Extended Classic: MythBusters (Part 2)

Since they didn’t blow up Neil’s office in Part 1, the MythBusters Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman are back to finish the job. Now extended with 10 minutes of Cosmic Queries with Neil and Chuck!

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. I'm your host Neil deGrasse Tyson. I'm an astrophysicist and the director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium, right here in New York City. Today, I've got co-host Chuck Nice. Hey Neil. Is Chuck Nice nice? No. Short answer, no. Short answer, alright. But you tweet at ChuckNiceComic. That's correct. Thanks for doing this. It's always my pleasure. Love having you on. We're at part two of the StarTalk Mythbusters interview. Yeah. The Mythbusters, you gotta love you some Mythbusters. Yeah, man. What a great show. Been on Discovery Channel for 10 years and the Mythbusters are Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman. If you don't know who was who, Jamie Hyneman, he's bald with a hat. Okay. You got that? He's the one that looks like a walrus. I did not tell him that to his parents.

• 1:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're thinking of Chumley or something? Chumley, that's who I remember. Okay, I remember Chumley. Come along, Chumley. If you're 50 or older, you'll know who Chumley is. Yes. It's been one of the most popular shows on all of the Discovery Channel stable of programming. And as you may know, they use elements of the scientific method to test the validity of like myths and rumors and urban legends and stuff they show in movies and all these crazy internet YouTube videos of people doing weird stunts. Did they fake it or is it real? Super cool show. Yeah, and so they visited me in my office in New York City and I whipped out the microphone and we just chilled for an hour. Sounds good. Yeah, so one thing I couldn't help but talk about was, did Archimedes really set

• 1:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  fire to the invading ships using mirrors? Let's find out.

• 1:55Speaker 01

  Mirrors can start fires. You can focus enough of the sun's rays on a point to burn and melt all sorts of very, very high melting point things. The question is, can you use it as a military weapon against an actual boat?

• 2:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, from quite a distance and using a number of different mirrors that are handheld. And the devil's in the details in this particular case because it's dramatically different to be right next to something with a perfectly focused small mirror and potentially hundreds of feet away with these things moving around. You need that pinpoint to be able to come into focus.

• 2:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can't just light up the broadside of the ship.

• 2:29Speaker 01

  You can't light up the broadside. And we found even with as few as 10 people, getting all 10 of them to aim a mirror to 10 feet away to the same spot is actually just that is really difficult.

• 2:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the farther away it is, the tiniest movement of your hand sways it.

• 2:43Speaker 01

  And what's your aiming reticule? How do you know where your mirror beam is hitting when it's off?

• 2:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Your aiming reticule. Oh my goodness.

• 2:50Speaker 02

  Not to mention the movement of the boat, which it would be moving.

• 2:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The rocking of the boat and water sloshing of it. You've got to evaporate the water before you evaporate.

• 2:57Speaker 02

  Well, this was about a boat that was in process of attacking the shore. And so it's going to be underway. So you've got to be able to track it. And the sun's moving as well. There's just no practical, reasonable way that you'd be able to get a pinpoint thing by.

• 3:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If I remember the guys at MIT, they like painted the side of the boat matte black or something.

• 3:16Speaker 01

  They did, and they used mirrors on stationary stands. This is Dr. David Wallace at MIT, and he was a big fan of Mythbusters. He used it as.

• 3:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Until then.

• 3:23Speaker 01

  No, no, no. So we had done it once and busted it. And then he brought his students out at our invitation, and we set up 500 mirrors, just like his experiment. But this time, we were aiming it at a boat, and we couldn't get it to go. And the only thing we hadn't done in that story was get 500 actual soldiers, quote unquote, on the shore with mirrors, trying to actively point. And that's when the Obama administration called and asked if we could somehow work with them on a myth that would help promote the STEM initiative. And we suggested this one as a perfect one because our soldiers could be high school students. And Jamie's wife is a science teacher.

• 4:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, so you now have legions of high school students trying to ignite things with reflected mirrors?

• 4:07Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Absolutely.

• 4:09Speaker 02

  Large ones that we supply.

• 4:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Large focusing mirrors.

• 4:13Speaker 01

  And their interest level was high. It was excellent. They were a terrific army.

• 4:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So this all started because there was a legend that Archimedes, we know, love me some Archimedes, right? Give me some more Archimedes, right? That he destroyed enemy ships with fire caused by these reflective mirrors. And they were called burning glasses. Burning glasses. Burning glasses. Second century, AD second century author Lucian wrote that during the seas of Syracuse, 214 to 212 B.C., Archimedes destroyed the enemy ships this way. And the cool thing about it is, if you're at war, it's good to have smart people on your side. That's so true. You know, he knew you could focus light, the light would make something hotter. Right.

• 5:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so this has been sort of a legend, and people never really knew if they could pull this off. Okay. And the Mythbusters, you know, went ahead and tried it. It turns out you can do it if the side of the ship is painted matte black. Matte black. Matte black. Right. And it's parked there, all right? Okay. And everybody's there, aiming. At the exact same spot. Exact spot. But if you're at a ship that's swaying in the ocean and it's wet. Wet, number one. You can't ignite something that's wet. Right. That's why, did you know, that's why you can boil water in a paper cup? If the paper cup is, is wet? Yes, it's wet because it has water in it.

• 5:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's how that works. See how I got, see I got right in on that one? The cup cannot get hotter than 212 degrees, and it has to be hotter than 212 degrees to burn. So, so this kept going. We also wondered, can you prove a negative? Mm-hmm. Right? Like, how about, you know, Loch Ness? Well, that's a Loch, but Nessie. Nessie. Is it there? Can you show that it's not? Let's find out.

• 6:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Most urban legends are about the existence of something or a claim of something that is true. How about claims of something that are not true? Oh, like, yeah. Then you have to prove a negative. Chupacabra, Loch Ness monster. Exactly! Yeah. The jackalope. The jackalope, yes. I saw a cartoon with a jackalope in it, so I'm pretty sure it's real. A moderate politician.

• 6:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So how do you deal with having to prove negatives? Other than the logical impossibility, I mean, there's a practical element that one should ought to be able to demonstrate the unlikelihood of something.

• 6:35Speaker 02

  Well, if you're doing something like looking for a ghost or whatever, where you can't use a control to compare against, all you're going to be able to do is prove that you weren't able to find that.

• 6:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As evidenced by all the ghost hunting shows that never find a ghost and all the Bigfoot shows that never find Bigfoot.

• 6:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's not proof that they don't exist, it's just proof that you couldn't find it. And that's one of the things where, you know, science in its methodology has a way of dealing with actually being able to test things, and that's providing controls and things that you can compare against. And so we just stay away from those things. We can't physically test it and come up with any kind of conclusion, other than...

• 7:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It didn't happen on your watch.

• 7:17Speaker 02

  It didn't happen on our watch, which is not proper science.

• 7:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 7:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a famous philosopher, Bertrand Russell, he hypothesized the teapot experiment. You say there's a teapot orbiting the sun. Okay. I know there is. How? Well, so now, so now you have to prove that there isn't. Now you gotta prove that there's not a teapot. Right, and then I just go back to the Bahamas while you're up there trying to prove, right? So he's trying to distinguish people making claims that the burden of proof should not be on the person who doubts you. It should be on the person who's making the claim. Yeah, gotcha, gotcha. And so it'd be really cool if astronauts went up and actually found a teapot. Nothing would make me happier. Well, when we come back, more of StarTalk's interview with the Mythbusters.

• 8:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  StarTalk, Tyson here, Chuck Nice there.

• 8:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was very Starship Captain. It was, it was. That was. Warp factor five, we're ready. We got the Mythbusters, they came to visit me in New York, and they'd come to visit me, they were in New York, and I snared their schedule. Nice. Them come by my office. You know, there's some myths that Discovery Channel will not let them test. Really? Yeah. Danger? Let's find out. Okay.

• 8:39Speaker 02

  Well, the one that I've been wanting to do, it actually involves canceling velocities. And it was based on a video where some baseball pitcher hangs his arm out the window with a baseball, and he throws it backwards in the opposite direction that the train is traveling at exactly the same speed. And so to somebody on the side, the ball just drops out of midair and stops. Yeah. We did that. Cary Grant and Tori did that on the show. And I was a little ticked off because I wanted to do that, but I wanted to take it a step further where I would get to be the baseball. And- You would get thrown off the train. Well- Cancelled velocity. So presumably he'd just be standing there. Yeah. No, you'd have to be thrown off the moving train backwards at the speed of the train. Right. Yeah. I would rig a backwards facing slingshot and- What could possibly go wrong? What could possibly-

• 9:23Speaker 02

  Well, it actually, it goes on from there where if you rigged something like this on a bus, you know, the bus wouldn't even have to stop at the bus stop. You'd just get into this little pod and then bang, you're right on the- And you're standing- You're just standing still. The buses would never have to stop. Yeah. Trains would not have to stop. Yeah. Planes would never, you just have continuously running- Shoot people into it. Well, there's going to be a limit, you know, you're not going to get up to speed in an airplane that's traveling 500 miles an hour. Because you have to get on the airplane in the first place. But ignoring that complication, this is a brilliant idea. Well, yeah, I mean, the G loads, if you accelerate from zero to 500 miles an hour and what, 50 feet are not going to be- Okay, you're a pile of goo. Fine. But it's otherwise a brilliant idea.

• 10:04Speaker 02

  Well, and so they had issues with safety and I went immediately to one of the tricks that we often do when we're testing things is to get into it incrementally. Obviously, they wouldn't have any safety issues if I did it at 5 miles an hour. And I could do that running off of a low trailer that's being towed by- Yeah, up to your own body speed. Yeah. You could do that at 5, 10 miles an hour for sure. Because you're easing them into this idea that you have a high speed- You know, presumably at some point, it might be 50 miles an hour. Who knows? The G loads that you would have to subject yourself to over, say, a 50-foot-long bus or trailer would be excessive and- You have to accelerate from zero to that speed very quickly. Yeah. But there would be a safe way, if you do it incrementally, to increase the speed and find out what you could do.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  A theoretically safe way.

• 10:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, this speaks towards a lot of what we do on the show where some of these things are silly. We've polished turds and we've made balloons out of lead, you know, inherently ridiculous. They're of no major importance. Yeah. They're curiosities. Did you say polished turd?

• 11:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, we actually got a reflectometer to make sure we were genuinely making it shiny and Jamie did lion poo, I did ostrich poo.

• 11:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I got mine within a couple of percent similar to, uh, ball bearings shininess. It was pretty impressive. This is hardened poo, obviously.

• 11:20Speaker 01

  Well, do you know the process of dorodongo, the Japanese process of making shiny mud balls?

• 11:25Speaker 02

  Uh, no.

• 11:26Speaker 01

  It's actually really cool. You can make a nearly perfect shiny sphere out of mud using this process and just using mud and your hands.

• 11:33Speaker 02

  So you just put the poo in for the mud and you?

• 11:35Speaker 01

  And we, yeah, so we went to the zoo and we actually collected about a dozen different kinds of poo.

• 11:39Speaker 02

  And the zookeeper let you take the poo?

• 11:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 11:42Speaker 02

  Well, they collected it for us.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  We have shots of Jamie ferreting through a warthog enclosure.

• 11:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's true. But I digress. Sorry. I was distracted by shiny poo, but go on. So these things are not in and of themselves that useful to know, but the process of getting there is interesting. And in the case of this canceling velocities thing, I started to think carefully since I was especially meeting so much resistance from the insurance company that, you know, I might be maimed or killed in the process of testing this. That I started to parse out what exactly it was that would be of concern. And it wasn't that the drop to the ground, because this affair could be arranged to be fairly low on a low trailer, you know? So maybe you drop a foot or, or something like that. No big deal.

• 12:27Speaker 02

  The problem therefore is if you would happen to mismatch those velocities, you make a mistake and it doesn't work exactly as planned. And what happens there? Well, you interact with the ground at something other than? Other than zero. Other than zero velocity. And what's the problem with that? Well, it's friction. And so if you have friction, if the velocity is significant enough, then you're going to start to interact with that ground and tumble. And tumbling means broken bones and things like that, and that's where you run into problems. So your euphemism for breaking your neck is interacting with the ground? Yes.

• 13:01Speaker 03

  Under parameters that are unacceptable.

• 13:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, and my solution to that would be to remove the friction, which couldn't be either lubrication, which would be funny and make for good television, I think. You're on the bus and you step into this little slingshot affair and it sprays you with some kind of

• 13:17Speaker 03

  Animal birthing lubricant.

• 13:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, and then, uh,

• 13:20Speaker 03

  So you're on time, even if you're a little greasy.

• 13:22Speaker 02

  Yeah. Animal birthing lubricant.

• 13:24Speaker 03

  Actually buy ours in a powder form.

• 13:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, in large quantities.

• 13:27Speaker 03

  Just add water.

• 13:28Speaker 02

  And that's interesting, and it actually feeds right back to conventional things that we all know about, like what do motorcycle racers wear? They wear leather gears. It's not an exoskeleton, it's an exoskin. Yeah, it allows them to slide. It removes the friction.

• 13:41Speaker 03

  Maybe they'd be better if they were coated in lubricant.

• 13:44Speaker 02

  It's possible, as long as there aren't any obstacles on the course. And in our testing, we can make sure, you know, we go out on a runway, so there's nothing that we would hit. But the process of getting there where I come up with this premise, what if we did this, what would happen? It's a what-if situation. And I start to think very carefully about what is the actual problem? And you could, as far as I'm concerned, quite safely manage to jump out of a car going at full speed if you were on something like a a shallow ski kind of affair that would just slide. There's no impact that's going to be happening as long as you are doing this in a controlled situation, which we would. Crazy people.

• 14:22Speaker 03

  They are insane. However, I was impressed with the fact that you used the term exoskin.

• 14:28Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 14:29Speaker 03

  Because as a person who rides motorcycles.

• 14:32Speaker 02

  I didn't know you were biking.

• 14:32Speaker 03

  Well, no longer, because I got kids now. My wife won't allow me to do it.

• 14:35Speaker 02

  Right, she doesn't want you to die.

• 14:36Speaker 03

  Right, yeah, which, you know, the moment she says, here's a bike, I know our marriage is over.

• 14:41Speaker 02

  The best organ donors are motorcycles.

• 14:43Speaker 03

  That's right. However, there's a saying that we have in the biking community, better the cow's skin than my own. And that's for guys who wear leather when they bike. It's not a fashion statement. It's actually for your own safety.

• 14:57Speaker 02

  So what do they have against cows?

• 15:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So this experiment with falling off the truck, they actually did something similar to that, but not with Jamie, that's the point.

• 15:06Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 15:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So they used a soccer ball and they launched it off the back of a 60 mile an hour truck and it launched it at 60 miles an hour and the ball just fell straight down.

• 15:13Speaker 01

  Straight down.

• 15:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. But Galileo could have known this, I mean, this was... So it's just fun watching them make this happen.

• 15:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it was gonna happen that way. Galileo figured that out.

• 15:23Speaker 01

  Figured it out. A pretty long time ago.

• 15:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A pretty long time ago. You know, also, there are issues with whether advertisers will get in the way between whether they have an idea that they should perform or not.

• 15:33Speaker 01

  Uh, now we're talking TV.

• 15:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now we're talking TV. Let's find out.

• 15:37Speaker 01

  So early on, we thought, well, what about teeth whiteners? How well do over the counter teeth whiteners work as opposed to the medical grade?

• 15:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So now you're testing brands on that level.

• 15:46Speaker 01

  Right. And we thought, oh, this no end of stuff we could test here. And Discovery was, oh, no, no, no, we have advertisers who sell toothpaste. And I don't begrudge them their business model, I understand that.

• 15:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But really, it shouldn't be your job to tell people what product to buy, really.

• 16:01Speaker 01

  It shouldn't. I'm a little sad about it because I love the British version of Top Gear because I love it when they get behind the wheel of a car they don't like and they say, this is a piece of crap. That is something you will almost never hear on American television and that's too bad.

• 16:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because we're all about the money. But the fact is, you wouldn't have a show unless some sponsor sponsored it.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 16:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So let's be grown up about it and understand that and find some other topic.

• 16:21Speaker 01

  I guess one of the early times I talked about this was at a hacker conference and they were expecting some sort of like, yeah, screw the man. And I said, look, that's their business model and it's one that's allowed me to do all sorts of wonderful stuff that you've enjoyed watching, so let's not begrudge them their own model. But it does mean, you know, that we won't test something that we've always wanted to test, which was the cleanliness of bottled water versus tap water.

• 16:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm a New Yorker all the way and I go to other cities, I'm, what the hell are you guys drinking here? It's like, ew, what is that?

• 16:45Speaker 01

  Well, San Francisco ours is almost as good as New York tap water.

• 16:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, cities would let you contest cities.

• 16:53Speaker 03

  Absolutely. Oh, you're totally right. We should totally do that.

• 16:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then the city pride.

• 16:56Speaker 03

  You know, New York City's tap water is so good because of how thriving the estuary of the Hudson River Valley is. And in San Francisco, we've got a pretty good one.

• 17:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hmm, okay.

• 17:03Speaker 02

  You're a New Yorker by

• 17:05Speaker 03

  I am.

• 17:05Speaker 02

  heritage, and I'm not, but New York water, I tell you, even I know that.

• 17:09Speaker 03

  Oh, it's amazing.

• 17:10Speaker 02

  It's not as good as San Francisco, but San Francisco's water is fine.

• 17:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'll take you up. No, it'd be fun. And then

• 17:17Speaker 03

  We'll do the Pepsi challenge.

• 17:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, it's a Pepsi challenge. And then you, what you do is you serve the San Francisco people New York water or vice versa.

• 17:23Speaker 03

  Right, right, right.

• 17:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus you can get Icelandic water. They talk a lot about their water.

• 17:26Speaker 03

  Local pride.

• 17:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. Is it well water? Is it a reservoir water? Is it glacial runoff? Then that way you can stay out of the

• 17:33Speaker 03

  Absolutely. Okay. I think that's, I think we've got a whole episode there.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  Cool. And we can imply something about bottled water.

• 17:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So do you know there's an annual tap water test?

• 17:44Speaker 03

  Did not.

• 17:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Conducted by the American Waterworks Association. And the best tasting tap water in 2013 was Oklahoma City.

• 17:50Speaker 03

  Get out of here.

• 17:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, I think I've been to Oklahoma City and I went to restaurants and they're putting like lemon wedges in the water.

• 17:56Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 17:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know.

• 17:57Speaker 03

  Was this test done with lemon wedges in the water? Could that be why Oklahoma City has the best tasting water because it's lemonade without sugar?

• 18:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, gotta take a break. When we come back, more of part two of the Mythbusters interview.

• 18:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk. Neil deGrasse Tyson here. Chuck Nice with me.

• 18:24Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 18:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In studio.

• 18:25Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 18:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In New York.

• 18:27Speaker 03

  Speaking of New York.

• 18:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 18:29Speaker 03

  You said Oklahoma City won the best tasting water for 2013.

• 18:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not that, I, I didn't, it was the American Waterworks Association, Oklahoma City, but I'm thinking, I thought New York had some awesome water.

• 18:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then I looked at their list.

• 18:39Speaker 03

  Right.

• 18:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so the year before it was Fremont, Nebraska. Before that, Greenville, South Carolina. Stevens Point, Wisconsin, 2010.

• 18:46Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 18:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Macon, Georgia, 2009. Louisville, Kentucky, 2008. I'm saying, what's going on here? If you have good water, you ought to be winning every year.

• 18:53Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 18:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what's up with that?

• 18:54Speaker 03

  What is up with that? Every year a different place has the best water?

• 18:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They say New York has the best pizza because we have the best water going into the dough.

• 19:01Speaker 03

  That makes the dough better.

• 19:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, perhaps.

• 19:03Speaker 03

  I think it's just our general awesomeness. I'm just gonna say.

• 19:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Awesomosity.

• 19:07Speaker 03

  Some awesotity.

• 19:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so we're, that's our, part two of our Mythbusters interview with Adam Savage and Jamie Hyman. Jamie Hyman is the bald one with the hat. In case you get him confused. You know, they're famous for their experiments of blowing stuff up. I had to ask him.

• 19:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What happens if you get injured?

• 19:21Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 19:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's find out. Show me your scars.

• 19:25Speaker 02

  I think I've got about a hundred scars on my hands. I've got one on my forehead.

• 19:30Speaker 01

  Got about fifty, sixty stitches in my hands. I broke my finger about two months ago.

• 19:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  These from explosions or power tools gone awry?

• 19:36Speaker 01

  Actually, the most common injury on our set is from moving safety equipment.

• 19:41Speaker 02

  Yeah. Those blast panels that we carry around it, they're.

• 19:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  OSHA would be proud, right?

• 19:46Speaker 02

  They weigh close to a couple hundred pounds and, you know, we have to use a bunch of them. So you get your fingers in between and they're.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  So yeah, I got my finger in between and broke my left metacarpal.

• 19:55Speaker 02

  That's happened three times and those are the most serious.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  Four times, I was the fourth.

• 19:59Speaker 02

  Oh, was it?

• 19:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's the most trips to the hospital for that type of injury.

• 20:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So have other people been injured, like producers?

• 20:04Speaker 01

  Other crew members have broken fingers and gotten a couple of stitches here and there. But by and large, that's it. It's all relatively minor outpatient procedures.

• 20:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Any members of your production crew that you want to make sure they get injured?

• 20:17Speaker 01

  No, not anymore.

• 20:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So no matter what you say at the beginning of a show.

• 20:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 20:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As you blow stuff up, somebody's going to imitate what you're doing. Is there some liability to that as well?

• 20:27Speaker 01

  We've been very lucky. Well, one thing is we always play up how much our safety procedures are.

• 20:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, Discovery Channel viewers, they're a notch above others.

• 20:34Speaker 01

  I think so. We've been blessed that no one seems to have tried anything super dangerous and gotten hurt doing stuff with.

• 20:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, and we're pretty prominent about, don't try this at home and that kind of thing. And when you think about it, I mean, there's so much violent, just out of control, crazy stuff on the television, even in the news that you see all the time. We shouldn't be really held accountable for it.

• 20:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, of all the violence you're exposed to on TV, why turn to you guys, right?

• 20:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're going to call us the scapegoats. We have had people try stuff we've done in order to save their lives.

• 21:02Speaker 02

  And been successful.

• 21:03Speaker 01

  And been successful at doing that. We did a couple of episodes on escaping from an underwater car. And one of the things we learned during our episode is that as a car is sinking and it still has air within the car, you actually won't be able to open the door because of the pressure differential.

• 21:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Pressure difference, yeah.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  Until it actually settles on the bottom. So even after the car's full of water, if it's moving through the water, there's still a pressure differential.

• 21:25Speaker 02

  And even so, it has to fill with water once it's there. And that. That's kind of the cool part as far as the drama in us experimenting with this is that you have to wait until it's almost too late. You had to sit there and watch every last bit of the air disappear.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  Well said.

• 21:41Speaker 02

  And then you open the car door and you will be able to.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  Amazingly, we had this truck driver in San Diego who had a seizure and drove off the end of a pier. He came to in the cab of his truck in blackness and realized he was in the water. And he thought, right, okay, what did the Mythbusters say to do in this case? Oh, you've got to let the cab fill up with water. So he opened a vent. This is some big cojones on this guy. He opened a vent and let his cab fill up with water, held his breath and opened the door and swam to safety and emailed us to thank us.

• 22:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's happened about six times across the world.

• 22:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, a couple of police officers in the Midwest in the winter also went in the drink and credited us with getting them out in time.

• 22:23Speaker 02

  But so far, thankfully, no kids have improvised explosives.

• 22:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And after 10 years, it won't happen.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  No, and like I said, we really big up all of the safety procedures. We're standing in full safety gear. He had eye protection, ear protection, helmets, glass panels. You know, the FBI taught us a really great method is you don't know what's going to happen with an explosion. Put something big between you and it, like a building.

• 22:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:47Speaker 02

  Well, and I can tell you also that we've run across things that we could put out there and say, don't try this at home and all that kind of stuff, but there are episodes that we've canceled because we're not in the business of like, this is dangerous. Now here's how to do it.

• 23:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you know, it's not just, don't try this at home, it's don't try this ever at any time, anywhere.

• 23:07Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Yes.

• 23:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And even about home.

• 23:10Speaker 01

  And not even about home. Please don't try it at home, especially my home. That's what I'm saying.

• 23:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So this thing about the door is an important fact. It's, you know, do you ever notice airplane doors? They seal from the inside out. Right. The doors on the inside and presses against the outside fuselage. That's because when you're flying, the air pressure is higher inside the plane than it is outside. And that air pressure helps to keep the door shut.

• 23:32Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 23:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. So that way the locks and other things, you're not fighting what nature is trying to make happen anyway.

• 23:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I just resaw the Bourne trilogy. And in the second one, we drives off the bridge.

• 23:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He knew because Bourne is a smart dude.

• 23:44Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 23:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And plus he can kick your butt. The car goes off, the Jeep goes off, he waits for it to fill up, then he opens the...

• 23:50Speaker 01

  Then he goes out, right.

• 23:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Got that all figured out.

• 23:53Speaker 01

  So, I mean, here's the thing, just don't drive your car off into a body of water. How about you just practice some traffic safety?

• 24:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I can tell you, as an astronomer, we gotta be the safest job in the world. Cause the black hole is really far away.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  No chance of getting sucked in, huh?

• 24:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, we're good with that. Chuck, we gotta take a break. When we come back, more of StarTalk Radio's interview with the Mythbusters. What did I just say?

• 24:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back, StarTalk Radio. Tyson here, Chuck Nice there.

• 24:35Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 24:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hi Chuck, how you doing?

• 24:37Speaker 01

  I'm doing good.

• 24:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, we're on the internet, starTalkRadio.net, and you can find archival shows there. And there's even a list of the music that we play.

• 24:45Speaker 01

  That's very cool.

• 24:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For all the ins and outs of these segments.

• 24:48Speaker 01

  And they all have to do with whatever we're talking about?

• 24:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, whatever.

• 24:51Speaker 01

  Which is a very cool way to tie that in.

• 24:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't even choose the music, we got top people working on this in our factory. And also, StarTalk has a Twitter handle, at StarTalkRadio, so find us there. Check out what's going on. So, this is part two of the Mythbusters interview.

• 25:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Occasionally, sometimes they find things in their work that surprises even me. Let's find out. What is the weirdest urban legend that turned out to be true?

• 25:21Speaker 01

  Elephants are afraid of mice.

• 25:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, don't say that.

• 25:23Speaker 01

  We were in South Africa filming with sharks and bad weather kept us off the water.

• 25:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, cause everyone for Discovery Channel has to do sharks at some point.

• 25:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, we've done Shark Week twice. Three times.

• 25:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is rites of passage.

• 25:34Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, but bad weather kept us off the water, which was a disaster from a production standpoint. So, we went in inland and thought, well, let's just produce five minutes of filler. Let's do elephants are afraid of mice. So, we found someone with some mice, we found a nature preserve with some sad elephants, and we set up a procedure.

• 25:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We got a big ball of dung. Elephant turds are like basketballs.

• 25:56Speaker 02

  And we hollowed out a space in the bottom of the turd.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  Big enough for a very unhappy mouse.

• 26:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, one very unhappy mouse in there, tied monofilament onto it and went hid behind a bush and the people at the game reserve opened the fence. They knew.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  Elephants walk on paths that are predictable.

• 26:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, and we thought this was a fluff piece. The elephant's not going to be able to see what the little mouse or.

• 26:16Speaker 01

  We thought our biggest problem was going to be, what do we do when the elephant steps on the mouse? Do we film it? Show it? Smash it with Bambi meets Godzilla.

• 26:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, so the elephant comes out on cue and darned if it didn't come screeching to a stop. Once the mouse came out. Yeah, and it very carefully almost tiptoed.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  Totally, totally, totally. Yeah.

• 26:36Speaker 02

  And and.

• 26:36Speaker 01

  Like Disney style, tiptoeing around a mouse. So then we're thinking, well, maybe the elephant's never seen its own dung roll by its own accord. Afraid of its dung. So we removed the mouse. We had another elephant come through. We moved the dung. Elephant didn't do a darn thing.

• 26:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, and then we repeated.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  This is the control that you're trying to put into. We posited that that must be a control, then we added another mouse and did it with a different elephant.

• 26:58Speaker 02

  And the same thing happened.

• 26:59Speaker 01

  Got the same. So it wasn't just a neurotic. Not a neurotic elephant. We did have, and this is another thing that I love. We were doing an appearance at a college a few years ago and this eight year old girl raised her hand. She was like, I wanted to know why you used a white mouse in the experiment. Elephants are afraid of mice because they're not very natural. And why didn't you use a more natural colored mouse? And I said, you're absolutely right. It's because we weren't thinking far enough ahead. We thought we were doing a fluff piece and we were just wanted something that was bright on camera. She was all over that. She was totally all over. More power to her. A future scientist.

• 27:32Speaker 02

  We failed.

• 27:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, unbelievable. First of all, here's two things I'm thinking here.

• 27:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:39Speaker 03

  All right. One, elephants have very large brains. Maybe they're not afraid of mice. Maybe they're extremely compassionate.

• 27:46Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 27:46Speaker 03

  They just didn't want to step on something so small and helpless.

• 27:49Speaker 01

  Confusing fear from protect from.

• 27:51Speaker 03

  For protection.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 27:53Speaker 03

  That that's number one. Number two, the little girl had a point. Maybe elephants are racist. Okay, something to consider.

• 28:01Speaker 01

  They don't like the white mouse.

• 28:02Speaker 03

  Right, exactly.

• 28:04Speaker 01

  Give me some black mice and then I could chill with them.

• 28:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's like any of a half dozen Disney films where the black animal is the like the crows. The villain, the crows. The crows, wasn't that in Dumbo? That's correct. The crows are the. The crows were the black people. They were. They're just like, now you know better than that. You know no elephant can't fly. Boy, you better put that feather out your trunk. Okay, so it's interesting. So they didn't, they didn't test all the controls. They didn't test all the controls. They could have, you know, but this, this goes way back. It's not just an urban legend, which is what we say these, these modern things are. Right. It goes way back. There's a book published in AD 78. That's way back. Pliny the Elder. Okay, I'm not familiar. I don't think they had first and last names back then. It was like, you don't know Pliny? Pliny the Elder, not Pliny the Baker. Yeah. Right.

• 28:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Get yourself some Pliny. I actually own this book. It's a book called Natural History. Okay. And I have the first English translation of it, which was from 1600s. Oh, cool. And it is the repository of all knowledge of the day. Oh. All natural knowledge of the day. So it's like the first encyclopedia? It's essentially the first encyclopedia. And for those younger listeners, it's like Wikipedia, but in print. Okay? So. I didn't realize that. You do date yourself when you say encyclopedia. Yeah, they don't know what the hell you're talking about. Encyclo- pedia? What does encyclo mean? Where's the wiki? Where's the wiki? So here's the quote. It's a great quote. "Of all other living creatures, elephants cannot abide a mouse or a rat." Oh, so even back then he knew that. Oh, yeah, that's hot.

• 29:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a, he, he knew it. Fascinating. So it's not, we don't know why elephants would react that way. And some people have challenged their results, other than the eight-year-old girl. Right. That this is a general result. But it's still fun to know that an elephant can, on some conditions, tiptoe around a mouse.

• 29:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we come back, more of StarTalk Radio's interview with the Mythbusters.

• 30:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back for the last segment. Yes, I'm a little crestfallen that this is the last. Crestfallen. I thought you from the hood.

• 30:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Every now and then, this whole SAT word comes out of Chuck's mouth. Yes, this is true. This is why I got beat up a lot in the hood. It's your Ivy League education, just busting out. You can't hold it in. So, the Mythbusters interview with Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, this is the last segment. And in this next clip, we hear how they wanted Mythbusters to be different from other science TV shows. And they hypothesize why they think it's become so popular. Check it out.

• 30:49Speaker 01

  In the end, we really wanted to make sure we weren't just doing like a science demo show.

• 30:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not that that would be bad.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no, but most science programming up until us, where it was practical stuff, is what we'd call demonstration programming. That's what Bill Nye does. Here's the concept of this and here's a model that shows it.

• 31:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a liquid nitrogen and the bed of nails.

• 31:08Speaker 01

  Jamie's got a degree in Russian language and I've got a high school diploma. We have no idea what the results of any demonstration we're about to do will be. Our ignorance is the audience's ignorance. We're a genuine experimentation show.

• 31:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You said you have a high school diploma, it means you don't have a college diploma.

• 31:22Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 31:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I'm just trying to get the euphemisms correct.

• 31:26Speaker 02

  Well, and that approach points out a fundamental thing to Mythbusters. This thing about experimentation as opposed to demonstration and the fact that we're not educated formally as scientists. It points out that, you know, science isn't just for guys in lab coats. We kind of came into this by accident and we were presented with these urban legends to debunk or whatever. We just want to do a good job. So, we applied our minds to it and we figured, well, like we do with anything in our normal work, which was special effects before this, we're methodical about it. You know, you have a beginning point, an end point, you have a body of work in the middle, you march through it carefully to make sure that you cover all the bases and you're doing a good job.

• 32:08Speaker 02

  Well, that just happens to be pretty darned close to science, so.

• 32:12Speaker 01

  That's the thing. We never set up to actually illustrate the scientific method. It just turns out that when you're telling. A narrative about trying to figure something out.

• 32:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Comes and that's what it is.

• 32:20Speaker 01

  That's exactly what it is.

• 32:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 32:21Speaker 01

  And, science is messy and it's a deeply creative process, trying to come up with hypotheses and trying to figure out ways to remove variables and figure out your own bias.

• 32:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One of the strongest points of your show, at least from my point of view, is you get to see how you think about the problem.

• 32:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And how often do you get to see a scientist think about a problem? Never. You just see the result. It's in the journalist's public account of what you did. And so, we're a participant with you as you do this.

• 32:47Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 32:47Speaker 02

  Well, and you use a word like a hypothesis and a lot of times people's eyes glaze over it.

• 32:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't even have to call it science, just call it being curious about how to find out how things work.

• 32:57Speaker 02

  It's posing a question and then methodically going about getting an answer. So, that's what we do and that's one of the reasons the show's had such appeal with people of all ages and all types of backgrounds.

• 33:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  See, I would have thought it was your beret. I thought that's why people watch the show.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  The beret's at least 50%.

• 33:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's gotta be at least.

• 33:14Speaker 02

  The other 50% is explosives.

• 33:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the recipe.

• 33:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Beret, blow stuff up.

• 33:21Speaker 01

  It goes a decade of TV.

• 33:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, is the beret now surgically attached to your skull?

• 33:26Speaker 01

  He's wearing a new one, which I'm one of the few people that can tell immediately. His previous one, we were doing a story about shooting grenades out of the air.

• 33:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just like a Michael Jackson story where his

• 33:34Speaker 01

  No, no, no.

• 33:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The beret lit up on fire.

• 33:36Speaker 01

  No, Jamie was throwing grenades for me to shoot at and he said, "I'll give you one chance to shoot my hat" and I hit it.

• 33:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, he tossed his hat.

• 33:44Speaker 01

  He tossed his hat and I hit it with a shotgun round and it has hundreds of holes in it.

• 33:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, that means you're pretty handy with a shotgun.

• 33:51Speaker 01

  We both turned out to be pretty good at trap shooting.

• 33:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, of course, shotguns, it's a spray.

• 33:55Speaker 01

  It's a bit of a spray.

• 33:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just have to sort of point it rather than

• 33:58Speaker 02

  We also tried doing it with just a pistol and it's a whole different world.

• 34:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  These guys are out of control.

• 34:05Speaker 01

  They are out of control.

• 34:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus, when he first said, "Oh, he shot my hat," I'm thinking it's, it's, it's who's the dude with the bow and arrow and the apple?

• 34:11Speaker 01

  Exactly, William Tell.

• 34:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  William Tell, right.

• 34:14Speaker 01

  And it, yeah. What's on your head is the question.

• 34:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He shot my hat. Was it still on your head? So I like to think of Mythbusters as not something that simply debunks or explores urban legends, but it is a demonstration of how science works.

• 34:27Speaker 03

  Right.

• 34:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what it is. And I'm impressed that it has attracted that much interest. That tells me that there's an underbelly out there. There's a, there's a hidden geek in us all.

• 34:37Speaker 03

  Right. In everyone.

• 34:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In everyone.

• 34:39Speaker 03

  There really is.

• 34:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the show airs in every region that carries Discovery Channel. So it's Eastern and Central Europe, Denmark, I got a list here, Finland, South Africa, Norway, Sweden, Australia, Greece, Spain, Brazil. And so it has an appeal.

• 34:54Speaker 03

  Worldwide.

• 34:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That, that is extraordinary. And so I'm wondering if this is the beginning and the saga will continue, but I wonder if it's some of the seeds planted that will render science as a mainstream activity.

• 35:07Speaker 03

  You know, I think in one way it could, but here's what you get most people that's when they, when you say science.

• 35:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 35:15Speaker 03

  Science is hard.

• 35:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I know, but so.

• 35:17Speaker 03

  Science is hard.

• 35:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it can be fun. It can be hard and fun.

• 35:20Speaker 03

  Right.

• 35:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right?

• 35:22Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 35:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What, plus, what did John Kennedy say? We go to the moon, not because it's easy. Oh, you're gonna imitate his words?

• 35:28Speaker 03

  No, no, no. But you know how, we go to the moon. I just love that.

• 35:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you know more of what he said?

• 35:33Speaker 03

  Uh, let me see. Uh, because we can.

• 35:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, that was Obama.

• 35:38Speaker 03

  No, that was Obama. Oh, I'm Obama Kennedy. We go to the moon because we can. Yes, we can. Okay.

• 35:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Obama Kennedy, that's a really Irish sounding name.

• 35:48Speaker 03

  That's gonna be.

• 35:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Obama Kennedy.

• 35:49Speaker 03

  If I have another kid, I'm gonna name it Obama Kennedy.

• 35:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we choose to go to, not because it's easy, but because it's hard.

• 35:56Speaker 03

  Because it's hard.

• 35:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And in school, I used to wrestle. I wrestled not because it was easy, but because it was hard.

• 36:01Speaker 03

  Right.

• 36:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sometimes you want to do something hard, because then at the end of the day, you are in a new place, a place that others aren't there because it was hard.

• 36:09Speaker 03

  Nice. I'm inspired.

• 36:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Check. All right, we gotta take a break, and when we come back, it'll be Q and A time.

• 36:15Speaker 03

  Yes, it is.

• 36:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cosmic Q and A.

• 36:16Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 36:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Reaching out to the, to the peeps.

• 36:19Speaker 03

  Yes, that's right. And they're reaching out to us.

• 36:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you have it. We'll be right back.

• 36:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Chuck, we're back.

• 36:35Speaker 03

  Yes, we are.

• 36:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  StarTalk Radio. And we've got, uh...

• 36:39Speaker 03

  The Q and A Grab Bag.

• 36:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Q and A Cosmic Query Section.

• 36:43Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 36:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Segment of this show. So it's the Grab Bag, no theme?

• 36:46Speaker 03

  No theme, just a bunch of questions from our listeners right here in this Grab Bag. You don't know what they are.

• 36:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know what they are.

• 36:53Speaker 03

  You have not been briefed.

• 36:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If I don't know the answer, I'll just confess, I'll just fess up.

• 36:57Speaker 03

  That's right. Which, you know, that never happens, though.

• 37:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 37:00Speaker 03

  We always say that there's a possibility that it might happen, but it's never happened yet.

• 37:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe it's because I have something to say about everything, whether or not it's the answer.

• 37:09Speaker 03

  Is that the key?

• 37:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everything I say is correct, it's just not relevant to the question.

• 37:12Speaker 03

  There you go. My god, you could run for office. That's what they do, that is fantastic. All right, let's jump right into this, because we have James Isaac Dagenhart. Mm-hmm, that's a...

• 37:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The third, where's the Roman numeral, thank you.

• 37:26Speaker 03

  Okay. Uh, I had read about something called Modified Newtonian Dynamics that was introduced as being a possible model that doesn't presume the existence of dark matter. Does this have any credibility? Or is this pseudoscience sensationalism? I'm reading on Time Science Section. I love that he goes, oh, by the way, it was Time Magazine that, that, that we are questioning.

• 37:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, yeah, he says, is it pseudoscience? Because I read it on Time.

• 37:54Speaker 03

  I read it on Time, basically. Yes, an indictment of Time Magazine is what we have there.

• 37:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a backhanded indictment. So he's referring to Modified Newtonian Gravity. And we call it in my field, uh, Modified Newtonian Dynamics, and we call it in our field Mond.

• 38:08Speaker 03

  Mond.

• 38:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is the acronym, Mond. And it's an attempt to not be a prisoner of the mysterious

• 38:15Speaker 03

  Dark matter.

• 38:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Extra-gravity that we call dark matter. Dark matter is, what we call dark matter, really, I think, should be called dark gravity. Because eighty-five percent of all the gravity in the universe has no known origin.

• 38:26Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 38:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, dark gravity.

• 38:28Speaker 03

  Right.

• 38:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why would you call it dark matter? You don't even know if it's matter, so shut the hell up.

• 38:30Speaker 03

  But we know it's dark gravity.

• 38:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We know, it's definitely dark gravity.

• 38:33Speaker 03

  Because, and that's because we know that the expansion is accelerating, is that the reason?

• 38:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, that's different, that's dark energy. That's dark energy. Right, right, right. No, we'll just stay with the gravity for the moment. Yes, yes. Okay, so, so there are things keeping galaxies and galaxy clusters together. Right. There's an extra force of gravity operating that we cannot account for by anything that we see. And even anything that we don't see that we know is made of real matter. Gotcha. Like black holes, or dark clouds, or, or, or dark asteroids. We, you can add all those up. We have a way to account for those. Right. And we are, in some places, a factor of 10, in other places, a factor of 100 off. Wow. In accounting for this, what's making the gravity. Right. Okay, so, so there's a group that, uh, that, uh, that explored the possibility that maybe Newton's laws of gravity need an extra term in it. Mm-hmm.

• 39:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But we know Newton's laws of gravity work in certain situations, but there were the situations where it fails. Maybe you have an extra term there, a term in an equation, allows it to calculate other kinds of situations. Gotcha. So they just put in a term, and said, here's this term, will it work? And surprisingly, they got, explaining some things that had otherwise been explained by dark matter. Right. And there are certain, certain galaxies that orbit one another in small clusters. And so, it's an intriguing alternative hypothesis. And it's got, it's had some legs, but every now and then, somebody will discover a system that is not explainable by, by mon. By mon. And that, and that sort of sends them back a few steps. Throws a monkey wrench into the plan. Throws a monkey wrench, but then they come, come back.

• 40:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The point is, right now, we have no idea what dark matter is. So you cannot completely shut down that operation. Right. Because it's trying to come, it's trying to explain things without anything exotic, such as what dark matter would be. And so I don't have a problem with that exercise. These are respectable scientists doing respectable work. With, with postdocs and graduate students and things. So, uh, but there are some cases that it cannot explain. Gotcha. So you can't say, well, throw the whole thing out the window, because nobody else can explain them either. Right, right. So who am I to say, get out the room, when I don't have a better explanation? Right. So that's how that, that's, so, so yes, it's on the, it's on the, the edge of science. It's on the edge, but- Something's gotta be there.

• 40:50Speaker 03

  It's not really pseudoscience, but it's frontier science.

• 40:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you. It's frontier science that has a lot of people who doubt it.

• 40:57Speaker 03

  Right.

• 40:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But not on a level where we're gonna not listen to you.

• 41:01Speaker 03

  Not gonna discount it. We're just gonna doubt it.

• 41:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're just gonna doubt it.

• 41:04Speaker 03

  And you know what we call that? Science.

• 41:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 41:07Speaker 03

  Science.

• 41:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go. Next question.

• 41:11Speaker 03

  Alright, uh, let's check out what Jared has to ask. And Jared.

• 41:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's his last name?

• 41:16Speaker 03

  Uh, Jared just goes with Jared, man. He's like Cher.

• 41:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Madonna.

• 41:19Speaker 03

  And Madonna, right. You know, it's just Jared, okay? Uh, Jared says.

• 41:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I guess both Madonnas had only one name, I guess, now that I think about it.

• 41:27Speaker 03

  Exactly. Which one is more famous, by the way? That's a good question. So here's what Jared says. Uh, "Hey Neil, quick question." I love his conversational tone.

• 41:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Huh? Nice.

• 41:38Speaker 03

  "Hey Neil, quick question." As I am sure you get tons of.

• 41:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But do I have a quick answer? See, that's what it really comes down to in the end, but go on.

• 41:44Speaker 03

  "I'm sure you get tons of questions, uh, but with the recent claim that the Higgs had been discovered over ninety-nine percent, not quite one hundred percent, a thought occurred to me. If the Higgs gives mass to objects and the universe is normally symmetrical, i.e. matter, antimatter, is there an anti-Higgs? If yes, could a theoretical anti-Higgs generator reduce mass enough to allow faster-than-light travel? Oh, man, this dude thinks he is the chief engineer on the starship Enterprise."

• 42:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm thinking, and depending on his age, he's one of these kinds that I wonder what he's building in his basement.

• 42:24Speaker 03

  Oh, I know what he's smoking in his basement. I don't know what he's building in his basement, but I know what he smoked before he tried to build it.

• 42:34Speaker 03

  Uh, alright, so basically, let's talk about this anti-Higgs antimatter. Could this happen?

• 42:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so the Higgs particle is what's called a boson, and, and there are some particle physics classes that I never took, and so some of what I know there, I learned osmotically from particle physics colleagues of mine. The rest I learned formally. So I may be stepping across that edge right now.

• 42:57Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 42:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But Higgs being a boson, a boson is a class of particle that does not itself have an antiparticle.

• 43:03Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 43:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like a photon, light is, or is a boson. There's no anti-photon.

• 43:07Speaker 03

  Right.

• 43:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, so. Uh, so what you're, so the, the premise here would be that same boson would be granting mass to an antiparticle, just as it would be granting mass to a particle.

• 43:18Speaker 03

  Gotcha.

• 43:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's my answer. And if I'm wrong, one of my physics colleagues will write it.

• 43:22Speaker 03

  We'll tell you, Derek.

• 43:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. But I, that's, so that's because of the class of particle that it is.

• 43:27Speaker 03

  Right.

• 43:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So he, so, so, uh, whatever's going on in his basement, he has to make, he has to modify his plans.

• 43:31Speaker 03

  Yes. And please stop it, whatever you're doing in your basement. Please. Okay? We don't want to, you know.

• 43:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 43:39Speaker 03

  Which, which the other question, the follow-up to this is, since we're talking about the Higgs boson.

• 43:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 43:43Speaker 03

  And this is the classic question that everybody has, is, could you actually create a black hole on Earth?

• 43:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You wouldn't want to.

• 43:53Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 43:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But you could, yeah.

• 43:54Speaker 03

  Oh, you could?

• 43:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 43:55Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 43:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. And in a lab, I mean, in principle, you can create a, a region of matter so dense and small that it would classify as a black hole. What happens is small black holes evaporate.

• 44:05Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 44:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  According to Hawking radiation. The small ones evaporate way faster than big ones. So if you make a tiny, mini microscopic black hole.

• 44:12Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 44:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It would have, it might evaporate before it has a chance to eat the Earth.

• 44:15Speaker 03

  Gotcha. Well, we don't want to find that.

• 44:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right.

• 44:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's something we don't want to find.

• 44:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My favorite line, I'm told it was from a, I don't remember this line, but people tell me from a Kurt Vonnegut novel. He, he hypothesized what the very last sentence ever spoken by humanity was.

• 44:29Speaker 03

  And what was it?

• 44:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was, "Let's try it this way."

• 44:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's two scientists having a conversation.

• 44:38Speaker 03

  That's great.

• 44:41Speaker 03

  "Let's try it this way."

• 44:44Speaker 03

  Oh, I love it. I love it. Yeah. Okay. Well, hey, thanks, Jared. Uh, please stop doing whatever you're doing in your basement, and we appreciate you.

• 44:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 44:51Speaker 03

  All right.

• 44:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We've got time for like, I think, one more question.

• 44:52Speaker 03

  One more. Here we go. This is Ryan. First, quick comment. I absolutely love the show and can't get enough of it. Please keep it up.

• 44:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, thank you.

• 45:00Speaker 03

  And now for a question. Uh, is it my understanding that a black hole will just vanish and disappear at the end of its life? Now, you just touched on this, and I, if that's so, and here's his question, that's why I'm reading it. An E equals mc squared two, uh, or mc squared, uh, what happens to the energy? And all the particles.

• 45:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 45:22Speaker 03

  So in a vanishing black hole. So since we just learned, you just said this.

• 45:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 45:25Speaker 03

  That they some of them vanish.

• 45:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, all black holes evaporate.

• 45:28Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 45:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Every understanding we have of quantum physics and relativity.

• 45:32Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 45:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As advanced to us by the brain work of Stephen Hawking.

• 45:37Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 45:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, in fact, it's called Hawking radiation. The fact that a black hole will evaporate. Its evaporation is, its energy field is so intense that matter spontaneously spawns in that energy field.

• 45:50Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 45:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And in so doing, the black hole loses mass.

• 45:54Speaker 03

  Gotcha.

• 45:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so the act of its losing mass is because it's sending matter and energy.

• 45:59Speaker 03

  Out.

• 46:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Out beyond its event horizon.

• 46:01Speaker 03

  Right.

• 46:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's evaporating not into thin air, evaporating into thin space.

• 46:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But that energy is recovered in the volume of space into which it has evaporated. So there's no loss of equals mc squared is still.

• 46:14Speaker 03

  It's still intact.

• 46:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 46:15Speaker 03

  Because there is no loss of energy.

• 46:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's even more amazing is every atom that went in, if I drop you into a black hole.

• 46:20Speaker 03

  Right.

• 46:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's an accounting of that, a mysterious quantum accounting of every particle of you that went in, so that you look at the particles that evaporate out from the energy field.

• 46:30Speaker 03

  Right.

• 46:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That tally will come out equaling the tally of atoms that went in in the first place. The black hole remembered what it ate.

• 46:38Speaker 03

  Oh my God, it's like a, uh, a cosmic nightclub.

• 46:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Two people in, two people out.

• 46:41Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 46:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got it. This has been StarTalk Radio. Chuck, thanks for being on as always. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, bidding you to keep looking up.