

  So is karate when you're competing, is it full contact like game of death with Bruce Lee and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar? Do you leave a big footprint on somebody's chest and that lets you know that you won?

• 4:19Speaker 01

  When you're training, you might have that. I don't know that you're gonna see that much in the Olympics. In fact, I think the American audience might find karate to be the more tame of the three martial arts when they're looking at judo and taekwondo. They're gonna see some of the sparring in karate. They'll have the hand pads and the foot pads, but they won't have headgear on like you're gonna see in taekwondo. They're not gonna have the chest protectors like in taekwondo. So there, you're really going after points. It's not gonna look like a Bruce Lee movie or anything like that.

• 4:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, so you're saying taekwondo is in the Olympics?

• 4:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so why is karate the Johnny come lately here? What was it about it that made it not a candidate as early as these other martial arts have been?

• 5:09Speaker 01

  But part of the competition will be katas. I mean, these are very nice, elegant choreographed sequence of movements with a lot of...

• 5:18Chuck Nice?

  Almost like a dance.

• 5:19Speaker 01

  It will look like a dance in some respects. There's a lot of power, speed, agility, knowing the right breathing techniques. I mean, it's really gonna be interesting to watch these things, but they're not fighting. They're practicing all the moves that they need whenever they would be fighting, but they're doing this in a sequence of moves that kinda get them used to. If I throw one punch, I need to follow it with another, that type of thing that they use in sparring.

• 5:48Chuck Nice?

  Because your kata is like a discipline, right? I mean, it's the same all the way through each time and you have to kinda get that down before you, you know, before there's any combat, right?

• 5:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then there are about 102 of these that the athletes at the Olympics are gonna be choosing from and they're gonna be performing two of them. So they're gonna be judged on the quality of the technical points, the athletic points that they're gonna be earning. I mean, that's a big part of it.

• 6:13Gary O'Reilly?

  Do you have an unfair advantage as a physics professor, being a black belt karate?

• 6:19Speaker 01

  A nerd fighting? You know?

• 6:22Gary O'Reilly?

  No, no, no, no. You know exactly what forces are in play.

• 6:27Chuck Nice?

  Nerd fight!

• 6:28Gary O'Reilly?

  There you go. Do you not have that advantage?

• 6:33Speaker 01

  I know, yeah, yeah, when I'm being pinned to the ground, I know exactly how much force is on my neck and what angle my arms being held back and what torque is being exert on my shoulder and all that kind of stuff. What rotation rate when I get hip tossed. I mean, all these things are really fun to know when, when the instructor's explaining something. Cause then I have in my mind, you know, oh, okay, of course I'm going to do this with my arms because that's going to benefit my angular momentum. And these types of things that we think about in physics, um, does it help me do them better? I, I don't know. You know, I'm, I'm still working on getting the middle aged body a little bit more rest felt.

• 7:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, now, these hundred moves that you said, is any of them, uh, do they include wax on, wax off?

• 7:20Speaker 01

  Well, they will have some that'll look like that. I mean, you will see some movements that are going to look like they are doing these types of things. They're going to, you know, have some very rhythmic punches. They'll be doing some jumps and some, you know, attacks down to the ground. Uh, they're going to be doing a lot of kicks and stuff, but of course they're not, you know, they're not fighting anyone and they're being judged for this. So that, you know, there will be a subjective element to the, to the scoring there.

• 7:44Gary O'Reilly?

  Can you get away with intuitive moves? So you talk about, there's this choreographed routine for each fighters. Can all of a sudden you see something and intuitively, I know exactly how to undo this set of moves and to your advantage?

• 7:59Speaker 01

  Sure. I mean, like one of the, uh, qualifying matches I saw between these two very talented ladies that were sparring. Um, you know, one, one gets in close and she's got an enormous amount of flexibility and all of a sudden does almost a split with the leg coming straight up, hitting her opponent in the head. And I think that surprised her opponent that that in close that she could, you know, almost do a, a vertical split and get, and score a headshot, get, you know, the, the, the Epon, the three points for the, the scoring a hit like that.

• 8:33Chuck Nice?

  By the way, if you ever get a chance to go on YouTube and check out the karate just practice moves, that one of the things they do is that split, straight up in the air, just like Eric described, but then they kick the air multiple times, just up and it is unbelievable. They pull the knee down and go straight back up into that full split position and they pull the knee down and do that while maintaining a straight leg in the split all the way through. It is unbelievable.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  And look, well, look at the planted foot. You're gonna see it pivoted back. I mean, they know exactly how to maintain the balance. There's no center mass going over the heel or anything like that. It's perfect technique. Yep.

• 9:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Eric, suppose in one moment, there's a move I could do on an opponent that is not from the karate portfolio. Is it counted as illegal?

• 9:38Speaker 01

  So you can be penalized. And one thing that's that has been taking place during the qualifying rounds is they have video replays. And what the coach can actually challenge a move. And if they look at the replay and the people who are judging the replay have a lot of martial arts experience, if they see that you've done something untoward, you could be penalized for that. They can take a point away.

• 10:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Given the physics of the situation, is there a karate move that you find to be particularly devastating because of how thoroughly it exploits the laws of physics?

• 10:09Speaker 01

  Yes, moving. If you simply get out of the way, I mean, one of the things you notice in judo is there's a lot of grappling and they want maximum efficiency for a minimum amount of effort. And that the whole philosophy there is you don't try to, you know, wrestle, you don't, you don't try to grapple with a much powerful opponent. You evade and then you use the opponent's momentum. You, you try to get him off balance. Simply evading is a very powerful technique in martial arts. Getting out of the way.

• 10:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That means you need reflexes.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 10:44Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 10:45Speaker 01

  You need fast, fast switching muscles, yes.

• 10:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A, a little thing called reflexes there.

• 10:50Gary O'Reilly?

  So you need to, you need to be able to read a situation. So if there's a movement, a slight movement of a shoulder or a knee, you know that equals a certain move.

• 11:00Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 11:00Gary O'Reilly?

  So you've got to be absolutely intuitive with body language and understanding what that means coming to you.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  And when you're watching the karate, the, the sparring, watch the, the lead hand and watch how they're, you know, they're wiggling and they're trying to get their opponent to, to, to move in or out at a given, you know, they're, they're.

• 11:18Gary O'Reilly?

  Like, like a fishing lure.

• 11:20Speaker 01

  They're feigning the movement and then all of a sudden watch, you know, the, the front hand come up or the back leg or something's going to happen very quickly. And you're going to, they're, they're going to call a point and you're not even going to have seen it that quickly. You know, a, a kick's going to be landing on the, on the, the chest or something and you're just not going to see it. And then they'll do a replay or something where you can see it a little better.

• 11:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Eric, that reminds me, I used to, uh, in my years, I wrestled, uh, two different, uh, blind opponents. And, uh, there's a different, a slightly different rule where, uh, when you begin, you begin connected to each other rather than separate. And so that's fine, you know, because you, you land there anyway, uh, when you're, when you sort of lock up. But I, I noticed that I could not move any of my muscles without my opponent, again, who was blind, responding to what I might do next for having sensed what my muscle tension and relaxing was doing in any given moment. So.

• 12:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I mean, if, if you take away your major information gatherer, your eyes, I mean, imagine how much more, you know, cutie you're going to have in your hearing and your. Your touch and other.

• 12:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, what you rely on at that point. We almost have to take a break, but I want to just go into this transition. I remember Ronald McNair, as you had said at the beginning of this segment, as one of, of course, he was one of the Challenger astronauts. He was at MIT, if I remember correctly. He published an article for the American Journal of Physics.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  Physics of Karate, yeah.

• 12:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Physics of Karate. And what I remembered reading that, and it was just so simple and brilliant. So what he did was, he took stroboscopic frames of a karate punch. Okay, so when you begin a karate punch, your fist has zero velocity. When you end your karate punch.

• 13:15Speaker 01

  It has zero.

• 13:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fist has zero velocity, otherwise your fist keeps flying off your arm. So somewhere in there, your fist has maximum velocity. And you can look at the strobe to determine that. And he'd simply said, make contact with your opponent in that spot.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, where you want maximum fist speed. And unlike that, you know, the barroom brawl, where you punch it and you hit the person at the extent of your arm, that's not when your hand's going the fastest.

• 13:42Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 13:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, Eric, how many people know this? Is it intuitive to them? Because you know the physics of it, and that kind of helps, getting back to Gary's point.

• 13:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, if you read the Physics of Karate, I do that very same thing in there. I talk about the exact same thing, where there's a misconception that when your arm is completely straight, that's like your punching distance. So that's, you know, when you're gauging your opponent, and it's not. You know, it's in that halfway point where you, you know, your velocity's, you know, reached its maximum magnitude before it comes down again as your arm is stretching out. You know, that's where your high kinetic energy is for making a punch. And I, you know, whenever you watch a lot of movies, you'll often see, you know, in the choreographed stage fighting, you know, some of these punches are landed with a long arm and stuff, instead of being more in close. So that's where it starts to look a little fake.

• 14:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, to you, everyone else, "Yeah, that's legit." You know, if they don't know the physics of it. Yeah, so you want to hit at a person or make contact somewhere between the beginning and the end where speed is maximum, and you maximize your momentum and your kinetic energy. Bada bing.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bada bing. When we come back in the next segment, we're going to pick up questions from our fanbase, from our Patreon fanbase. Uh, directed, right at Eric Goff. When it's your turn.

• 15:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back, StarTalk Sports Edition. Gary O'Reilly. Hey. All right, Chuck Nice. Hey, hey. And we've got an old friend of the show, Eric Goff, who's written, he's a physics professor, talking about sports. That is, that is StarTalk made in heaven, right there. And we are Cosmic Queries, and we're about to go to our bank of questions with people asking about the physics of all kinds of sports, especially since we've got the Olympics upon us. So, uh, who's got the first question there?

• 16:01Gary O'Reilly?

  All right, I'll jump straight in.

• 16:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do it.

• 16:03Gary O'Reilly?

  Right, Mari Elsa, hopefully I'm pronouncing that right. A question from my nine-year-old swimmer. Can you explain in simple terms why freestyle, or if you prefer front crawl, is the fastest style of swimming, according to the laws of physics?

• 16:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that right? I didn't know that. Cause I, I kept thinking, I kept thinking, is there some other swimming stroke that no one has invented yet that is faster than freestyle? And that ought to be allowed if in fact it's called freestyle. So Eric, did you act, actually calculate that this is the fastest thing we can do in the water?

• 16:40Speaker 01

  Well, the simplest way to think about it is it's just a matter of drag. Um, you know, you stick your hand out the window, you feel a lot of air drag on your hand. Now you go into water, you're...

• 16:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, out the window of a moving car.

• 16:53Speaker 01

  Of a moving car, yep.

• 16:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I can, I can open the window of my bedroom and I don't feel a drag.

• 16:59Chuck Nice?

  Unless it's a windy day.

• 17:01Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 17:02Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 17:02Speaker 01

  So you go into water, you're like eight hundred times denser, you know, than air. I mean, you're, you're looking at something that's you're pushing against as you're trying to move through the water. So the front crawl, it's faster than the backstroke, the butterfly, the breaststroke, it's faster than any of these strokes. Mainly, you're, you're orienting your body in such a way as to turn it each time you're making a stroke. Whenever you're doing the butterfly or the breaststroke, you've got the front part of your body hitting into the water with each stroke. And this front crawl, the freestyle, freestyle, you're constantly pulling on the water. I mean, every time you're moving your arm back, you're pulling on the water. You're doing this a little bit with the backstroke, but the thing with the backstroke is when you're laying on the back of the water,

• 17:48Speaker 01

  you can't get your arm back close to your body like you can on the front stroke. So you get a little bit more drag with the backstroke. Um, you know, that's the only other, the four strokes that you can get this, you know, the long axis of your body really.

• 18:02Chuck Nice?

  Oddly enough, oddly enough, the backstroke, when you're watching it, it looks like they're going faster because their shoulders are square and they're creating, they're moving the water. So that little like, uh, like little wake that they're making, it makes it look like they're actually moving faster. You can see the movement in the water, but the freestyle, they're, they're slicing, they're slicing through the water and they're splashing. So the backstroke actually looks like, like they're going faster.

• 18:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It looks smoother, it looks smoother.

• 18:36Chuck Nice?

  Smoother, yes.

• 18:37Gary O'Reilly?

  So they, it's basically it's less surface area in contact with the water as they push through with each.

• 18:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you know, whenever you're doing these, you're, you're twisting a little bit too. And, and of course, the main thing your legs are doing is keeping your body, you know, parallel to the surface of the water. That, that, that's the main thing that your legs are doing in addition to a little bit of propulsion.

• 18:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, but you've. But Gary, I don't think it's just your surface area. It's, it's the surface area that is plowing through the water that matters here for the drag. Cause obviously your whole body is touching the water.

• 19:07Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 19:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that's surface area.

• 19:09Gary O'Reilly?

  If you're not keeping them parallel to the surface of the water and they drop down, then you've got more drag.

• 19:15Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 19:16Gary O'Reilly?

  The point you made is more articulate, you articulated better than I did.

• 19:20Chuck Nice?

  So, let me ask this then, based on Gary's point just there. There was something called the Burke off blast off years ago. And he was dolphin kicking underwater with his hands in front of him Superman style.

• 19:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yep.

• 19:36Chuck Nice?

  And he stayed underwater and was dusting, well, I can't say dusting because it was water.

• 19:44Chuck Nice?

  But he was just.

• 19:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I left you in my molecules, my water molecules.

• 19:49Chuck Nice?

  Exactly. I left you in my water. So, and there wasn't a wake, so yeah, I left you in my water, my molecules.

• 19:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not in my wake, not in my dust.

• 19:57Chuck Nice?

  Not in my wake, I didn't dust you, but I left you in my, in my water molecules. And so, why is that so, such an effective means of propulsion? And why did they stop that from happening?

• 20:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and I want to add to that, just to add, just because while we're attacking you, Eric.

• 20:19Gary O'Reilly?

  Because we like that, we're friendly.

• 20:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In a freestyle event, who the hell cares what stroke you're doing? Why would they outlaw a stroke that gives you an advantage in a freestyle event?

• 20:33Speaker 01

  I, I, I agree. And, I mean, now we're getting into the topic of, well, what kind of suit can you wear? And, and, you know, you know, are there other kind of advantages you can get from technology and stuff? But as far as just the actual stroke, I think you should be able to do whatever you want if it's actually a freestyle.

• 20:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Otherwise, they'll just call it the crawl, the crawl race, the Australian crawl, whatever.

• 20:55Speaker 01

  And everybody picks this, this crawl because that is the fastest strokes.

• 21:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, but you agree with Chuck that this little dolphin kick is faster than the crawl?

• 21:05Speaker 01

  I mean, if you can, if you can stay underwater, I mean, now you're, you're, you're not getting the energy loss from the slap, you know, the slapping of the water, you know, you're not getting the drag of your hand through the air. I mean, if you can do something to propel in the water, but I mean, obviously you can't hold your breath for very long. I mean, you're going to have to come up for air at some point, but I mean.

• 21:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but just come up and then go back down and continue it, so what?

• 21:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean.

• 21:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  I, I, I'm all for it. If, if you can, I mean, if you can walk on the bottom of the. The pool and that's by all means do it. Whatever you can.

• 21:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Run on the bottom of the pool.

• 21:39Speaker 01

  Whatever you can do, that's gonna be a heck of a lot of drag, but you know, it's not gonna win you any races. But I'm, I mean, as long as it's freestyle, if you're just, whatever it is you're doing in the water, I, I think that should be fine.

• 21:51Chuck Nice?

  By the way, if you're walking on the bottom of the pool, that's called the hippo.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 21:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, but if you're walking on the top of the pool, that's called the Jesus, right?

• 22:01Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that's great.

• 22:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, let's go to the next question. Who's got it? Gary, you got this one?

• 22:06Gary O'Reilly?

  All right, Sam Couch. Here we go, Sam. Uh, my question for this topic, what is the most physically demanding Olympic sport? And what is the most mentally demanding sport in your opinion? I have so much respect for all of these athletes and their incredible athletic abilities. But I have always wondered what sport takes the biggest physiological toll on the human body?

• 22:29Chuck Nice?

  Well, they're both the same sport, both the same sport, and it's ribbon dancing.

• 22:38Gary O'Reilly?

  Any particular color ribbon?

• 22:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like fuchsia.

• 22:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Eric, this question is for you, not for Chuck.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, an easy answer might be the decathlon. I mean, you've got 10 events, you gotta do the 100 meter, the 400 meter, the 1500 meters. You're almost having to do a mile. And then you've got high hurdles, you gotta throw a javelin, you gotta go the discus, you got a shot put. Let's see, there's a pole vault, high jump, and what's the last one, long jump? I mean, all these different things are gonna have to be, you know, requiring different, uh, athletic abilities. And mentally, I mean, you know, you gotta go from, okay, now I'm gonna have to sprint 100 meters to now I gotta pace myself over 1500 meters. If I could imagine doing some of those, I can't imagine running the marathon right now.

• 23:34Speaker 01

  You know, marathon's over 42 kilometers. What is that? A little bit more than 26 miles?

• 23:41Speaker 01

  Uh, you do a lap on the track, it's 400 meters. So imagine, you know, you're running a lap on the track, now you gotta do 104 more.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  I mean, it's, it's, it's the type of thing that requires a lot of training and

• 23:56Chuck Nice?

  But wait a minute, the marathon is, is the marathon in the decathlon?

• 24:00Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no, it's another standalone event.

• 24:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's, he's listing sports that.

• 24:06Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 24:06Gary O'Reilly?

  I mean, you've got, I mean, the other, there's a number of sort of thoughts in my mind. The triathlon would be one to throw in there, the swim, the ride, the run.

• 24:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that in the Olympics? Is the triathlon in the Olympics?

• 24:18Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, they, they like their athletes to suffer.

• 24:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But is it, but is it the Ironman triathlon?

• 24:23Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Yeah, cuz, yeah, you can run all different kinds of tries, but the Ironman is.

• 24:30Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, the Ironman's the big deal.

• 24:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is the Ironman in the Olympics? That's what I'm asking.

• 24:34Gary O'Reilly?

  Uh, I don't know if it's a marathon that they run.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  I don't think it's a marathon.

• 24:38Gary O'Reilly?

  But they do it, they run a triathlon.

• 24:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 24:41Gary O'Reilly?

  Straight and back to back.

• 24:42Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, but if it ain't the Ironman, I'm not, I'm, I'm not impressed.

• 24:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 24:45Gary O'Reilly?

  It's not, if it's not.

• 24:46Chuck Nice?

  And, and, and this is, and wait a minute, this is coming from, from a guy who's never even run for a bus.

• 24:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what I'm saying. This is a guy who eats potato chips on the couch, saying, I'm not impressed.

• 24:56Gary O'Reilly?

  You always cite wrestling as a, a physically demanding sport. And we did a show recently and we had Dr. Kevin Stone on who went through the physiology of a, a 2,000 meter rowing race and how your body is destroyed physically.

• 25:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's like every muscle, every stroke.

• 25:17Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah. And what happens to get you from a point in the race where you've got nothing to the finish line is all about you. And it's all about what you have in your head, in your soul.

• 25:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What you can summon.

• 25:30Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes, absolutely. So, and something like that for me, I mean, I, I don't know that we're gonna have the definitive answer, but there's events like that that just have you sat in awe.

• 25:41Speaker 01

  I'll give you one that you're not gonna see as much when you're watching on television, that's water polo. Imagine you've got four eight-minute quarters and you cannot touch the bottom of the pool.

• 25:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Eric, I think I was like 25 before I learned, what? They're not just walking on the bottom of the pool.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  They're not just walking.

• 26:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was like. I'm a city kid, I don't have much pool experience, right?

• 26:04Chuck Nice?

  Oh, you're talking about that. I thought you said Marco Polo.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  No, that's when they get out at the end of the quarter, but I mean, they're doing the egg beater kick the whole time. I mean, they have to stay, you know, with their arms up, they're, you know, constantly engaging their core, constantly kicking, catching, throwing, I mean, and you don't see it as much because you're not really, you know, watching all that. Of course, now they've got.

• 26:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You just see the head moving along the surface of the water.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  And then, of course, now they've got cameras.

• 26:32Chuck Nice?

  And then sometimes they come up like, when they make their moves, they come up like waist level.

• 26:37Speaker 01

  They propel upward, yep.

• 26:39Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that's crazy. Okay.

• 26:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like Poseidon style, right? Poseidon rises up for the shot.

• 26:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very good. My only point, Gary, was when I wrestled, I've never been more tired in anything I've ever done than after I have wrestled. On a point where after one match, I could not hold my pee. And there's no other sport I've ever done for which that happened.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  Tell us there's no tape of this in Russia somewhere.

• 27:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, now that I'm well known, that's that same matter says, here Neil peed, you know, at the end of it, it's a little marker, historical marker.

• 27:13Gary O'Reilly?

  See, what this question has done is give us all, I think, an unbelievable respect for sports that maybe we hadn't considered.

• 27:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 27:22Gary O'Reilly?

  Of why, for me, the Olympics is the greatest show on earth. Why it brings the best of the best and it challenges you just not on a physical level, just not on natural skill level, but your stuff, your inner real stuff.

• 27:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Eric, we debated among us many times, are there any sports that would be the top of our list of removing from the Olympics? For them not being sort of categorized the way other sports are. And one of my first criteria was, would the Greeks have ever drawn it on the side of one of their urns? And so the esports, I can't picture them putting someone crouched over a computer terminal. That's one of the things on the thing. But another, but another important one was, if the sport does not produce sweat.

• 28:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Should it be in the Olympics? And all the sports you mentioned, of course, are sweat inducing, up and down.

• 28:20Speaker 01

  And there's always been controversy about judged sports. You know, how much subjectivity.

• 28:25Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I hate them.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  You run 100 meters, it's who got from point A to point B the fastest. I mean, the other ones that, you know, I mean, in these karate, you know, events are going to have the katas that are going to be judged. So, I mean, they're going to be, you know, quite a bit of subjective determination in the medals.

• 28:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they're going to figure that out. I mean, it's a new sport, so if there are any-

• 28:47Speaker 01

  But the judges are martial arts experts. These are not just people off the screen. I mean, they're going to know what to look for and stuff, so.

• 28:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they're going to say, sweep the leg.

• 28:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We've got to take a quick break. When we come back, our third and final segment, we'll get some more questions from our Patreon members, because they want to know about the physics of sports, right now in the Olympic season. We'll see you in a moment.

• 29:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back, StarTalk Sports Edition, a cosmic queries on the physics of Olympic sports. And we've got the one and only Eric Goff, author of Gold Medal Physics. Did I get the title of that correct, Derek?

• 29:45Speaker 01

  Yes, that's correct.

• 29:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gold Medal Physics. You know, that's, you need some, need some brains in the middle of what you're doing with your brawn and your speed or whatever else. And he's got it. Plus, he's got a black belt in karate. That, put that on your resume, on your business card, okay? PhD physics, black belt in karate. That's all you have to put, and you're good to go.

• 30:05Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, your students don't give you any problems.

• 30:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I had a problem at all. So Eric, can we find you on social media?

• 30:13Speaker 01

  John Eric Goff is my public Facebook page. I'm still a little bit of a dinosaur on the social media front, but it's coming along.

• 30:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, alright, well, and the more fans you get on it, the more they'll egg you on in that direction. Yeah. So John Eric Goff, Facebook, excellent. And Chuck, you're still going at Chuck Nice Comic?

• 30:35Gary O'Reilly?

  Thank you, yes.

• 30:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I did confirm that, yes, I do follow you. For a while there, I was wondering, do I follow this man? Let me guess, you started this morning? No! Just so you could say that right now! And Mr. MyThreeLeftFeet on Twitter?

• 30:50Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, MyThreeLeftFeet, that's it.

• 30:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got it, you got it. So let's get back to our Patreon questions, and who's up next? Who's got it?

• 30:59Gary O'Reilly?

  Alright, okay, let's go with the next Patreon question.

• 31:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But just before you do that, it occurred to me, in my background here, the audio, there is a ticker tape parade moving up Broadway. Oh, for the essential workers! Yeah, there's essential workers, first responder workers- First responders. -in celebration of coming out of Covid, because the city is basically open now. And so it's a ticker tape parade, which is reserved for heroes. Heroes, and in the old days, politicians, but nowadays, politicians, no one thinks of them as heroes, but the people who put their lives at risk in the service of others are still respected. And, and if you win the World Series. Right. Same thing, right? Same my life, the Yankees won, it's the same. It's the same thing.

• 31:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if you hear that in the background, that's why. The Canyon of Heroes. The Canyon of Heroes, lower Broadway.

• 31:52Gary O'Reilly?

  Essential workers, well deserved.

• 31:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, yes, you got it. Okay, what do you have for us, Gary?

• 31:56Gary O'Reilly?

  Alright, my question is, are there unique ways that athletes, especially Olympic athletes, train their minds not to choke when literally the whole world is watching them?

• 32:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, tell us about that choke factor, Eric. Do you get into that as well? What's the physics of choking?

• 32:15Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, focus is obviously what you have to do. I mean, you have to be able to tune out the crowd noise, the other events that might be taking place. The best example I ever saw of this was Michael Phelps and the death stare. You know, getting up to the pool and just this- I'm gonna kill you look on his face before he jumped into that pool. And of course, whenever you've you've got to do some kind of pre comp pre-competition routine, you know, you're you're going through a checklist in your mind of what you're about to do, or you're thinking of other things. All kinds of relaxation techniques are going to be available to athletes in modern training. So, you know, they're going to have to find what works best for them whenever they get out onto the the field there.

• 32:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's it's it's have a death stare that works when you're a good swimmer.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  It sure does.

• 33:03Chuck Nice?

  I'm telling you, water.

• 33:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, if you're best in the world, it works every time.

• 33:08Chuck Nice?

  Hey, water, you're going down.

• 33:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But but wait, but so are are are there some sports, would you say, need your mental focus more than others? For example?

• 33:20Speaker 01

  Well, if I was Simone Biles and I was about to hop up on a balance beam, I'd want to make sure that, you know, I'm very focused on where I'm walking.

• 33:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You'd think, yeah, okay.

• 33:30Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah. I mean, there's there's certain sports, Neil, where there's, pun intended here, choke points. So golf is part of the Olympics, tennis. Those those you're serving for the match.

• 33:42Chuck Nice?

  How is golf a part of? How is golf a part of?

• 33:46Gary O'Reilly?

  Hey, hey, hey.

• 33:47Chuck Nice?

  I'm a messenger.

• 33:49Gary O'Reilly?

  Messenger.

• 33:50Chuck Nice?

  You gotta be. First of all, I did not know that. Secondly, I am pissed off like you can't believe. Okay, a sport where you get in a car and drive to the next thing you gotta do? Are you kidding? And a dude, some other dude caddies your badge for you? Are you kidding me?

• 34:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ladies and gentlemen, Chuck Nice just blew a gasket.

• 34:17Chuck Nice?

  I am, I can't believe this.

• 34:20Speaker 01

  Maybe the caddies should be the ones being awarded the medals.

• 34:23Gary O'Reilly?

  There you go.

• 34:24Chuck Nice?

  No, yes, and no sport where you actually where the people who play the sport, okay, aside from softball, no sport where there is a significant portion of the population that plays the game so they can drink. That that's ridiculous.

• 34:44Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay, Chuck, all right, I'm gonna press. Chuck blew a gasket. Are you, would you want in the equestrian section of the Olympics, do you want the horse to get a medal as well?

• 34:54Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely.

• 34:54Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, yeah.

• 34:55Chuck Nice?

  I mean, listen, the riders should get a medal, but the horse, when they win the Kentucky Derby, they put a laurel leaf of roses around the horse. It's just like, thanks a lot, guy. One day you'll be glue, but right now, we love him.

• 35:08Speaker 01

  And don't forget when ESPN did their top 50 athletes of the 20th century, Secretariat was 35 on the list.

• 35:14Gary O'Reilly?

  Nice, okay.

• 35:15Speaker 01

  So, you know, it'll just.

• 35:17Gary O'Reilly?

  Go back to the original question from.

• 35:19Chuck Nice?

  I'm sorry.

• 35:20Gary O'Reilly?

  I forgot the original question, because Chuck blew a gasket. I forgot the original question.

• 35:26Speaker 01

  And then we got Chuck relaxing there for a minute.

• 35:30Gary O'Reilly?

  Remember, we had Dr. Leah Legos on, and she had this heart rate variability, biofeedback, controlling breathing, and then people could dial up or dial down their own inner self. And they could, if they got the technique really quickly, they could control it within about one single breath.

• 35:50Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 35:51Gary O'Reilly?

  I can imagine that.

• 35:52Speaker 01

  And remember, some anxiety is good. I mean, you want to be on the edge of stress and you want to be able to feel that anxiety whenever you're going out to perform at that high level.

• 36:05Chuck Nice?

  As a matter of fact, what you just said is one of the things that she pointed out to us, is that for some athletes, they want to, they don't want to dial down the excite, the excitability of their brain. For others, they do, but it also depends on the task at hand. You want some anxiety and stress and like that feeling of, oh, my God, well, I'm like, you want that to work, to feed you in certain, certain situations.

• 36:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Chuck, I always imagined a conversation between a baseball player and a golfer. Right? And they don't know anything about each other's sport. And so the baseball player asked the golfer, "How fast is the ball moving when you hit it?" "Not at all." "Where is it?" "It's on the ground, between my feet." "Are people screaming at you?" "No, no, it's total silence." "So when you swing, is the ball moving then?" "No, it's still there the whole time." "So just to compare, and how about you?" "When you hit the ball, how fast is the ball going?" "90 miles an hour." "The person who throws it, do they want you to hit it?"

• 37:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  "No, they do everything they can so that I can't hit it." "Are people silent?" "No, they're making as much noise as they can." So I have to agree with you Chuck. Golf, I can't, I can't go, I can't embrace it.

• 37:29Chuck Nice?

  And in your analogy, the one thing is like, sometimes that guy throwing the ball, sometimes he just throws it at my head. I can't figure out which one it is. I never know what's happening.

• 37:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, back to the question. So Gary, what else you have for us?

• 37:51Gary O'Reilly?

  All right. Apologies if I mispronounce your name. Derv BS. This is interesting. This is interesting way to approach this. How are modern day athletes taking advantage of latest breakthroughs in AI? And machine learning to analyze their opponents as well as in taking informed decisions about their own bodies? Does the Olympic governing body have some rules regarding using such an AI to prevent athletes to gain unfair advantage? Ooh, I wonder if the Olympic Committee, the IOC, have got ahead of this and have built in anything regarding the use of AI?

• 38:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And let me add to that, is it possible that AI would discover a physics loophole that you had not considered in evaluating how someone can perform in a sport? I would, I would count the Fosbury flop as a loophole. And AI might have been in a position to have discovered that before humans did.

• 38:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I haven't heard about the IOC doing anything to ban yet. But certainly, one of the things we're gonna see at this Olympics, I know Intel and Alibaba Cloud and all that, they've got these 3D athletic training that's gonna be able to help with viewership. Whenever you're watching this stuff, you're gonna see real-time data, speed, who's in the lead, the distance traveled, they're gonna have these cameras set up around the various events. They're creating these little 3D meshes and stuff.

• 39:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  These are geek monitors. I love it.

• 39:20Speaker 01

  Exactly, and they're gonna have outlines of the athletes, and you're gonna have biometric data in real-time, and this is being used in training. You can actually acquire this data in training. You could know, like, where are you outputting the most power in a given event? You know, where does your power wane? You know, where do you need to pick it up a little bit? Athletes have talked about in various different events, how they can move a slightly different way, a slightly different lean angle, and all this provided by all of this data that's been acquired, and they can shave a couple of tenths of a second off of a 100-meter sprint, or do a little bit better on a dodge.

• 39:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To Gary's point, Eric, is that unfair if someone doesn't have access to it? And if it is deemed unfair, is it any more unfair than wealthy countries with modern... I mean, historically, wealthy countries had clean, modern training facilities. By the way, this was contrasted with in Rocky IV, right? There was Drago with all the scientists around him performing experiments.

• 40:21Speaker 01

  And a shot that's our best.

• 40:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, exactly. We saw that, that's right. And there's Rocky hauling logs up a snowbank. So, is there some... Does the Olympics think about parity in training?

• 40:36Speaker 01

  I mean, personally, I think whatever you can use to train, and whatever, you know, science can help you provide ought to be legal. Now, I'm not talking about, you know... Maybe that.

• 40:48Chuck Nice?

  Nothing performance enhancing, right?

• 40:49Speaker 01

  The Speedo LZR, the racer suit that was the big thing in 2008 Beijing where, you know, NASA starts working with Speedo and all of a sudden you've got like a way to trap bubbles in there and help your buoyancy. I mean, if you're talking about equipment advantages, that's different. But I mean, if we're just talking about, you know, I mean, people have nutritionists, you know, they know what diet to have. They know the best way to get their carbs up to a certain point, like when they're running the marathon. I mean, all of this is just attacking science in different ways, from nutrition to strength and endurance, to flexibility, to watching your balance, your form, where you're outputting more energy

• 41:30Speaker 01

  in a given event. And I see no problem at all with technology being able to help people do it. They're always going to be advantaged. I mean, you know, money's always, sponsorship and all this, they're always going to be able to help some athletes and then not others.

• 41:45Chuck Nice?

  So why not, if everybody gets the suit that has the bubbles in it that keeps your buoyancy, why not let everybody get the suit? That's kind of how I look at it.

• 41:53Speaker 01

  If everybody is allowed to use the same suit, that's different. But I mean, you know, if you're creating advantages with equipment that's used in a given event that other countries don't have, I mean, that's a little different, I think.

• 42:07Gary O'Reilly?

  This is the same thing with the marathon running shoe with the carbon fiber plates in it. They have not allowed it into competition because it is not readily available for every athlete. Now, if we go back to AI and it can't obviously help you in the competition of your event, but it can help you in preparation, but is it available to every athlete?

• 42:31Chuck Nice?

  No, it's not.

• 42:31Gary O'Reilly?

  Because if it isn't, then you either decide that it is going to be available to every athlete, or you scrap it.

• 42:37Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, but you can't tell people how to train. And AI would be more of a training construct than it would be a competition.

• 42:45Gary O'Reilly?

  And the playing field's not that.

• 42:46Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, well, no. I mean, listen, the United States wins the Olympics for the most part medal count every single Olympics because why? We're a very rich nation and...

• 42:57Chuck Nice?

  We allow people to, we give people the freedom of choice to pursue their passion. So it's not like the government is saying, oh, you're going to be a track star. No, it's somebody who has come up from the time that they're a kid dreaming about being a track star. But then some corporation steps in and says, I'm going to dump a bunch of money on you so that you can realize that dream.

• 43:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But that's an advantage.

• 43:22Speaker 01

  But you can improve things because, I mean, look at 1992 with the Dream Team. Their first match was Angola. Angola had like two gems in the whole country where they played basketball. And of course they get demolished. But look where international basketball has come since we, you know, started, you know, the NBA was funneling money into other parts of the world and stuff. I mean, sure, the rich countries are always going to be first and they're always going to have all the advantages with training. But eventually I think it helps pull up the other countries too, eventually.

• 43:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and also Gary, the, I mean, if I train at high altitude, because I live at high altitude, you can't say, no, you have to train at sea level because everyone else is.

• 44:01Gary O'Reilly?

  See, that's the, this is the discussion. I'm not saying one or the other.

• 44:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, you were. Yes, you were. Don't pretend like you didn't vote on that.

• 44:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We got time for like a couple more. Give me a couple more questions here.

• 44:12Gary O'Reilly?

  Um, we've, uh, Woody, I think we've kind of touched on your question about, you know, the advantages with richer nations and training and nutrition and how we get it. I have a producer bonus question, which I think, uh, here we go.

• 44:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A producer, one of our producers asked this.

• 44:28Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, and that would be me.

• 44:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay.

• 44:32Gary O'Reilly?

  If we were to watch one event in the Olympics, it's always, who's the fastest human on the planet? It's the 100 meters. And, uh, so if somebody, Eric.

• 44:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, just to be clear, just to be clear, the 200 meters is run in faster time than twice the world record of the 100 meters. So technically, the winner of the 200 is the fastest human, just to put it out there.

• 44:58Gary O'Reilly?

  But we all watch the hundred meters.

• 45:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, we all watch the hundred meters.

• 45:01Gary O'Reilly?

  Whether it's better marketing, whether they got a better advertising team, I don't know, but it's the hundred meters.

• 45:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus, it's on a straightaway, so it's one camera shot all the way down. Okay, go.

• 45:10Gary O'Reilly?

  And so what speed is an athlete going to need to break Usain Bolt's 9.58 seconds?

• 45:21Speaker 01

  Well, when he, when he was in the 2012 Olympics, I think the Olympic record he set was 963, but he hit almost 28 miles an hour in the latter part of that run. So you're, you're talking about getting up to 28, 29 miles an hour. When Flojo set the record, you know, she was a few miles an hour slower.

• 45:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Florence Joyner.

• 45:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, Florence Joyner, back in 88. So this was a couple of miles an hour slower. So we're talking about 25, 26 miles an hour. But I mean, you're, you're definitely, you're speeding in a school zone here. I mean, you're, you're definitely past 25 miles an hour.

• 45:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Don't run past the schools. You get a ticket in every state.

• 46:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 46:08Chuck Nice?

  Wouldn't it just be great if they're on the track and it's like, woo!

• 46:11Gary O'Reilly?

  Police officer at the end of the track with a radar.

• 46:15Chuck Nice?

  Right, hitting you with a gun.

• 46:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right.

• 46:17Chuck Nice?

  So what is, is there, is there a speed that human beings, not, I'm not talking about cheetah, you know, like 70 miles an hour, but is there a speed with our physiology that is our absolute top speed?

• 46:33Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 46:34Speaker 01

  Well, right now, it's about 28 miles an hour. I mean.

• 46:38Chuck Nice?

  In other words, we're already there.

• 46:42Speaker 01

  But also keep in mind, when, when, when Bolt set this record, he's six foot five. And if you do a little biomechanical scaling, your, your speed's going to scale with your height. Short things, little short critters, they have great acceleration. The bigger animals, they have larger speeds, top speeds. It took him 41 steps to set that Olympic record. The person who got the silver was Johann Blake. He was 5'11", took him five more steps to cross that finish line. So, you know, he, he had fewer steps that he had to take, Bolt did, when he, when he made that 100 meter run and set that record. So there, I mean, you talk about advantages, hey, the guy's six foot five. I mean, that's already an advantage when you're running a 100 meter sprint.

• 47:28Gary O'Reilly?

  How tall, how tall do we go? Do we, do we get to a seven foot athlete to, to get that leg length, that leverage? Or is that just now gone too far?

• 47:37Speaker 01

  Now the problem is he's like a pendulum. Now you're swinging a lot of mass in a, in a given direction and you've got a lot more air drag too with the, the taller you are. So, you know, I, I think Bolt almost hit kind of an optimum, you know, he hit the right size and then the right strength profile.

• 47:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we have notes that Shaqari Richardson is five foot one. Is that correct? Is she the one?

• 48:00Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 48:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, the sprinter?

• 48:01Chuck Nice?

  Um, um, yes, she's a sprinter and unfortunately for this Olympics, it's been announced that she will not be able to.

• 48:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, this is from the marijuana in her.

• 48:09Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, she, right.

• 48:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In her blood.

• 48:11Chuck Nice?

  Which is total BS. Like everybody's marijuana is pretty much legal everywhere now.

• 48:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, no, but that's not even it. It's that marijuana never made anyone run faster.

• 48:20Chuck Nice?

  Yes, thank you. I was about to say that. She should actually be applauded.

• 48:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Applauded.

• 48:26Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 48:27Speaker 01

  It makes you run faster.

• 48:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You hit a ball before you hit.

• 48:30Speaker 01

  Or get chips or something maybe, but.

• 48:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Faster to get the munchies.

• 48:35Speaker 01

  But Trayron Bromwell is, is about five eight, I think. And, and he's, you know, a candidate for the hundred meter. And I mean, so when you watch the hundred meter, watch the shorter athletes come out of the block faster. They're going to have the acceleration advantage. Watch the taller athletes pick up the speed at the end and then it's a race to see which one had the advantage there. And when you watch that Bolt in 2012, when he set the record, one thing about that, he was the fastest coming off the block.

• 49:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So he got them both ways there?

• 49:06Speaker 01

  He got them both ways.

• 49:07Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. So there you go. That's indefensible. I got the acceleration and I got the top speed.

• 49:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That ain't fair.

• 49:14Gary O'Reilly?

  Bromwell's the fastest, the fastest a hundred meters in 2021 right now, correct?

• 49:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who is?

• 49:20Gary O'Reilly?

  Professor?

• 49:21Speaker 01

  Oh, oh.

• 49:21Gary O'Reilly?

  Bromwell?

• 49:22Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, Bromwell I think has the, the top, uh.

• 49:25Gary O'Reilly?

  Was it nine, seven, seven, I think for a hundred meters?

• 49:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, he had nine.

• 49:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, do you care that it's the fastest this year? We're talking about Usain Bolt for goodness sake.

• 49:31Gary O'Reilly?

  No, I know, but this year we're going into Olympics and there's no Bolt.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No Bolt.

• 49:36Speaker 01

  And, and, and that nine, seven, seven, that's only the seventh fastest speed ever. So, I mean, you know. That's, that's pretty good.

• 49:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. Oh, but Eric, I don't want you to be the person who in 50 years, people look back on and say, "Ha, he thought we hit the maximum and now we're running it in nine flat." Right? This is what they said about the four-minute mile and the two-hour marathon and...

• 49:58Speaker 01

  Twenty-seven feet.

• 50:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. So, do you want to be, you want to retract anything you've said in this?

• 50:04Speaker 01

  I, I don't think we've hit the, the, the peak of anything. I mean, I, we're always gonna be making these millometric, you know, progressions toward new records and, and microsecond changes and, and technology's helping us get there. I mean, technology is definitely helping the training of the athletes. And, you know, humans are getting a little taller, so, I mean, we'll, we'll see what 100 years from now looks like, or at least, we won't, but other people will.

• 50:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, we gotta bring this to a close. Let me, I, I mentioned this before, but this was another occasion to say it again. I, forgive me, I don't remember which airport I was in, but I look at airport mosaics that are on the floor and I photograph them. A lot of them have cosmic relevance, a compass rose or a constellation. A lot of them do, interestingly. So, um, one of them was a plaque that said, "On such and such a date, maybe 2012, Usain Bolt landed at this airport." And then it said, "And his plane landed 10 minutes later."

• 51:04Speaker 01

  Oh, that's awesome.

• 51:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't expect that, cuz it's like, it's, it's, it's mosaic in a floor, right?

• 51:12Speaker 01

  Was that in Heathrow? Was that, you said 2012, so there would've been a London Olympic?

• 51:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, I don't remember. It was, it was a domestic airport, so I, I have to look at my notes. I took a photo of it. Uh, but it's, it's, it's very cute, very cute. Good sense of humor.

• 51:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, guys, so Eric, thanks for being back on StarTalk.

• 51:27Speaker 01

  Great to be back.

• 51:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know this is not the last time we're gonna get you on this.

• 51:30Speaker 01

  That'd be great.

• 51:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Gary, always good to have you there, dude.

• 51:32Gary O'Reilly?

  It's been a pleasure, my friend.

• 51:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, Chuck.

• 51:35Chuck Nice?

  Always a pleasure.

• 51:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This has been StarTalk Sports Edition Cosmic Queries. Special guest Eric Goff, talking about the physics of sports in this, the Olympic season. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson. As always, keep looking up.