Predictions: This Year in Science

Kick the New Year off with Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice as they discuss scientific predictions for 2018 submitted by fans and friends of the StarTalk universe; Neil and Chuck also, not surprisingly, get sidetracked by their great conversation. NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free. https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/predictions-this-year-in-science/

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

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 0:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your host, your personal astrophysicist. I serve as Director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History. And today, I've got my co-host Chuck Nice. Yes. Chuck, you baby. How are you, Neil? Good, good. By the way, I serve as patron of the Hayden Planetarium. Okay. You are the Director. I'm a guy who pays to go there. Patron. Patron. Patron. That's right. So, this is actually a first-of-a-kind show that we're gonna do. Yeah. We're going to think about predictions that people have made for 2018. Yes.

• 0:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I'm not a good predictor of things, people know this, well, those who know, know this. I am not a good predictor of things either. I used Bitcoin to buy Burger King. So, and I don't mean the stock, I mean an actual Burger King meal, so... So, my famous non-prediction, I've said this like 100 times on the air, and we'll say it again, because this show is about predictions. Yeah. Right? Okay. So, I'm old enough to remember Star Trek in first run. Okay. 1967. That's Captain Kirk. Captain Kirk. Right, Lieutenant Uhura. All of them. Right. All of them, and that was the future. This is the mid-60s, we're going to the moon, and here's a show about the future. Right. I was all there. Remember Jetsons was the cartoon?

• 1:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Absolutely. So, everybody was thinking about tomorrow. Mm-hmm. And there they had warp drives and photon torpedoes and, you know, the early stun guns, basically. Put the phaser on stun, all of this. And I said, "Yeah, all that's gonna happen." And they had machines that food just came out of the wall. Right. Okay. By the way, that exists today. I'm saying, "Okay, I accept all of that." What I would not accept is that the door knew you were walking up to it and just opened for you. I said, "That'll never happen, not in centuries, never." I was so cool with warp drives and transporter rooms.

• 2:18Chuck Nice?

  But not automatic doors.

• 2:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How did the door know you were coming up to the door? How was it gonna know?

• 2:25Chuck Nice?

  Well, yeah, I'm gonna say that-

• 2:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I am eight years old. How's it gonna know?

• 2:31Chuck Nice?

  Magic?

• 2:33Chuck Nice?

  Actually, at an eight-year-old, I could see it's like, yeah, like that would look like-

• 2:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There was no, I didn't see, and in Star Trek, I didn't see any sensors at the door.

• 2:42Chuck Nice?

  Right, which they didn't have it. The door just knew.

• 2:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The door just knew.

• 2:44Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and so the first doors that we had that opened when you walked up to them, it was a pad that you stepped on at grocery stores.

• 2:51Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that opened the door.

• 2:53Chuck Nice?

  I remember those, and now they have, of course, the actual sensors.

• 2:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right.

• 2:58Chuck Nice?

  What I liked most about Star Trek and-

• 3:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because I looked for pads that they were stepping on.

• 3:03Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, they weren't there, no.

• 3:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 3:04Chuck Nice?

  So here's what I didn't-

• 3:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it turns out there's actually two people looking through the peephole and pulling the doors aside.

• 3:10Chuck Nice?

  Oh my god, that's the actual how it worked?

• 3:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's actually how they did it, yeah.

• 3:13Chuck Nice?

  That'd be funny if that's actually how they did it on the USS Enterprise 2. Just two dudes who, that's their whole job, is to open the sliding doors. That's so funny. So you don't make predictions.

• 3:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I'm not a good, after that, after I got that wrong, I said, "I'm just gonna stop."

• 3:29Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 3:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I predicted that would never happen. It's the only thing that actually has, did happen, right? So, that's the opposite.

• 3:36Chuck Nice?

  So you just reminded me of in 2000, was it eight? I think it might have been 2008 or not, 2007 or eight, I'm not sure, seven or somewhere. Anyway, these people come to me and they go, "Hey, there's this thing. It's, uh, it basically uses SMS technology. It's 140 characters and you write things and then people, you know, uh, become a part of your community and you communicate this way." And they were like, "Would you like to make, uh, a tweet?" And I said- This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard of in my entire life. Good luck to you.

• 4:16Chuck Nice?

  And I gotta admit, every day I'm on Twitter, I feel like an idiot. I feel like an absolute idiot. Yeah, and a friend of mine was like, "Yeah, there's this one guy, he has like 10,000 people who are like already with him, and he just tweets jokes. You should do that, man."

• 4:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you just said, "No."

• 4:34Chuck Nice?

  I was like, "This is the dumbest frickin' thing I've ever heard of."

• 4:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So why the two of us hosting this show?

• 4:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, that's the end of StarTalks.

• 4:44Chuck Nice?

  And thank you for joining us.

• 4:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Shortest episode.

• 4:46Chuck Nice?

  For StarTalk predictors.

• 4:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ever. By the way, just a quick thing about Twitter.

• 4:49Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 4:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On StarTalk, we interviewed Biz Stone.

• 4:53Chuck Nice?

  Biz Stone.

• 4:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Biz Stone, interviewed him.

• 4:55Chuck Nice?

  He's one of the founders, right?

• 4:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Co-founders, and then when you hear what was in his head at the time he invented it, it's like, "Whoa."

• 5:04Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 5:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whoa. It was...

• 5:07Chuck Nice?

  You mean, he didn't invent it so that people control one another and say awful things?

• 5:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What it was, was you're there and there are birds in the park, all doing their own thing, and then something happens and they all fly away together and they flock.

• 5:20Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they stay in pattern.

• 5:22Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then something happens when they stop and they go back doing their own thing. Until Twitter, we did not have a flocking mechanism for the human species.

• 5:30Chuck Nice?

  Well, guess what? He achieved his goal then.

• 5:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what happens now, you can send out a tweet, "Let's all do this now." Then everybody does that now.

• 5:39Chuck Nice?

  Yep.

• 5:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're individual until that moment.

• 5:41Chuck Nice?

  Yep.

• 5:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You are a coordinated mass during that moment, and then you go back to being an individual.

• 5:48Chuck Nice?

  It's a tremendous concept and it actually works.

• 5:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And who would've thought that we were absent this dimension of what it is to be alive?

• 5:56Chuck Nice?

  It's amazing. I mean, it's really...

• 5:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fish flock. We're vertebrates just like fish.

• 6:00Chuck Nice?

  That's right. And we didn't have that, but we have it now, the Arab Spring as a matter of fact.

• 6:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's an example.

• 6:05Chuck Nice?

  Was an example. Fantastic, man. That's why I love hanging out with you, man.

• 6:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's StarTalk.

• 6:11Chuck Nice?

  StarTalk. Alright, so before we get into the actual predictions.

• 6:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've got a list of predictions.

• 6:16Chuck Nice?

  So I've got a list from across a different.

• 6:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, this is fanbase.

• 6:20Chuck Nice?

  Mediums and fans.

• 6:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've got people, like, regular people making predictions.

• 6:23Chuck Nice?

  And then you can comment on what you think about their prediction.

• 6:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'd be happy to react to a prediction, yes.

• 6:28Chuck Nice?

  I also have some predictions from some of our other StarTalk All-Stars.

• 6:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of StarTalk Family.

• 6:34Chuck Nice?

  And StarTalk Family, so Andy Weir, who of course you've interviewed a couple times and you're friendly with.

• 6:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Martian author.

• 6:40Chuck Nice?

  Drew Pulley, who is the producer of our Nat Geo show, has a prediction. Natalia Regan, who is a StarTalk All-Star and a primatologist. And Seth Shostak, who is the senior scientist at SETI.

• 6:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Good, so let's do this.

• 6:57Chuck Nice?

  So we'll do that, but before we get into that, I want to know, since we are in the new year, looking back on last year, what do you feel is the most significant either advancement or breakthrough, which would be discovery, or story? Any one of those?

• 7:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, it's trivial, it's easy.

• 7:17Chuck Nice?

  Easy?

• 7:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Easy.

• 7:18Chuck Nice?

  What?

• 7:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The total solar eclipse.

• 7:19Chuck Nice?

  Get out!

• 7:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 7:20Chuck Nice?

  But wait a minute, didn't I hear you say to me personally that total solar eclipses happen all the time? So how can that be the most significant story in 2017? It's gonna happen again in 2018, and how?

• 7:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are you done?

• 7:37Chuck Nice?

  Explain yourself, sir.

• 7:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are you done?

• 7:39Chuck Nice?

  Okay, I'm quite finished.

• 7:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, the moon's shadow touched Earth in the Pacific Ocean.

• 7:45Chuck Nice?

  Oh, okay.

• 7:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Moving east very fast.

• 7:48Chuck Nice?

  Moving east very fast.

• 7:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At basically the speed of its orbit around the Earth minus Earth's rotation speed. So it comes out to about 800 miles an hour.

• 7:56Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 7:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus or minus, okay. So, there it goes. It landfalls in Oregon. Correct. Crosses the continental United States. Yes. Hits the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of South Carolina. Mm-hmm. Continues in the Atlantic Ocean and the shadow then leaves Earth and returns to space from whence it came. That shadow, that total solar eclipse shadow, touched no other municipality in the world other than the United States territory. Correct. It was a Merck as eclipse. Merck.

• 8:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A and R. A. B, the United States is crisscrossed with roads and we own two cars per person or whatever the number is. Yes, exactly. So, 220, last I checked, 220 million people lived within a day's car drive of the path of totality. It may have been the most watched eclipse in the history of the world. Wow. Because of the mobility of Americans. Right. Across our entire continent, coast to coast. So, not only that, everybody was talking about the eclipse. That's true. Now, you couldn't go anywhere without hearing about it. Nobody over that time, and I tweeted this, nobody was in denial of the science

• 9:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  behind the eclipse. Hmm. Science denialism like took a, was, was, took a vacation that, that, those months, the lead up onto the total solar eclipse itself. Everybody wanted to find a scientist to help them learn how to look at it, how to record it, how to photograph it. So, I think science, the, the, the luster of science restored a few notches, if we measure it that way. I got you. Because of that eclipse, at least in, in the United States. So, the significance was... It became an event. The event. Events matter. Was, right, right. Events matter in today, in pop culture today. Oh, big time. And so, that was an event.

• 10:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, okay, I'm, I'm gonna, alright, so you, you gonna stick with that over gravity waves? Love me some gravity waves.

• 10:10Chuck Nice?

  I'm talking about the pulsar crash.

• 10:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The pulsar, oh yeah.

• 10:14Chuck Nice?

  I'm talking about the pulsar crash, not the original.

• 10:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My man is fluent. My man reads his weekly reader.

• 10:21Chuck Nice?

  I have no choice now.

• 10:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did I hear you subscribe to physics?

• 10:28Chuck Nice?

  Physics.org, yes I do.

• 10:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Physics.org.

• 10:31Chuck Nice?

  Listen, man, first of all, here's what I know.

• 10:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I am, I feel the love.

• 10:35Chuck Nice?

  You should, because you are responsible for that, to be honest.

• 10:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When someone says, "I feel the love," you don't say, "You should." That is not...

• 10:44Chuck Nice?

  Was that not the proper response? No, I mean, clearly, well, here's the one thing. Like, I've told you this, I don't like feeling stupid. But no, but more importantly, after many years of working with you, I know that if you don't know what you're talking about, you have very little patience for people who don't know what they're talking about.

• 11:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, let me be clear. If you don't know what you're talking about, and no, you don't know what you're talking about.

• 11:14Chuck Nice?

  That's what I'm talking about.

• 11:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, that's different.

• 11:15Chuck Nice?

  I'm not talking about that, right.

• 11:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're not talking about that. That's just somebody who doesn't know.

• 11:19Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 11:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I'm an educator.

• 11:21Chuck Nice?

  That's ignorance, and ignorance is okay. Stupidity is not.

• 11:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you don't know what you're talking about, and if you don't know what you're talking about, and you think you know what you're talking about, and you put in a little aggression, "Oh, yeah, I have no..."

• 11:35Chuck Nice?

  No patience for that, right.

• 11:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, that's when all the stuff, oh, just back then.

• 11:40Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 11:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Back up.

• 11:41Chuck Nice?

  So I still don't know what I'm talking about, but at least I know what the subject is.

• 11:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Can I tell you my first encounter with someone who thought he knew what he was talking about and didn't?

• 11:49Chuck Nice?

  Oh, please do.

• 11:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm a freshman, no, I'm a sophomore in college.

• 11:53Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 11:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is at Harvard.

• 11:55Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 11:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There is a student there who's a senior.

• 11:58Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 11:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. A Harvard student.

• 12:00Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 12:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So these are learned people.

• 12:03Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 12:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The tops of their class.

• 12:05Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 12:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? We're talking about the element mercury.

• 12:10Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 12:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I, and I forgot how this came up, and so I said, so mercury, it conducts electricity, it's a metal.

• 12:21Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And he said, "It's not a metal, it's a liquid."

• 12:25Chuck Nice?

  Whoa.

• 12:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I was like, "Oh, my gosh."

• 12:28Chuck Nice?

  And then you were like, "Uh..."

• 12:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I said...

• 12:31Chuck Nice?

  "Community college called, they want you back."

• 12:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And no disrespect to anybody that's committed to this. Oh, so I said, even at Harvard, they're idiots. Right. An idiot for thinking he knew what he was talking about. Right. Not for just saying, oh, I didn't know it can be both. Right. That's what he should have said. Exactly. He was pre-lawed, by the way, so. Oh, well, there you have it. No, I'm just saying. Yeah, seriously. So I'm just. I got you. You want another one? Just another quick one? Please do. I know, it's not had nothing to do with the topic of the show. This is interesting. Okay. Are you ready? Yeah. So now freshman year, I am at a diner, basically a diner. So I'm in the diner and had breakfast with a friend of mine. We ordered exactly the same food. All right.

• 13:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Uh, the bill came, a single bill for both of us, and it was an odd number. But we ordered exactly the same food. Anything times two has to be an even number. Oh, my God. So I looked at what the tax was. And I said, okay, if they bill us separately, then we save a penny. Okay? Uh-oh, you were that guy. Cause this rounded up. So I said, I called the server over. Back then, they were called waiter and waitresses. That's true. Actually, it was a waiter. And I called the waiter back and I said, I would like these separate checks. And he said, why?

• 14:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I said, oh, because it will come out less than if you give me one check. And he says, no, it won't. The computer, the cash register does this, the computer does it. And I said, you just do that, you will see. And he says, no, I can't read it. And I said, just do, just do that. And then the guy gets on the microphone, uh, manager, come out here, we have trouble. Oh, brother. Trouble.

• 14:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so now watch. So they said, you know, do that up. So we take the bill up to the cash register. And I said, I'd like to pay these separately, please. They said, but it's gonna be the same. And I said, no, it's not gonna be the same. And I'm holding up the line. And people behind me, other Harvard students, said, slightly loud enough for me to hear, and there might have been like a, in the day, this is many years ago, and this is like Boston, so this is like, it could have been a racial dimension to it.

• 15:12Chuck Nice?

  No, I was gonna say, not could have been, it's Boston.

• 15:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, it's Boston.

• 15:14Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, it's racist. Right now, there are people listening to us in Boston going, no, no, no, it was racist.

• 15:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, one of them says, he obviously doesn't know the distributive properties of multiplication.

• 15:25Chuck Nice?

  Oh, oh, wait a minute!

• 15:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so...

• 15:31Chuck Nice?

  Okay, see, now, now, wait a minute. It's just got real.

• 15:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so now watch. So, so at this, you know how this ended?

• 15:38Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 15:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No one agreed with me.

• 15:41Chuck Nice?

  That it would be left.

• 15:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And he just gave me the penny out of the, out of the, out of the cash register. And that was it. So the guy behind me thinks I'm a math idiot, when he's the [bleep] idiot.

• 15:51Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 15:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay?

• 15:52Chuck Nice?

  That's, apparently, he doesn't know the distributive properties of multiplication.

• 15:59Chuck Nice?

  Clearly, clearly, you're a negro.

• 16:03Chuck Nice?

  Clearly. Not sure what your problem is, sir.

• 16:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so I was just intrigued that two people go order exactly the same thing, there's an odd number of pennies in the bill. Anyhow, so, so clearly what happened there, it rounded up, when you added the two together, that's all it is. And so I didn't want to pay that extra penny, in principle.

• 16:23Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, no, that's a great story, man.

• 16:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know, it's, it sounds petty, but...

• 16:27Chuck Nice?

  Oh, no, it's petty.

• 16:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But what...

• 16:28Chuck Nice?

  But it's a great story.

• 16:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't mind being treated annoyingly for saying something petty.

• 16:35Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm reacting to the fact that people thought I didn't know what I was talking about.

• 16:39Chuck Nice?

  Exactly, and that's what I was gonna say. It's really not petty in that this. When you know you're right, and people are looking at you like, "Oh dude, what an idiot." And you're like, "Wait a minute, I'm the idiot and I know I'm right." You know, that's...

• 16:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, I would have preferred people just annoyed, they agreed because they did the math correctly. And they were just annoyed that I was holding up the line.

• 17:01Chuck Nice?

  I can't believe we're out of time for this segment.

• 17:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, what's Star Talk, what's this show about again?

• 17:10Chuck Nice?

  Oh man, predictions!

• 17:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Predictions!

• 17:12Chuck Nice?

  Let me tell you something, worth it. I'm sorry, I don't care if we're out of time on this segment, this was worth it.

• 17:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, when Star Talk returns, we will get back to what we promised we would talk about. These are people's predictions for 2018, and my reactions to them.

• 17:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on Star Talk. Our future predictions, as are all predictions, future predictions for 2018. We solicited predictions from our fanbase, and some in the Star Talk family.

• 17:51Chuck Nice?

  Yes, we did.

• 17:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But we just came out of a segment where you just had me railing on about people, about people who thought they're not stupid, but they actually are, and thought I was stupid.

• 18:00Chuck Nice?

  And guess what, that was an awesome segment that quite frankly...

• 18:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That had nothing to do with this topic!

• 18:05Chuck Nice?

  I don't care, it was so enjoyable, I could do a whole show on Neil at Harvard. Just you and Harvard stories, I could do an entire show on that, I don't care.

• 18:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You want another one?

• 18:16Chuck Nice?

  I would like another one.

• 18:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm in middle school, okay, back then they called it junior high school.

• 18:19Chuck Nice?

  I didn't want to go that far.

• 18:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I like timekeeping devices.

• 18:23Chuck Nice?

  Wait a minute, say this again now, you're in middle school?

• 18:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Middle school.

• 18:25Chuck Nice?

  And what?

• 18:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like timekeeping devices, okay? So not just any watch, but a watch that would have dials and a stopwatch, and you know, tachometers, this sort of, just complicated time. And historically, astronomers basically invented timekeeping, all right, methods.

• 18:41Chuck Nice?

  That makes sense.

• 18:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's why all the basic units of time are based on astronomical phenomena.

• 18:45Chuck Nice?

  Makes sense.

• 18:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A day, a year, a month, muns, this is how you get that, okay? So it's culturally in my field, and I... Known I've loved the universe since age nine. Okay. So I'm in there. So middle school, I'm in it. And now you've known since you were nine. When did you come out of the closet? Uh, eleven. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It took me two years to go public. Basically, Mom, Dad, there's something I want to tell you.

• 19:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm an astrophysicist.

• 19:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Son, I don't care what you are. Where have we gone wrong? No, no, where have we gone wrong? My father's a sociologist working for Mayor Lindsay in the civil rights movement. That is correct. I know that. I knew that. And my mother would later go back to school and become a gerontologist. These are people caring people. Right. And there's some astrophysicists. They're about like social activism and making change. Making the world a better place for people who are powerless. And then here you come along. I want to just keep looking up. At the astrophysics of the universe. That's hilarious. Where have we gone wrong? So you knew you wanted to be, uh, the universe and there's timekeeping thing. So I, so I walk dogs for a living. Fifty cents per walk per dog. That, and they get walked two or three times a day. And the golden age of dog walking, before you had to pooper scoop them. Right.

• 19:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. I didn't even know it was a golden age, but it was. Yeah. I didn't have to do it. All right. I'm gonna call it more of a brownish age than the golden age.

• 20:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And back then I was very good at knowing where my foot landed in the sidewalk. Right. Okay. The worst kind of incident would be a big pile of freshly laid poop. You know it. And you step in it and it's kind of slippery. Yes. If you stepped and then slipped forward and then you fell backwards into it. So it was on the bottom of your foot and on your butt. Oh. Yeah, yeah. That was, that was the double poop whammy. The double poop whammy. Yeah, yeah. Anyhow, so, uh, so I had money to buy these watches. So I had several watches. Mm-hmm. And one of them was particularly complicated, all right? And, and the, the sweep secondhand, people don't even remember what that is. The thing to keep track of seconds. Sixty Minutes, the TV show. It's the tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Yeah, the ticking part. That's the sweeping secondhand. Sweep secondhand. Uh, that fell off.

• 20:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so it needs to be put back on and maybe sort of glued back in. So I took it to the neighborhood jeweler, you know, jewelry shop. And I say, I'd like to have this fixed. And again, remember, I see, just see the world as the world is. I don't see the world as the world sees me. I'm just looking out of my. Right. This is your frame of reference. I'm just looking out of my window. Okay, I have a watch, there's a jeweler. I go, take it in. By the way, I bought this watch at Macy's. Okay.

• 21:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so I take it in, and so I'd like this repaired. And he looks at the watch, looks up at me, looks down at the watch, looks back up at me. And then he says, "I don't have the key to open this." And I said, "Oh, uh, okay, just looks like a hex thing in the back here." And he says, "Anyway, this watch is stolen." I said, "Wow, I wonder how he would know that was stolen? Was it stolen off a truck and then sold to Macy's?" I'm trying to think-

• 21:50Chuck Nice?

  Right, you're trying to rationalize-

• 21:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Rationalize-

• 21:52Chuck Nice?

  His thoughts of the watch being stolen.

• 21:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Completely bigoted, prejudiced man.

• 21:58Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 21:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That I'm not even thinking that this is what he is.

• 22:01Chuck Nice?

  Right, right, no. Why would you?

• 22:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He sees a black, 14-year-old kid-

• 22:06Chuck Nice?

  With a nice watch.

• 22:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With a nice watch.

• 22:08Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is stolen.

• 22:09Chuck Nice?

  Little does he know, you slipped in a lot of shit to get that watch.

• 22:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I just learned how to walk. How to tiptoe through the tulips. So, so it was just the, I just, the relationship with society.

• 22:22Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My view of society was just so different from society's view of me, that's all.

• 22:26Chuck Nice?

  Oh, absolutely.

• 22:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so I, there I am, and I don't, I don't want to call it naivete, I knew people could be that way. I'm just kinda giving people the benefit of the doubt that they're not that way.

• 22:36Chuck Nice?

  Oh, yeah.

• 22:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then when I see, because my parents told me about how people can, can act.

• 22:39Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know?

• 22:40Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was very well-trained.

• 22:42Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 22:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And how I should act, and I'm, if I'm stopped by the cops.

• 22:45Chuck Nice?

  Well, that's a story, that, I mean, that's-

• 22:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me quickly reach into the glove compartment to show you something.

• 22:50Chuck Nice?

  Right, exactly.

• 22:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't do that. Anyway, can we do predictions now, please?

• 22:54Chuck Nice?

  All right, let's do predictions. All right, here we go. Our first prediction, can we go audio-wise, please? Um, let's go with Andy Weir.

• 23:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Andy Weir.

• 23:01Chuck Nice?

  Andy Weir has a prediction, and we would like you to react to it.

• 23:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is for StarTalk.

• 23:04Chuck Nice?

  This is our first StarTalk.

• 23:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Solicited just for StarTalk. What's Andy Weir's prediction?

• 23:09Speaker 02

  Hello, StarTalk, this is Andy Weir, author of The Martian and Artemis. Currently, the cheapest way to get mass into low Earth orbit is to buy space on a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster. The price works out to be about $2,700 per kilogram. I predict that in 2018, there will be at least one commercial space launch where the price per kilogram to low Earth orbit is $2,200 per kilogram or less.

• 23:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How much more specific?

• 23:36Chuck Nice?

  I was gonna say, that's a prediction that I mean, you can't, I mean, and actually, who's gonna be flying the rocket? Did you predict that?

• 23:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no, no, these are, these are, these are un- uncrewed.

• 23:47Chuck Nice?

  Uncrewed, is that what they call it?

• 23:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is the gender neutral. Get with the program, dude.

• 23:51Chuck Nice?

  I'm sorry, man, I didn't realize that.

• 23:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I didn't know this about you.

• 23:54Chuck Nice?

  I did not know this about myself either. Clearly, I'm a sexist. It's no longer unmanned, it's uncrewed.

• 24:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's the crew.

• 24:02Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 24:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's the crew of the vessel. So, so what he's talking about, this arc of the dropping of the cost, he mentioned kilograms, the, the, the common number we think of is $10,000 per pound.

• 24:13Chuck Nice?

  Per pound, right.

• 24:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To put a, anything, a pound of anything. The excess fat on your belly and butt as an astronaut is costing $10,000 a pound.

• 24:24Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 24:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If we take off that fat, we can put extra payload of an experiment or something. So, generally astronauts are slender, okay?

• 24:33Chuck Nice?

  I would so, I would so gain weight just to, oof, just to be more expensive.

• 24:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so SpaceX, their big mission in life is not so much a mission to Mars as a mission to drop, uh, yes, they wanna go to Mars, but their big role on the landscape is to drop the, the cost of access to space.

• 24:53Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 24:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, I, I could go with that. That would, that would drop from $2,700-

• 24:57Chuck Nice?

  To $2,200.

• 24:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Per kilogram, but that's way less than the $10,000 per pound it costs NASA to get something into orbit.

• 25:03Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 25:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So SpaceX, it's already cheaper, kilogram is like 2.2 pounds, and so, yeah, so we're already a factor of 10.

• 25:11Chuck Nice?

  All right, so here's, here's what I-

• 25:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thousand dollars a pound.

• 25:13Chuck Nice?

  How do you get the cost to come down? Is it like, how do we do it? Volume, or like, how do you bring the cost down?

• 25:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The cost of making the spaceship and launching it has to come down.

• 25:23Chuck Nice?

  I got you.

• 25:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so it could be efficiency of the assembly line, it could be, uh, uh, scale, it could be reusability, so you don't have to make it again.

• 25:33Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So...

• 25:34Chuck Nice?

  So, all along, all along the process, whatever you do to make it cheaper-

• 25:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everything.

• 25:40Chuck Nice?

  Causes the payload cost to become cheaper.

• 25:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Per pound, yes.

• 25:44Chuck Nice?

  Per pound, that's what I'm saying.

• 25:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To orbit, yes.

• 25:46Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 25:47Chuck Nice?

  Alright.

• 25:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, yeah, I'll give it to him. I'm not going to argue with that. He didn't say down to like free, right?

• 25:52Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He just said twenty seven hundred pounds, I mean, dollars to twenty two hundred dollars.

• 25:57Chuck Nice?

  Well, thank you, Andy Weir, and your marginally aggressive prediction. Wow. Alright, he's, you know, he, his predictions are like my New Year's resolutions. You know, people are like, do you have a New Year's resolution? Yes, I resolved to eat more cookies, like, you know?

• 26:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 26:15Chuck Nice?

  And then I know-

• 26:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Resolution's always less of something you like.

• 26:17Chuck Nice?

  Right, that's what I'm saying.

• 26:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I want to eat more chocolate cake.

• 26:20Chuck Nice?

  I'm gonna eat more cookies, that's what I said.

• 26:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm gonna drink more wine.

• 26:23Chuck Nice?

  By the way, I'm winning.

• 26:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're satisfying those resolutions.

• 26:29Chuck Nice?

  That's right, alright, let's go to one of our, um,

• 26:33Chuck Nice?

  one of our listeners, and this is Amanda Lehman, and she's coming to us through Patreon, and she says, "We will get closer."

• 26:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Patreon, because they kissed ass to get in the front row.

• 26:43Chuck Nice?

  Oh, absolutely.

• 26:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 26:44Chuck Nice?

  Patreon, that you give us money, we will do anything.

• 26:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What he means is, we will put you at the top of the Q and A list. Okay, go.

• 26:54Chuck Nice?

  That's part of anything.

• 26:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What does she want?

• 26:56Chuck Nice?

  Amanda Lehman would like to know this, uh, or wants to say this, and wants to know what you think about it. "We will get closer to understanding faster space travel." So, I think, first of all, that's a huge space or area.

• 27:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 27:16Chuck Nice?

  That's a huge area.

• 27:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me take the part of that area that makes sense to me-

• 27:20Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 27:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  -in that prediction.

• 27:22Chuck Nice?

  Alright.

• 27:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That we will understand better, not so much what fast travel is like, but what for long duration travel is like.

• 27:29Chuck Nice?

  Mmm.

• 27:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And what its effect would be on the human being. Do you grow plants-

• 27:33Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  -using sunlight? Do you, can you artificially grow proteins to make meat? We had a whole show on that.

• 27:38Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you want a steak one night, because you're not bringing a cow onboard-

• 27:42Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 27:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  -the spaceship, okay?

• 27:43Chuck Nice?

  Put a fat cartridge in a, uh, in a printer, and print out a steak.

• 27:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Print out some fat molecules, put it in with the protein molecules.

• 27:51Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 27:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you get the marbled meat. So, so, so, yes, we are learning rapidly what that requires, and what effects it would have on our body, what innovations in food, as well as, uh, but not only what the food is, but how you preserve it. So, and long duration flight, how do you shield against cosmic rays and other deadly- Radiation. So, yes, we will make leaps and bounds for sure in 2018.

• 28:18Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha. Okay, Amanda, so Neil pretty much agrees with you.

• 28:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, for just space travel.

• 28:25Chuck Nice?

  For space travel.

• 28:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As a thing, as an activity. Yeah, yeah.

• 28:28Chuck Nice?

  Okay, cool. All right, let's get into another one. This is Jeffrey Ty from Facebook says, Neil deGrasse Tyson will announce his run for president.

• 28:44Chuck Nice?

  So, so now, first of all, here's the way this works, though.

• 28:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 28:49Chuck Nice?

  At this point in the show, I now ask you if you have any political aspirations. Would you indeed consider a run for president or even being a part of a ticket?

• 29:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 29:03Chuck Nice?

  Now, the fact that you said that.

• 29:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's no follow on. I just said no.

• 29:07Chuck Nice?

  No, the fact that you said that means that you indeed do have political aspirations, because that is how the game is played. You ask the person, are they running for president? And they say, no, I'm not.

• 29:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 29:21Chuck Nice?

  Which means I am definitely running for president.

• 29:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so had my answer been yes?

• 29:28Chuck Nice?

  Then you're running for president.

• 29:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Trial by ordeal.

• 29:34Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 29:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you drown.

• 29:37Chuck Nice?

  There you go. It's like finding out if somebody's awake.

• 29:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you drown in sink, the devil took you. If you drown and float, you're innocent.

• 29:45Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 29:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're dead both ways.

• 29:48Chuck Nice?

  I said, no, but that's how the political game works. It's like being an alcoholic. If you say, are you an alcoholic? No. Well, then you're in denial.

• 29:58Chuck Nice?

  Are you an alcoholic? Yes. Okay, you need some help. So, either way.

• 30:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so let me get a little philosophical on you here.

• 30:05Chuck Nice?

  Please do.

• 30:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you know about Cincinnatus? Okay, is that like a bizarro version of Cincinnati? The person after whom Cincinnati is named. Oh no, I don't know Cincinnati. He was called to leadership, I think even, uh, uh, like Caesar. God, you are so full of so much information. No, no, I learned this recently. I mean, I mean, seriously. I learned this recently. What the frick don't you know? Go to watch, okay. Cincinnati. He was like a regular guy. Okay. And he got called to serve. Okay. And then he served. Alright. I forgot, as some high-ranking person, okay? Alright. In, in Greece. Okay. And, ancient Greece, of course. And then when he was done, there were all these opportunities available to him for having achieved such high office.

• 30:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He says, "No, I'm going back to the farm. And I'm gonna be exactly who I was before I served."

• 31:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is a principle that was adopted by George Washington. That is true, who was also another reluctant leader. Yes. Okay, Washington was offered the king of America. Yes. He said, "No, that's not how this is supposed to work. We just left the king. We just want to battle, try to get the hell out of a kingdom, okay? And he went back to being a private citizen. And so, I'm intrigued, I'm, I'm, I'm intrigued by the fact that there's so many people who want to be your politician. Right. Why do they want this power? What are they actually seeking?

• 31:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, maybe, power should only ever be given to people who don't want it.

• 31:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like, like, like, because maybe they are of pure spirit. Right. And the power is this dirty thing that they will wield only because they have to, not because they want to. And they have, maybe they, they might get sucked in? That can happen. You know, power corrupts. Power can corrupt, but...

• 32:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe not. Like, like, is it Frodo in, in Lord of the Rings?

• 32:15Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 32:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who was keeper of the-

• 32:16Chuck Nice?

  He was the keeper of the ring.

• 32:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because he was more resistant to its power to corrupt.

• 32:21Chuck Nice?

  Because he didn't want the ring. The, the fact that he didn't want the ring was his power to resist the ring. And even so, he was, he still fell and was susceptible to the lure of the ring itself.

• 32:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right. So that's how powerful it actually is.

• 32:37Chuck Nice?

  Whereas most politicians are actually the opposite, running around going, "Precious! Precious!"

• 32:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that what they sound like?

• 32:45Chuck Nice?

  "Please, do have my precious!"

• 32:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, maybe we should rethink a political system where people not only seek power, but they attain power and then never want to give it up. So you don't get the sort of the diversity of view and thought that the actual electorate actually has.

• 33:03Chuck Nice?

  Wow. That's okay.

• 33:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So those are my reflections on that. But, but my answer is still no.

• 33:09Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 33:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's no, because it implies you could just be a leader and everything is fine. I'm an educator, and I will educate you so you can, help you make a decision about who you want to put into office.

• 33:19Chuck Nice?

  Oh my God, now that is what we need.

• 33:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is what I'm saying.

• 33:21Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 33:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then it doesn't, then, you don't have to go running after politicians and beating up on, look at how many people beating up on Donald Trump. Sixty million people voted for him.

• 33:29Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Your gripe is not with Trump. Your gripe is with the sixty million people who wanted him to be president.

• 33:34Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 33:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you don't like the president.

• 33:36Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's about the electorate. It's always about the electorate.

• 33:39Chuck Nice?

  It's always about the electorate.

• 33:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In a democracy.

• 33:40Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In a republic. We elect people to represent us.

• 33:44Chuck Nice?

  And that's why we are called a representative-

• 33:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we're always complaining about who they are.

• 33:48Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So maybe the real complaint is about ourselves.

• 33:53Chuck Nice?

  Oh man, so you better look in the mirror.

• 33:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Look in the mirror.

• 33:57Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 33:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't mean to go all philosophical on you.

• 34:00Chuck Nice?

  No, that was good stuff.

• 34:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We done ran out of time.

• 34:02Chuck Nice?

  Again.

• 34:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Again.

• 34:03Chuck Nice?

  Again. All right, but we got another segment.

• 34:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We got like one more segment. We gotta knock them out.

• 34:07Chuck Nice?

  And we'll knock out.

• 34:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The whole segment will be lightning round.

• 34:09Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 34:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On StarTalk. We'll be right back.

• 34:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk. We're back on our prediction segment for 2018. I didn't make any predictions because I'm not good at that. But we got them from others. So Chuck,

• 34:34Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 34:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We have, like in Jeopardy, an audio Daily Double. We have some audio predictions.

• 34:40Chuck Nice?

  Yes, we do have audio predictions. Let's go to Drew Pulley.

• 34:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Drew Pulley, I know Drew Pulley.

• 34:45Chuck Nice?

  You know him?

• 34:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's our executive producer, co-executive producer of StarTalk on the National Geographic Channel.

• 34:50Chuck Nice?

  Correct. And so he has an audio prediction?

• 34:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, you know what he told me?

• 34:53Chuck Nice?

  What?

• 34:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That producing StarTalk is the funnest thing he's ever done. And you know what he's done before he did StarTalk?

• 34:57Chuck Nice?

  Um, no.

• 34:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He would like hang from helicopters filming things in Tibet on assignment from National Geographic.

• 35:05Chuck Nice?

  Very nice.

• 35:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This guy was international producer. And now he just films me in my office talking to people and he said that's the best thing he's ever done.

• 35:13Chuck Nice?

  Well, I mean, look at the comparison. It's like filming you in your office is a lot better than almost dying.

• 35:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, is that what it is?

• 35:21Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 35:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or freezing on the...

• 35:25Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 35:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so let's hear it.

• 35:28Speaker 03

  Hello, this is Drew Pulley and I'm an executive producer for National Geographic. And I predict that 2018 will be the year of Chuck Nice. It all began when a sophisticated North Korean computer hack reroutes Chuck's flight from Philly to Pyongyang. There Chuck will be forced to perform a comedy routine for the supreme leader. But instead Chuck will put him in a headlock and give him a purple nurple, bringing great shame to his honor. The video will go viral, generating over 900 million views on StarTalk All-Access, only $4.99 per month. And so many of Chuck's fans will write him in on 2018 election ballots that Chuck will have no choice but to accept his new role as US Senator. Congratulations Chuck, you're having the best 2018 ever.

• 36:15Chuck Nice?

  Wow. Okay, I'm gonna say that that was rather amusing. Wow. The only difference is that, uh... Well, so, so, okay, ho- holding aside the Korea part of that. That's, that's where I was going. You know, that's exactly where I was going. Yeah, I mean, you could still do a viral video. That could happen. Right, you don't have to go to Korea for you to make a viral video. No, I can just go to, um, Dennis Rodman. And, uh, you know, who happens to be, uh, Kim Jong-un's best friend. Right, buddy. You know, and he's also has pierced nipples, so...

• 36:48Chuck Nice?

  So I said, I'd like to see a blowout year for Chuck. I, I'd say 2018. Good, good year for Chuck. All right. Yes, okay, you know... That's the takeaway of that, the year of the Chuck. The year of the Chuck, there we go. I'll take it. All right, let's go to our next audio with, uh, StarTalk All-Star and primatologist Natalia Regan. Natalia Regan, let's do it.

• 37:08Speaker 04

  Hi, it's Natalia Regan. I'm an anthropologist and StarTalk All-Star. And Neil, my prediction for 2018 is not rise of Planet of the Apes, but Planet of the Macaques, the second most widely distributed primate in the world. I mean, these monkeys are smart, they can thrive anywhere, they're probably sick of our BS, and they sometimes use hot tubs. Kinda wish they would just take over. Well, let's face it, the octopuses are gonna be the ones that do us in. But in all seriousness, I do think there's gonna be a rise in better behavior in 2018, in terms of harassment. Thanks to the Me Too movement and the exposure, sometimes quite literally, of politicians and Hollywood folk, harassers are being taken to task. Their behavior is being called out and condemned. This behavior is no longer accepted by the group.

• 37:53Speaker 04

  And since cultural evolution happens a lot faster than biological evolution, and human behavior is extremely plastic, I'm hoping this trend of showing everyone respect continues into 2018 and beyond. What do you think? Can humans change that fast and so much? Happy holidays, and I'm wishing everyone a safe, prosperous, and kinder 2018.

• 38:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a whole dissertation right there. That was. Whoa. That was a lot. But I like the anthropological analysis. Yes. Because she's a primate anthropologist, basically. Correct. And so, so the idea that you can change a culture faster than you can change genetics, I think has great validity, great validity to that. She's right, though. It is easier to change a culture. Yes, and history has shown. But what I think about is not so much that shift. I'm trying to think, I do this with my kids all the time because they're in this movement. They're like of the age. Yes. Right? Late teens, early twenties. Absolutely. They're totally there and they see it. Picked up. They're opinionated. Mm-hmm. Okay. In my generation, we're all just a bunch of, you know. Idiots. Idiots, right?

• 39:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, I tell them, imagine something you're doing now that your kids will look upon you and your conduct way back in 2018 as being totally stupid, idiotic. Right. That where you can't even, you don't even have a lens to notice that. Yep. And that'll just creep up on you. It's called Instagram. I'm joking. These are jokes. No, there are things. I think one of them will be in 20 years, people say, "You actually killed an animal to eat meat? You didn't just grow it in a lab? Wow. You actually. Right, yeah, that, yeah. You actually drove a car. You drove a car. That's the one.

• 39:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You couldn't drive 130 miles an hour because they relied on your reflexes? Yeah. What would you do after you drank alcohol? Right. How did you survive that? Exactly. How did your generation survive? I think these are the kind of conversations they're gonna have. That's, uh, that's, I would've said that's very insightful. So, try to take any one generation more seriously than the next one that will follow it. Right, because we're all stupid. Exactly. There you go. All right. All right. Another audio daily double. Last one, a last audio daily double from Seth Shostak. Seth Shostak. Yes. It's, uh, Sethi, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Scientist. That's correct. We got him. All right, let's check him out.

• 40:20Speaker 05

  Our solar system is about to recapture former glory by once again boasting of nine planets. Caltech astronomers Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin have amassed clues that a world far larger than Earth is cruising the dark realms beyond Pluto. This object will be a planet, no questions asked. Children will love the idea of a world like the fictional Medea perpetually in exile. Pluto may have had it coming, but stop crying. Its replacement will be coming in 2018.

• 40:51Chuck Nice?

  So I'm trying to figure out what Tyler Perry has to do with this world planet.

• 40:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, yeah, this is called the, uh, it's a, it's a planet very far out in the solar system. It's not even, it's not even in the family. Let's just, let's not be.

• 41:10Chuck Nice?

  And this would be, is, would this planet, is it beyond the Kuiper belt or the Kuiper belt?

• 41:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very outer, outer, outer.

• 41:17Chuck Nice?

  Or just the outer, outer, outer edges of.

• 41:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, but it's big enough, no one's gonna wonder whether this is a planet.

• 41:22Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If it's what we think it is, these two scientists.

• 41:25Chuck Nice?

  And this is because of the gravitational anomalies that we see.

• 41:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In, on other objects.

• 41:31Chuck Nice?

  On other objects.

• 41:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the outer solar system. So you backstrapulate into it and say, what would have to be there in order to have this effect on those objects?

• 41:40Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 41:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you say it's gotta be something this size at that distance.

• 41:43Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 41:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there it is. So, uh, good, I'm, I'm with it. Nine planets.

• 41:48Chuck Nice?

  Nine planets?

• 41:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 41:50Chuck Nice?

  Planet nine, planet X, it's all happening. All right. Okay.

• 41:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, Mike Brown, one of the co-discoverers of this planet nine, was the discoverer of the object that threw Pluto to vote. It was an object the size of Pluto, even a little bigger, that no one was prepared to call a planet.

• 42:09Chuck Nice?

  Right, and that made us say, well, why are we calling Pluto?

• 42:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, we call him Pluto Planet.

• 42:12Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 42:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that, so he, he, he taketh away and then he giveth.

• 42:16Chuck Nice?

  Right. He gave us planet nine and, and.

• 42:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A way better planet.

• 42:19Chuck Nice?

  Right, and, uh, here's a response from Pluto. "Hey Mike, F you." Anyway, uh.

• 42:26Chuck Nice?

  Because that really doesn't help Pluto at all. All right, let's go to, uh...

• 42:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So do lightning round.

• 42:31Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, well, from here, let's try to get through the rest of the predictions, and you can respond to them. Okay, this is Joakim Hansen from Facebook. Oh, Joaquin, all right. Sounds very, uh, very Donald Trump not letting you in this country.

• 42:46Chuck Nice?

  Joaquin.

• 42:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's Javier.

• 42:49Chuck Nice?

  Okay. Space mining is gonna be a thing.

• 42:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, ooh, I say yes, but not 2018.

• 42:57Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 42:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We, we, no, we, we just learned, we've landed on one comet.

• 43:01Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 43:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so we know how to do that, but we can't, we don't know how to go there, dig, dig it up, and then bring it down here and sell it. We ain't ready for that yet. But it's a thing, but I think we'll get closer to it in 2018, so I give it that.

• 43:14Chuck Nice?

  And what would that do to commodities markets? I mean, wouldn't that, like, seriously, if you landed on an asteroid that was filled with gold?

• 43:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you bring it back?

• 43:22Chuck Nice?

  You would crash the gold market!

• 43:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or maybe not.

• 43:25Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 43:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe not.

• 43:27Chuck Nice?

  Oh, maybe you just sit on it.

• 43:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, you're assuming that the higher the price of something, the more valuable it is.

• 43:34Chuck Nice?

  Well...

• 43:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hold on!

• 43:36Chuck Nice?

  Not necessarily!

• 43:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I ain't done yet.

• 43:39Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 43:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm, I'm... So gold, let's call it a thousand dollars an ounce.

• 43:43Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 43:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I bring back as much gold as has ever been mined in the history of the world, as we can easily find on asteroids.

• 43:50Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely.

• 43:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then gold is one dollar an ounce.

• 43:53Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 43:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? And at that price, we find more than a thousand more things to do with.

• 44:00Chuck Nice?

  With gold?

• 44:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 44:02Chuck Nice?

  And now it shoots back up?

• 44:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no, no, so it's not so much that it shoots back up.

• 44:05Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 44:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's that everybody wants it.

• 44:07Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 44:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I used, I, I used to sell you one ounce for a thousand dollars.

• 44:11Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 44:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But now you want two thousand ounce, you want two thousand ounces, and you're gonna give me two thousand dollars?

• 44:18Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha. So it's

• 44:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  See what I'm saying?

• 44:20Chuck Nice?

  So it's still the same. You're still making the same money, just that

• 44:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, you make more money.

• 44:25Chuck Nice?

  More money, because

• 44:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. Because the demand is so high.

• 44:28Chuck Nice?

  I got you.

• 44:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not because you're doing the same thing as before, but you were doing more things.

• 44:32Chuck Nice?

  I'm, I'm, listen, you've convinced me.

• 44:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you see how that works?

• 44:36Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I got, I'm with you now.

• 44:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 44:37Chuck Nice?

  Nope, you convinced me.

• 44:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And for very useful things such as gold, that could happen.

• 44:43Chuck Nice?

  There you go. And you know what? I was, I was, I was in disagreement, but that is a very compelling argument.

• 44:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. And I don't know if I recited the math right on that.

• 44:51Chuck Nice?

  No, it makes sense. It makes sense.

• 44:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got a sense of it.

• 44:53Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. All right, there you go. Let's move on to, um, Keep Looking Up at Instagram says this.

• 45:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's somebody's Instagram handle?

• 45:01Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that's somebody, Keep Looking Up, yeah.

• 45:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, that sounds like a fan.

• 45:04Chuck Nice?

  Hey, comedians are replaced by robots. Sorry, Chuck. All right, let's move on.

• 45:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that right?

• 45:11Chuck Nice?

  That's what the person's waiting to. I thought it was funny. All right, here's John Marcus. We're running out of time.

• 45:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, go.

• 45:17Chuck Nice?

  Uh, CERN discovers a new particle called Karma. However, it doesn't actually do anything. All right, he's being funny, but what is the likelihood?

• 45:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When you enter new energy regimes, you will always discover something new. Physics in modern times is about, in the physical sciences at all, is about a bigger telescope to get more light than no other telescope has seen. A more energetic particle accelerator. And every time you do that, you're in a new place.

• 45:43Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 45:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A new, a new energetic place. You will discover things.

• 45:46Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely.

• 45:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It would be interesting if we found a particle that had no possible use to anybody. That would be interesting. That alone would be, wow, what do we do with that?

• 45:56Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 45:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And maybe we're not, or maybe we're not inventive enough to figure out how to use it at all.

• 46:02Chuck Nice?

  Well, that, no, that's a, that's very, that's, yeah, yeah, I like it. A particle

• 46:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you know americium? Element on the periodic table was discovered in America, hence it was called americium.

• 46:12Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 46:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's like, well, what do you do with that? Turns out that was like at the dawn of smoke alarms and it has properties that enable smoker alarms to work.

• 46:19Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 46:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's why you don't see ads about flame retardant blankets anymore.

• 46:24Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 46:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because by the time your blankets aren't fire.

• 46:26Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 46:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're dead.

• 46:28Chuck Nice?

  The other thing it does is, um, it keeps football players from taking a knee. America. Anyway, um.

• 46:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But in Game of Thrones, to take a knee is the highest form of respect.

• 46:39Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely. Yeah. All right, here's the last one, okay? And I don't want to end on this heavy one, but it's good. Here it is. Official Scaramani wants to know this. It says, "Official Sam Karani." It's Scaramani. It's Sam Karani. Okay, all right. Says this, "Science censorship will be a thing."

• 47:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 47:06Chuck Nice?

  Okay, that's serious right there, man.

• 47:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If that happens, that is the beginning of the end of civilization.

• 47:10Chuck Nice?

  Seriously?

• 47:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah. You should write a dystopic novel on that.

• 47:14Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 47:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, the moment you start censoring science, which is our only pathway to objective truths in this world.

• 47:23Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 47:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I wouldn't say it's the only. It is the best available to us that we've ever thought of. If you start censoring that, civilization will collapse. Because then you start basing decisions on things that are not objectively true. And then civilization becomes whatever you want it to be, not what actual laws of nature constrain it to be. And you will learn that you cannot make it anything you want to be if what you want it to be conflicts with the laws of nature. So then it becomes just what you... It becomes your opinions.

• 47:57Chuck Nice?

  Right, well, the...

• 47:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A government run on your opinions, and we already have examples of those. They're called dictatorships. Out of time, Chuck?

• 48:04Chuck Nice?

  Aw, man.

• 48:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, well, thanks. Always good to have you here on Cosmic Queries. You've been listening and possibly even watching StarTalk. Chuck, always good to have you.

• 48:13Chuck Nice?

  Thank you.

• 48:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've been your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, as always.