Cosmic Queries: Holiday Edition

Get into the spirit (or should we say science?) of the season when Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic Chuck Nice answer fan questions about winter and the holidays.

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.

• 0:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk Radio, the Cosmic Queries part. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your host, and I've got with me in studio Chuck Nice.

• 0:32Chuck Nice?

  Hey Neil.

• 0:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Remind me Twitter, you're Chuck Nice?

• 0:35Chuck Nice?

  @ChuckNiceComic.

• 0:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  @ChuckNiceComic.

• 0:38Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 0:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm finally catching up with how to find you.

• 0:41Chuck Nice?

  How to find me on Twitter.

• 0:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go. Chuck, I brought you in because this is, as you know, this is the Cosmic Queries

• 0:47Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 0:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  of StarTalk.

• 0:48Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 0:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I sit here, I haven't seen any of these questions, they've all filed in from Facebook and Twitter and Google+ and all of our media presence, and this is the holiday edition. So thanks for agreeing to do this.

• 1:03Chuck Nice?

  Ah, it's always my pleasure to be here.

• 1:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I guess the point is not to stump me, although I could get stumped. The point is just if I have knowledge to share through the filter of people's inquiries.

• 1:13Chuck Nice?

  That's correct.

• 1:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There we have it.

• 1:14Chuck Nice?

  It's what inquiring minds want to know.

• 1:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you got their names?

• 1:17Chuck Nice?

  I had their names.

• 1:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's go for it.

• 1:19Chuck Nice?

  Let's kick this thing off. And this, oddly enough, you would think that I would have phonetically found out how to pronounce these names, but I did not. So, this is Mikezoo, Mikezoo from Facebook, and very simply, "Why is it cold during the winter?" Because it's not cold everywhere, so why is it cold during the winter?

• 1:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, you know, that's a beautiful question. That means he's not taking anything for granted and making an observation about the world around him and then asking. So, it turns out, after June 21st, we're talking about northern hemisphere now.

• 1:58Chuck Nice?

  Correct.

• 1:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We just like add six months and we can have this conversation in the southern hemisphere. After June 21st, the arc of the sun across the sky from sunrise to sunset gets lower and lower and lower. And so the heating of the ground becomes less and less and less. The sun doesn't heat the air, the sun heats the ground. And after a short time delay, the ground heats the air. That's why it's not hottest at 12 noon.

• 2:24Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's always hottest a little later.

• 2:26Chuck Nice?

  A little later, like 2 o'clock.

• 2:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like 2 o'clock, anywhere between 1 and 3 and sometimes 4 o'clock in some, in some parts. So, so there's a time delay. So there's not only time delay during the day, there's a time delay during the year. So, the sun gets lower and lower and lower and lower in the sky. And you enter December and the sun rises very far south of east. It, it only rises due east 2 days a year. People say, oh, sun rises in the east and sets in the west? No, only on 2 days a year. The rest is rising someplace else. And as we approach winter, it gets, it rises very far south. It goes up a little bit in the sky and then sinks back down again. In New York City, the highest the sun gets in the sky on December 21st is like 25, 26 degrees up above the horizon.

• 3:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's hardly anything, barely gets above the buildings.

• 3:14Chuck Nice?

  So, so the reason it's cold in winter is because the sun is lazy.

• 3:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lazy, lazy sun.

• 3:19Chuck Nice?

  It does not wanna do, it does not wanna climb to the heights.

• 3:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It cannot do that. And so on the 22nd, oh, by the way, and by the way, it sort of slows down, sort of stops its, stops its, its downward uh, passage through the sky. And then it starts its way back up a few days later. So around December 24th, December 25th, you know, we're not gonna lose the sun entirely below the horizon. It's on its way to higher and higher arcs. And the ancients knew this, or at least, the Christians knew this. They wanted to put a Christian holiday on a day that the pagans already were celebrating.

• 3:54Chuck Nice?

  Right, Saturnalia.

• 3:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so they put the birth of Jesus on the same day that, because then no one knew when Jesus, the day of the year Jesus was born. So they put Jesus's birth on the day that people already celebrating the return of the sun to higher climbs in the sky. And so that, that's why you have it. Now, what is the coldest month? It's not December, it's like January, February. Again, remember this is time delay.

• 4:19Chuck Nice?

  Time delay.

• 4:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, so there you have it.

• 4:21Chuck Nice?

  So even though the shortest time the sun stays in the sky is in December, the coldest time is a couple, few weeks later.

• 4:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, because there's a time delay for Earth to react to that fact.

• 4:33Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 4:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 4:34Chuck Nice?

  All right, well.

• 4:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And by the way, so and it has nothing to do with our distance to the sun. Because in fact, in December, Earth is closer to the sun. We're closest January 3rd. We're closest to the sun in, in right smack in, in winter there.

• 4:50Chuck Nice?

  Look at that.

• 4:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 4:51Chuck Nice?

  Interesting stuff.

• 4:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 4:53Chuck Nice?

  All right, let's move on. Next question is from, uh, well, actually, you know what? I'm gonna skip down to Brad Porter's question and kind of connect it to what we just said. So how cold is winter in a deep polar crater on Mercury? How specific is that?

• 5:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Was he plan, plan on taking a visit?

• 5:09Chuck Nice?

  Apparently Brad has a great travel agent.

• 5:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So here, here's the problem on Earth, no, here's the reality on Earth. If it's, if the air is cold, we have air circulation that'll bring cold air from one place to another.

• 5:23Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 5:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is that Canadian air mass moving across the.

• 5:27Chuck Nice?

  Jet stream.

• 5:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, all these air movement takes a molecule that's either been warmed or cooled and moves it to another place on Earth.

• 5:35Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 5:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, if you don't have air, if you don't have an atmosphere, then there's nothing to mix the temperatures. Mercury has no atmosphere.

• 5:44Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 5:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So now there are craters we've discovered near the poles. If you're near the poles, the sun never gets very high in the sky ever.

• 5:51Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's possible to have a crater with a high enough rim that the sun never goes above the rim.

• 5:58Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so therefore the bottom of the crater is forever in darkness.

• 6:02Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 6:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The craters on the moon and on Mercury where there's no atmosphere near the pole, they are where the sun don't shine.

• 6:11Chuck Nice?

  Ha, ha, ha.

• 6:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So.

• 6:13Chuck Nice?

  That's where you, that's where you can stick a lot of stuff if you want.

• 6:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you gotta stick it where the sun don't shine, the moon and Mercury's got such places.

• 6:22Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 6:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if Mercury or the moon has ever been hit by a comet, comets are made, you know, mostly of water. The water lands, you know, the comet breaks apart and water lands all over the surface. If it lands where the sun shines, the sun evaporates it and we lose the water.

• 6:37Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If it lands where the sun don't shine, there is no source of heat. To warm it.

• 6:43Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 6:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the water molecules stay and they accumulate for billions of years. So if you go into the depths of a crater where the sun don't shine, it is hundreds of degrees below zero, even for a planet as close as Mercury is.

• 6:56Chuck Nice?

  To the sun.

• 6:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To the sun.

• 6:58Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 6:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 6:59Chuck Nice?

  Look at that. All right, so listen, I think we got time for one more.

• 7:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Make it quick.

• 7:03Chuck Nice?

  And we, uh.

• 7:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Before our break, yeah.

• 7:05Chuck Nice?

  Yes, so, uh, here's, I found a question, I want to stay on the, uh, oh, the winter.

• 7:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, plus if he goes to Mercury, you know, like you said, we'll find out who his travel agent is and make sure he's got a return trip.

• 7:16Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely. Okay, so let's stay with the cold thing. Uh, do you know of any other substance besides water that could crystallize in a similar fashion to make snowflakes? And also, is the whole thing about no two snowflakes ever being replicated true?

• 7:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know what we'll do?

• 7:30Chuck Nice?

  That's from Anastasia.

• 7:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love that question and let's get back to that after the break.

• 7:34Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 7:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're listening to StarTalk Radio, we're in the Cosmic Queries section. Holiday edition. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson with Chuck Nice. And just briefly Chuck, you've got a TV show now.

• 7:48Chuck Nice?

  Yes, Home Strange Home on HGTV.

• 7:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You walk into people's home and talk about it.

• 7:53Chuck Nice?

  Yes, I do. And I try to be as nice as possible.

• 7:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, we'll get more of that when we come back to StarTalk Radio.

• 8:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk Radio Cosmic Queries Holiday Edition. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your host. I'm an astrophysicist with the American Museum of Natural History and I've got with me in studio Chuck Nice.

• 8:31Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 8:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, love having you.

• 8:32Chuck Nice?

  I love being here, man.

• 8:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you've got a TV show where you just bust into people's homes and talk about them?

• 8:38Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, it's a home invasion show called HGTV.

• 8:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a category of show.

• 8:43Chuck Nice?

  It's a new home invasion show on HGTV called Home Strange Home. And I invade the homes of people, uh, they take me around and, uh, show me their weird, wacky little houses.

• 8:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If I see you knocking at my door, you ain't coming in.

• 8:55Chuck Nice?

  I want to have you on the show too.

• 8:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, so this is like in the old days, 60 Minutes was where the, where the people you didn't want to have come in your home.

• 9:02Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So now you're gonna show up with cameras.

• 9:03Chuck Nice?

  Yes, and that's what we do. I show up with cameras and I've.

• 9:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Weird people with weird collections and stuff.

• 9:08Chuck Nice?

  Weird collections, weird homes, and uh, some of them architecturally weird, some of them it's the people themselves are weird. A lot of them are artists and architects. That's what we mostly.

• 9:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because they have control over their space. They think about their space more.

• 9:20Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely.

• 9:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They don't just go to Ikea and put stuff in.

• 9:22Chuck Nice?

  And you know, that's the beauty of the show is that I'm hoping that it inspires people to kind of do that in their own lives.

• 9:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just to get a little more interesting.

• 9:28Chuck Nice?

  Just to be a little more interesting and let your, let your life be reflected in your home, you know?

• 9:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nice, nice, nice. So you got a boatload of questions there, culled from our internet presence.

• 9:38Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 9:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, uh, uh, come at me. What do you got?

• 9:42Chuck Nice?

  So before the break, we had a question from Anastasia or Anastasia, it depends. And she says, "Do you know of any other substance besides water that could crystallize in a similar fashion to snowflakes? Also, is the old adage about no two snowflakes being alike true?"

• 9:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I'll tell you what I know about it. First of all, I've, we all heard that no two snowflakes are alike.

• 10:02Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I was skeptical. So I was gonna do the calculation to find, to just justify for myself. Cause I, I don't believe everything I read or hear, but that fact, that factoid existed before the internet. So you can't blame like.

• 10:19Chuck Nice?

  Can't blame the internet on this one.

• 10:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Can't blame the internet on this one. But um, I haven't actually completed the calculation, but what it involves is, if you look at a snowflake under a magnifying glass, I mean, under a microscope, you don't need very high power, cause they're, they're not, they're small, but they're not microscopically tiny.

• 10:35Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. And you look at it, as you know, they have six, six uh, spindles to them. And each spindle has detail in them. There's like little parts that stick out and it's all symmetric and then there's, there, and there's so many ways each one of these spindles can take on detail, that you can ask yourself, "How many ways can that happen per spindle?"

• 10:57Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if you start getting numbers in the quadrillions and the sextillions and the octillions.

• 11:02Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 11:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then you do a quick back of the envelope calculation. That's a calculation you do without a computer. Like you get a writing implement and a piece of paper.

• 11:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you use your basic laws of physics and you say, well, how much water is in the world? How, you know, how many snowflakes will represent a cup of water, you know? And you turn a cup of water into snow, how much snow is that? How many snowflakes? How, in any given season, how much does it snow all over the world? Right. How many seasons have there been in the history of the world? Include the Ice Age, include all the glaciers. You do all this, you can come up with a back of the envelope number. And I haven't done that calculation yet. Okay. But I'm, I'm a little skeptical, but I'll, I'll report back to you on this. But it is possible, just so they can appreciate, the little spindly details on each one of the, the legs, if you will, the six branches of a, of a snowflake can have extraordinary structure.

• 11:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the tiniest little change from one snowflake to another counts as a different pattern. Right. So the number of ways you can change something can go up exponentially. I, I'll give you an example. If you have a chessboard and I can say, well, the pawn moves this way and the knight moves this way. And there's a limited number of ways the pieces can move. Correct. But how many possible chess games can you play? That number is huge. Right. Because every little variation is a new. That's a new game and a new set of outcomes too for each move. Exactly. And so when you look at these little spindles on a, on a, on a snowflake, every little change is a new snowflake. So I, I want to do that. I've been meaning to do that calculation and Anastasia has now said, told me to get back to work on that. Okay.

• 12:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, almost all, almost all things, all liquids, if you cool them slowly, will crystallize. Okay. Didn't you do in, in, in high school chemistry? Did you make carbon, was it copper sulfate crystals? Do you ever do that? Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah. In the, uh. The little beaker. In the beaker, right. Yeah, and has the blue, I think copper sulfate is now cancerous or something. Great.

• 13:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's where that tumor came from. Oh. Back in our day, we played with mercury, we licked lead.

• 13:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the monkey bars in the park were over cement.

• 13:19Chuck Nice?

  That's so true.

• 13:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, we were like, they don't make them that way anymore. So, yes, crystallization is a very common thing in nature.

• 13:27Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 13:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's just that water happens to be in the air when it crystallizes and it gets to fall on the ground, and so you get to see it and interact with it every day. But other kinds of crystals, like salt crystals and sugar crystals, I mean, so crystallization is a very natural chemical phenomenon that goes on when there's a very slow transition from one phase to another. If you do it quickly, it won't crystallize.

• 13:50Chuck Nice?

  It won't crystallize.

• 13:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 13:51Chuck Nice?

  Okay. So, in that slow cooling...

• 13:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, in fact, so, for example, if the rain is coming from the cloud and it falls quickly through the cold layers that are up in the sky, then you just get frozen rain.

• 14:01Chuck Nice?

  That's right. You're absolutely right. And that's what they call it, freezing rain or sleet.

• 14:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sleet. We got words for it.

• 14:08Chuck Nice?

  But it's not snow.

• 14:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not snow, because it froze too quickly to crystallize.

• 14:12Chuck Nice?

  Right. And then there's hail, which...

• 14:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hail's like...

• 14:16Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. That's the flash freezing of rain and also an insurance nightmare.

• 14:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right.

• 14:21Chuck Nice?

  That's when, yeah, that's when God says you better have a really decent policy.

• 14:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 14:26Chuck Nice?

  Okay, so let's move on to, and this is Nathan, apparently. I'm not sure if he's asking this of you...

• 14:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Again, these are all holiday related.

• 14:34Chuck Nice?

  These are holiday seasonal questions. And Nathan on Facebook, I'm not sure if he's asking of you personally, or if he's relating this to himself.

• 14:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 14:43Chuck Nice?

  As an agnostic and scientist, what do you teach your kids about the holidays and how do you celebrate them? So, I'm not sure if he's saying you personally, or he's an agnostic and a scientist, what should he do? Or you, as an agnostic and scientist, what do you do personally?

• 15:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I'm a big fan of rituals. I think rituals organize human culture.

• 15:06Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 15:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In important and fundamental ways that bring a bit of sort of humanity to us all.

• 15:12Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 15:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Rituals, even as simple as let's just have dinner together, or let's have a candlelight dinner, or let's open the bottle of wine during dinner, or let's, I mean, Jews are famous for the number of rituals. That are still conducted even among those who are not quote practicing Jews.

• 15:30Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 15:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's still they'll still have the Seder.

• 15:32Chuck Nice?

  They still adhere to the rituals.

• 15:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The rituals because rituals are I think they're excuses to come together. And so I don't deny that element of of life. No matter the source, be it a religious source or a secular source.

• 15:47Chuck Nice?

  That's.

• 15:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I mean, Thanksgiving is another ritual. I see that no diff. And Christmas is you give presents to people, you know, that's I'm not gonna get in the way of that.

• 15:56Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 15:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is now how much of the religious backdrop you.

• 16:01Chuck Nice?

  Incorporate.

• 16:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You incorporate that's your that's your own personal thing. We live in a country. We have freedom to express that religion, but it also means you have freedom to to. Pick and choose to pick a version of it that you you're comfortable with.

• 16:15Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To excise it all from life. I think that's that's too draconic and unnecessary.

• 16:20Chuck Nice?

  Okay, cool. So there you have it. You go ahead and celebrate your Hanukkah.

• 16:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, not because I said.

• 16:26Chuck Nice?

  Hanukkah Christmas.

• 16:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Your Kwanzaa. Hanukkah Kwanzaa.

• 16:34Chuck Nice?

  Okay, cool. All right, let us move on to.

• 16:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But you tell me not because I told them to, but just I gave it perspective.

• 16:41Chuck Nice?

  No, that's your perspective. I think it's a great perspective, honestly. I mean, because I I I know. I have Jewish friends who put up a Christmas tree.

• 16:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh huh.

• 16:50Chuck Nice?

  You know, so I.

• 16:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because they want the Christmas present, not the Hanukkah present. That's what that one is. But we got that one figured out.

• 16:56Chuck Nice?

  That's very funny. All right, we got time for a quick one and I'll put this because.

• 17:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Before we go to our break.

• 17:02Chuck Nice?

  Before we go to our break. So this is Chris O'Donnell and addendum to that question from a different person. Do you think children should believe in Santa while they're young or know the truth from an early age? Now, as a scientist, I'm interested to hear what you say on this one.

• 17:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I did this with the tooth fairy. Okay.

• 17:20Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 17:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I with my daughter, I trained my kids to be scientifically literate. And I've certified them scientifically literate. I'm not worried about their future.

• 17:30Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 17:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ever more because they they are. I'm working on what kind of stamp to put on their forehead or something to make this happen. But at the age where you lose your teeth and then you have the tooth fairy. You're particularly gullible to storytelling that of a fantasy nature.

• 17:47Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 17:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so what I did with my daughter at that time.

• 17:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, we're running low on time.

• 17:55Chuck Nice?

  Okay, then let's make this a cliffhanger.

• 17:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why?

• 17:58Chuck Nice?

  Because this is awesome. Because I'm really on the edge of my seat. I'm like, what does Neil do with his kids?

• 18:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I thought this through.

• 18:04Chuck Nice?

  All right, well, listen, then save it.

• 18:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I totally.

• 18:07Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, because I think this is awesome.

• 18:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I totally thought this through. So after the break, you will learn what I did with my kids with regard to these fantasy seasonal things, that Santa Claus, the tooth fairy.

• 18:18Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I really want to know, because my son just lost his first tooth. So this is great.

• 18:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'll hook you up after the break. You're listening to StarTalk Radio, the Cosmic Queries part, and it's the holiday edition. When we come back, more questions delivered to me from Chuck Nice.

• 18:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  StarTalk Radio Cosmic Queries, I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, in studio with Chuck Nice.

• 18:59Chuck Nice?

  Hey.

• 19:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, Chuck Nice Comic on Twitter.

• 19:02Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 19:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love your stuff, because you just, you know, you come out of the blue and, hey, I agree with that. You have some sort of humorous observation of the cultural mores.

• 19:13Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, you know, that's my whole thing. Some people don't get it. Like, you know, most of what I write on Twitter is a joke.

• 19:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 19:21Chuck Nice?

  And they don't understand that. I mean, some people get back to...

• 19:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, let me ask you, do you lose something by having to write it as opposed to deliver it in person?

• 19:28Chuck Nice?

  No, I like it that way.

• 19:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You do?

• 19:30Chuck Nice?

  Because really, it takes, you have to set the tone in those 140 characters. So that's what I dig about it, you know? I wrote the other day, just remember when you buy that $15 sweater from that big box store, you're helping foreign child labor learn the value of a dollar one day at a time.

• 19:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 19:51Chuck Nice?

  I thought that was hilarious. And I had some people get really pissed at me.

• 19:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, some people, yeah, something, like, get them off Twitter, right? Right, right. So you've got questions here.

• 20:01Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 20:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Called from the internet. You got, it's a holiday question.

• 20:07Chuck Nice?

  Holiday questions.

• 20:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go for it.

• 20:08Chuck Nice?

  And so here's the deal, right before we left, you were about to tell...

• 20:13Chuck Nice?

  Chris about believing in Santa and he wrote, let me just give his question again. Do you think children should believe in Santa when they're young? Or should they know the truth from an early age? And then you were talking about the tooth fairy and what you did with your daughter, which I am hugely interested in because my son just lost his first tooth.

• 20:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  His first tooth. So at that age, they're particularly susceptible to fantasy stories. They don't really have a deep sense of what is possible, given the laws of physics of the universe and what is not. And so the tooth fairy becomes very believable at that age. So here's what I did. I said, well, I'm not going to lie to my kids. I'm just not. Nor do I think being completely fantasy prone is a good thing going into adulthood. Because some adults, some don't outgrow. So here's what I said. I said, I said, I'm told that if you put your tooth under your pillow,

• 21:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  that a tooth fairy will come and exchange it for money. I'm told.

• 21:20Chuck Nice?

  I'm told this.

• 21:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm told. And so she said, really? Okay, I'll do that. So she does it and money shows up. All right, so several teeth happened. I'm told. And so now she had a dream catcher. Because we visited a Native American reservation, bought a dream catcher. So she thought maybe she could catch the tooth fairy in the dream catcher. Okay, so then she set up the dream catcher, didn't catch it, still left the thing. So then she took aluminum foil and put it near her bed to see if the fairy would step on the aluminum foil. Because then she would hear that.

• 21:54Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 21:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It didn't still happen. So, so what she decided to do a couple of years later with friends of hers, there was the suspicion that maybe the parents were the tooth fairy. So they said, so they, so she organized a group of people who, whose tooth fell out while they're at school. That way the parents don't know it. So now you take that tooth, put that under your pillow without telling anyone. And if it's still there in the morning. Because surely the tooth fairy would know.

• 22:27Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if the tooth is still there and money isn't, then it's the parents. And this is precisely the experiment they did. And they figured out that it was.

• 22:35Chuck Nice?

  That there was no tooth fairy.

• 22:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's correct.

• 22:37Chuck Nice?

  Man, you know, see, you're, you're, that is really your daughter.

• 22:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, no.

• 22:41Chuck Nice?

  That is truly your kid. Let us, let us devise an experiment.

• 22:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I trained them to think about testing statements.

• 22:49Chuck Nice?

  That's awesome.

• 22:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Made, and so I didn't want to say there is no tooth, because that's giving her the answer, but without her having the joy of thinking about what experiment would, would verify or falsify that prediction.

• 23:01Chuck Nice?

  See, your daughter is very smart. I just started ripping teeth out of my head because this was a great way to make a buck.

• 23:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, you didn't have a paper room. All you had were teeth.

• 23:11Chuck Nice?

  All I had was teeth. Looked like I had a meth problem when I was five.

• 23:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, the thing about Santa Claus, what we did about Santa was, we knew the kids figured out that there was, uh, that there wasn't a Santa. Uh, but the Santa Claus gift was always the biggest, most expensive gift.

• 23:27Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Under the tree. So if they ever admitted that there wasn't a Santa, they wouldn't get that gift.

• 23:33Chuck Nice?

  That's pretty smart.

• 23:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we had them believe in it longer than they would have otherwise.

• 23:38Chuck Nice?

  That makes sense. Alright, so let's, uh, let's get a quick one.

• 23:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We've got time for a quick one, yeah.

• 23:41Chuck Nice?

  Let's get a quick one from John Yates. And, uh, he says, I like this. What is your favorite holiday drink? Cause I want to drink whatever you're drinking.

• 23:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, nice. Well, thank you.

• 23:52Chuck Nice?

  Way to go, John.

• 23:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you. I'm, you know, I'm a, I like foofy drinks, you know, I go to a bar, guys are ordering whiskey and, and this. And I order like something with a pineapple wedge and an umbrella in it.

• 24:04Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 24:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I love it.

• 24:07Chuck Nice?

  So you're like, you're a tropical drink man?

• 24:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Um, I am comfortable enough with my masculinity, or rather, I am in touch with my feminine side enough. So that I have no issues.

• 24:16Chuck Nice?

  So you don't mind drinking a Cosmo?

• 24:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, an umbrella drink in a, in a, in a bar with guys.

• 24:21Chuck Nice?

  Apple teeny?

• 24:23Chuck Nice?

  You're cool with an appletini?

• 24:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I also lean towards the creamier drinks, so...

• 24:28Chuck Nice?

  Like a mudslide or a...

• 24:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or Bahama Mama.

• 24:30Chuck Nice?

  Bahama Mama.

• 24:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 24:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so that means over the holidays, I'm, I'm an eggnog guy from way back.

• 24:36Chuck Nice?

  Oh, really?

• 24:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Spiked eggnog with, with, give it the dark rum, just to kick it up a notch.

• 24:41Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 24:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, totally, uh, and we, uh, when I'm ambitious, my wife and I will make it ourselves.

• 24:47Chuck Nice?

  Egg nog?

• 24:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah, yeah. You gotta like separate the egg whites and beat those and put them in and mix the... It's effort, but it's worth, it's worth it.

• 24:56Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 24:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then...

• 24:57Chuck Nice?

  Homemade eggnog.

• 24:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, right, then you gotta like take it over the top and then you buy eggnog ice cream and put a scoop of... So it's eggnog float with the eggnog ice cream on top, then it rocks. When we come back, more Cosmic Queries on StarTalk Radio.

• 25:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cosmic Queries on StarTalk Radio, the holiday edition. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson with Chuck Nice.

• 25:35Chuck Nice?

  Hey.

• 25:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Comic. Chuck, you like doing TV better than stand-up or both? You're cool with both?

• 25:41Chuck Nice?

  I, I, I, to be honest, I love stand-up the most because it's live, it's immediate. You can't get it back and, and you know, it happens in the... But I love TV more because I like to eat, so...

• 25:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the green room keeps you fed, all right?

• 25:56Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I enjoy...

• 25:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, no, the food, the money, the salary.

• 25:59Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I enjoy the salary of television much more.

• 26:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gotcha.

• 26:02Chuck Nice?

  You know?

• 26:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, what do you got? You got questions for us?

• 26:03Chuck Nice?

  All right, so here's the thing, um, cause you're a New Yorker, uh, all your life, born and bred.

• 26:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 26:09Chuck Nice?

  Uh, Jared...

• 26:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was recently featured in the Superman comic, and so now I get to say I'm from Metropolis.

• 26:15Chuck Nice?

  Oh, sweet.

• 26:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You didn't know that?

• 26:16Chuck Nice?

  I did not know that.

• 26:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Me and Superman are buds.

• 26:18Chuck Nice?

  Yo, that's hot.

• 26:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, my gosh, you didn't know that? We'll have to do a, we'll do a show on that.

• 26:22Chuck Nice?

  Oh, you're not lying, I'm so jealous.

• 26:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 26:24Chuck Nice?

  Cause I'm a total comic dweeb.

• 26:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 26:27Chuck Nice?

  I love that stuff.

• 26:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Apparently not enough of a dweeb to have known this. So, just chill on that one. All right, go.

• 26:37Chuck Nice?

  Oh, God, that was funny. All right. Okay, here we go. Uh, Jared Stevens wants to know, what it, what you think is the best thing to do in New York City during the holiday season? Since you've been here pretty much your whole life, what do you think?

• 26:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, so, uh, you know what you need to do? Visit all of the cosmic iconography that is throughout the city.

• 27:00Chuck Nice?

  Like?

• 27:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Again, sorry for the rest of the world who would be listening to this, but maybe you'll take a visit to New York. On Avenue of the Americas, Sixth Avenue, in front of the Time Life Building.

• 27:12Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 27:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a huge sculptural triangle.

• 27:16Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 27:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sitting right there. It's visible if you stand in Rockefeller Plaza, look across the street. It's a huge triangle. Most people are eating hamburgers under that triangle. It's huge. It's like six stories tall. Huge. And they, and they just say it's just some artists trying to be geometric.

• 27:31Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, it's a sun triangle. At 12 noon, on the equinoxes, along one of the legs of that triangle, the sun aligns with that edge. On the two solstices, the summer solstice, the winter solstice, at 12 noon on those days, from that plaza, the sun aligns with the other two legs of that triangle. It is a sun triangle. It is trying to talk to the cosmos.

• 27:58Chuck Nice?

  That's pretty cool.

• 27:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I agree. Also, you go into Grand Central Terminal and look up. There is the night sky as imagined by people at the time who put the sky on the dome.

• 28:09Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 28:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Except the stars are backwards. That, yeah, don't get me started.

• 28:15Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 28:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? They're backwards and Orion, the, the hunter, is facing forwards in this field of backward stars. But in the holiday season, if you're taking, if you're drinking in the city, uh, you just tour, tour the cosmic offerings that it has, that people have long forgotten about.

• 28:31Chuck Nice?

  Nice, nice. And I know that's a, a problem for you.

• 28:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Otherwise, I'm staying warm at home.

• 28:37Chuck Nice?

  I know you hate the Grand Central thing because you actually told Jon Stewart that the Earth rotates in the wrong direction on his show open.

• 28:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the opening credits, yes. It was, and he would got a little upset about it. I haven't been invited back since, by the way. Just as a point of information.

• 28:52Chuck Nice?

  All right. So, speaking of solstices, all right, since, let's move on to Laura Morris' question. And Laura on Facebook sent us this question. Do you think the new year should start on the actual winter solstice? Did the Romans have the date wrong? Or has there been that much wobble in the tilt of the Earth's axis?

• 29:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 29:11Chuck Nice?

  Look at her getting a little deep with the solstice question.

• 29:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh. Well, the calendar has a fascinating, torturous history. And so you can't, um, so I, I think the solstice is a better day to begin the new year.

• 29:25Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 29:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I so do. Uh, keep in mind, though, that there was a time where the calendar was 10 days off. But that got corrected in 1584, when, in the introduction of the Gregorian calendar, where October, where they realized that the calendar fell out of sync with Earth's orbit around the sun and the seasons. So, so for example, the first day of, of spring was falling on March 10th instead of March 21st. And this was messing with people. And so they actually excised the Pope by decree, which he could do back then because that's when the Pope had power.

• 30:00Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Over Christendom, uh, or at least the, the Catholic side of the Christendom, uh, decreed that 10 days would be taken out of the calendar. So October 15th followed October 4th. And that reestablished the calendar that we now all use today internationally, the Gregorian calendar. So the calendar's been messed with many times before. I think there's nothing special about January 1st. What I do is send around January 3rd announcements that Earth has reached perihelion. I send around perihelion cards.

• 30:29Chuck Nice?

  Perihelion.

• 30:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Perihelion. Helios, as Helios, the sun is when you're nearest to the sun.

• 30:35Chuck Nice?

  And that is January.

• 30:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The January 3rd, yeah, and depending on where you are in the leap day cycle, it could be the 4th. But that's when I celebrate perihelion. January 1st is a stupid, nothing happens, January 1st. What is this? We got one segment left to come on StarTalk Radio where Chuck Nice is bringing questions called from the internet and putting them on my lap, requiring that I answer them. We'll see you in a moment.

• 31:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk, the Cosmic Queries. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson with Chuck Nice. Chuck, you're culling these questions from the internet, from our entire internet presence, on Facebook, on Twitter, on Google+, so what do you got for me? This is the holiday edition.

• 31:33Chuck Nice?

  This is the holiday.

• 31:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like that.

• 31:34Chuck Nice?

  All holiday questions and dealing with the season itself. So here's one from Chris Smith. And Chris wants to know, could Santa be exploiting the multiverse concept where physics could be different to hide his North Pole workshops and travel by flying reindeer sleigh? Ultimately, Santa could really be real, so.

• 31:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, he's still clutching to that.

• 31:59Chuck Nice?

  I think his real question is.

• 32:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But didn't I tell you earlier in the show that there's some adults that still haven't shaken?

• 32:04Chuck Nice?

  Let go, right, exactly.

• 32:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He hasn't let go.

• 32:07Chuck Nice?

  They stay in that fantasy. But I think a more interesting question, you know, with the multiverse concept, does physics change? Let's say there is a multiverse. Do physics and the laws of physics remain constant through every facet of the multiverse?

• 32:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No. Really? Yes. Oh my god, that's shocking. Yeah, so, so what we understand is the conditions that spawn the next universe. Right. They, they're slightly different. In the same way, your children are different from you, but you're still genetically related. Correct. The, the, the next universe would have many features similar, but would be different in certain ways that might not even make life possible, for example. They're not, they're not just different because you're you, but you turn left on the, left on the corner instead of right. Right. They're different because the charge on the electron might be different, or the uh, other fundamental forces, the speed of light, might be different. And so, yeah, yeah, but you would have to, you would need a whole other kind of universe that's similar to ours, but

• 33:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  give Santa an out to enable him to do what he's, wants to do. And, and I'd rather invent a world here where he could pull that off. So, for example, if, if his sleigh could travel the speed of light. Right. Okay, so there's a problem there first, that moving through the atmosphere, he would vaporize. I was gonna say, wouldn't he? Wouldn't he burn up? Yeah, yeah, just vaporize. So, so we, he would need atmospheric separators, the way The Flash has atmospheric separators. Had you been listening to our Physics of Superheroes uh, uh, Star Trek episode, you would know The Flash had separators. Nice. Yeah, yeah. So, that's what he'd have to do. And he doesn't have to deliver to all children in the world, only to Christian children. And the few Jews who happen to put up a Christmas tree.

• 33:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, once you start cutting this down, plus, he doesn't have to do them all at once, because there's the one hour by hour time zone. Correct. Right? All the kid, no, no, no, not all kids go to bed at the same time. Right. Cause the sun is always shining on half the earth. So, he gets to spread out the load. Now, the one problem we might not ever be able to solve is

• 34:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  the North Pole, you know, we, he needs like a, like a houseboat now for the North Pole. Right. There's no ice left on the North Pole. Yeah, he would, exactly. He, he needs a houseboat. Yeah, I, I hear Superman's lair is actually flooded right now.

• 34:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there are these North Pole issues that have to be resolved before he could sort of do this, but it turns out it would be very hard, especially the fitting down the chimney part, so he would need a way to gain access to everybody's residence. That would be a higher dimension where you just enter through the closet, like in the film Monsters Inc. Oh, yeah, yeah, he's just going through the closet.

• 34:51Chuck Nice?

  It's a dimensional portal.

• 34:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a dimensional portal, and no reason why you can't have one of those. So I can imagine a Superman of the future who's totally tricked out.

• 34:59Chuck Nice?

  Right on. I could, listen, I know I could help him with that, you know, unlawful entry part.

• 35:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ah, yeah, yeah.

• 35:05Chuck Nice?

  I know some people.

• 35:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got people. The fourth dimension, yeah, so these are burglars in the fourth dimension, yeah.

• 35:13Chuck Nice?

  Right. All right, so here is, uh, this is, I believe Kai U is, is the name. How many horsepower would each individual reindeer need if Santa has nine of them? I suppose to make the sled fly.

• 35:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I have to do that calculation, but it really simply depends on how fat Santa is.

• 35:37Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 35:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't mean to make a joke about it, but the horsepower is a, is, is a, it tells you what you need to pull a load that you're carrying.

• 35:46Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 35:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And of course, if he has all the presents for everyone in the world, this is huge. And so each reindeer, I have to do the math, and I, right now, I don't have time to.

• 35:56Chuck Nice?

  To actually make the calculation.

• 35:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We may have to revisit that, or I could possibly post it online. But you need horsepower, certainly something rivaling the Saturn V rocket or more, to do what Santa pulls off.

• 36:09Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 36:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To get him to fly. By the way, by the way, planes fly, right? So it's not like we don't know how to fly.

• 36:15Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 36:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, and so the reindeer would just need sort of to take some physics classes on how to exploit Bernoulli's principle of lift through the atmosphere.

• 36:25Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 36:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Your point exactly.

• 36:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, Chuck, I think we gotta wrap this up.

• 36:31Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, but you know what? Before we do, I am, I can't get this out of my head, because early in the show, you were talking about homemade eggnog.

• 36:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, you got a problem with that?

• 36:41Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 36:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a big effort. You gotta whip the egg whites so they can become perky, and then you fold that into the cream, and you gotta, I, I, I hand shave egg, um, nutmeg. Oh, yeah, no, it works great. Put in a dash of rum, it's smoking.

• 36:55Chuck Nice?

  I, okay, I, I gotta have that.

• 36:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You, oh.

• 36:58Chuck Nice?

  I must have.

• 36:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, it is wintertime, maybe after, after hours. We will go check it out.

• 37:02Chuck Nice?

  I'm all about it.

• 37:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, by the way, early you mentioned the Cosmo drink. Nothing cosmic about a Cosmo drink. We gotta reinvent that.

• 37:08Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 37:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I might just do that.

• 37:09Chuck Nice?

  Okay, that works for me, too.

• 37:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Overdue for that.

• 37:11Chuck Nice?

  See, what I'm saying, Neil, is, uh, we gotta go have a drink.

• 37:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've been listening to StarTalk Radio, brought to you in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation. Find us on the web, starTalkRadio.net. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, tweeting at Neil Tyson. Until next time, as always, I bid you to keep looking up. And thanks, Chuck, for being here once again.