Cosmic Queries – More Office Hours

Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice answer fan-submitted Cosmic Queries about the “God of the gaps” theory, the Big Bang and “vacuum energy,” Pascal’s Wager, gravitational wells; haunted apartments, making math sexy, “the Matrix,” star-gazing, wine, and the meaning of life. NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/cosmic-queries-more-office-hours/ Photo Credit: Ben Ratner.

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. Chuck Nice, my co-host.

• 0:26Chuck Nice?

  How are you?

• 0:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right here, this is a, this is a Office Hours edition of StarTalk.

• 0:30Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 0:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's where, the whole thing is just Q&A with, with cosmic queries.

• 0:35Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 0:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From the back.

• 0:37Chuck Nice?

  From the back, up and down, top to bottom, cosmic queries.

• 0:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And let's do this.

• 0:41Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 0:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what do you have?

• 0:42Chuck Nice?

  Alright, well, you know, we, uh, we, we get them from everywhere, no matter where they are. And we normally start with a Patreon patron because we're whores.

• 0:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because they pay.

• 0:50Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that's right. That's right. You don't get to do this with us for nothing!

• 0:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You still get to do it, you just only have it happen first, that's all.

• 1:00Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 1:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Like, you're third.

• 1:03Chuck Nice?

  You're third, right. So here we go, this is John.

• 1:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if I don't know the answer, I'll just say, "I don't know the answer," you move on to the next question.

• 1:09Chuck Nice?

  I have yet to see that happen.

• 1:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I, I might have an answer, even if it's not the answer. I might have something to say.

• 1:15Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 1:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, if I don't know the answer, I'll just say, "I don't know."

• 1:18Chuck Nice?

  Well, sometimes the answer is, "Science doesn't know yet," right?

• 1:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's, that, that is not, right, so either I don't know, or I know that science doesn't know.

• 1:28Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 1:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Those are two different levels of ignorance.

• 1:29Chuck Nice?

  Those are two different levels, right. Yes, exactly.

• 1:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 1:32Chuck Nice?

  Which, uh, which, by the way, I was telling somebody about, uh...

• 1:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 1:35Chuck Nice?

  Okay, you'll have to explain this, because I'm not explaining it correctly. But, alright, you were talking about how, what we don't know, we attribute to God, basically. I'm paraphrasing you, so I'm not saying it correctly. But, when we don't know something, we attribute it to God. Then we find out, it's science! And we no longer attribute that to God! And then we move up a level, and we're like, "Well, now we don't know this, so it's God!" And then we find that out, and we're like, "Well, no, that's because of this!" And then it keeps going. So, that's, that was-

• 2:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Conversation I was having with my friend, I was trying to explain that. The way you explain it, but it didn't quite work. You get it mostly right. So if you look at the history of science and the history of religion. Okay. What you'll find is often as science sort of started figuring out how the world worked. Right. You were more likely to find someone to assert the presence of God where science had yet to tread. Than where science had tread. Okay. I'll give you an example. There's a, there's a brilliant sort of polymath from three centuries ago. Um, it's a Christian Huygens is his name. You got one of those two A's in the Christian. Yes, Christian Huygens. Sounds like a Simpsons character.

• 2:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Huygens, Huygens, Christian Huygens. He, uh, he wrote a book called Cosmo Theros, a brilliant little book. Okay. Where he imagined life on different planets. Oh. This is back, this is back like late sixteen hundreds. This is, this is great. This was a beautiful. Exercise in thinking, using the little bit of information you have, what can you derive from that knowledge? Okay. And in it, he talks about that, that a rock has less God in it than life does. Okay. Okay. And he talks about the orbits of planets and which Newton had already figured out. Mm-hmm. In his publication of Principia. Okay. So Newton had already figured that out. Okay.

• 3:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, so he is not saying that the planets are moving according to God. Cause we already had those answers. Right. In this book, every place he invokes God is where we knew the least about the natural world. That's a very common thing that people have done. It goes all, it goes back. Uh, Ptolemy. You know, he bent on the wrong horse, but he, he was a big proponent of the earth in the center of the universe. The heliocentric, I mean, the, the geocentric universe and. You know, what, if you think Earth is in the middle, what is the universe doing to you? You'll, you look up into the sky and you see planets moving and then they go backwards? This is where you get the word retrograde from. You think the planet is actually going backwards. Right. That's why they called it retrograde, because you're in the middle. Right.

• 4:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If it's going forward and then backwards, it's going backwards. Right. Right, because you're in the center of everything. You see it, there it is. Right. And no one really understood this, and neither did he. All right, he had a mathematical system to describe it, but he was still enchanted by it. And so he, uh, in the margin of one of his greatest work, The Alma Gest, uh, he writes, "When I trace at my pleasure the windings to and fro of the heavenly bodies, I no longer touch earth with my feet. I stand in the presence of Zeus himself and take my fill of ambrosia." Wow. He was feeling God. He certainly was. In his, in his place of ignorance. He was writing R and B music to God.

• 5:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, I don't know what tone voice he had, if he would have said. Yeah. He might have had a pipsqueak voice, I don't know. But his, his God was there making this happen. Oh, Zeus, baby. Haha. You know I love you, Zeus. Haha, Barry White singing Zeus. So, he appealed to his religion to account for where he had to not yet know. Right. If you look at, for example, all what was written about people who were having an epileptic fit. Right, right. But you go back and it was like. A demonic. It was exactly what you would expect. Right. Given anything you read about the devil. This would be, of course, in Christianity, not in Judaism, because they don't have a devil in Judaism. Right.

• 5:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so in Christianity, it was like this person is possessed, and so now you, now the priests come, back when all of Christianity was Catholicism, the priests would come and, and perform an exorcism. Mm-hmm. And then the symptoms would subside and the person would come back to normal. As is the normal course of any, uh, most epileptic seizures. Right. So. They, they have an end. They have an end, right, right, right, right. So, now that we understand it, we can even kind of control it. Yes. And it's, you know, the, the, the uncont- Firing of your neuro synapses. So you don't see people coming to these. You don't see this being accounted for by being possessed by the devil anymore.

• 6:25Chuck Nice?

  No, it's no longer right. It's a medical condition.

• 6:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A medical condition.

• 6:28Chuck Nice?

  It's not a spiritual condition.

• 6:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Spiritual condition, right. So, so there's the history of this, that's all. And the philosophers call it the god of the gaps.

• 6:35Chuck Nice?

  The god of the gaps.

• 6:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, so if God to you lives in places where science has yet to tread.

• 6:42Chuck Nice?

  And wears, and wears really cool skinny jeans.

• 6:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If that.

• 6:46Chuck Nice?

  That he got at the gap.

• 6:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If that is where.

• 6:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was a long way to go for that joke.

• 6:52Chuck Nice?

  I'm telling you.

• 6:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, you went off.

• 6:53Chuck Nice?

  I walked around the block, didn't I?

• 6:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You went on the off ramp.

• 6:56Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 6:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You did the clover leaf.

• 6:58Chuck Nice?

  Sold some oranges on the freeway.

• 7:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just to hit that joke.

• 7:02Chuck Nice?

  And let me tell you something, I am ashamed of myself and proud of myself at the same time. Go ahead, god of the gaps.

• 7:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so god of the gaps. So if you, um, so if God to you is this entity that lives where science has yet to tread. Then that's, that's precarious, just understand that.

• 7:21Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because as science continues to progress.

• 7:24Chuck Nice?

  Your god must get smaller and smaller.

• 7:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Your god gets smaller and smaller. And so, uh, now I think deeply religious people, that's not how they think of God.

• 7:31Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, uh, if, if there are people who are prone to think of God, they come up to me and say, is dark matter? Dark energy, is that the spirit of God?

• 7:39Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'd say, I, I don't know, but if you think that and the day we figure out what this is. Are you still thinking that? That's what I'm gonna ask him.

• 7:46Chuck Nice?

  That's a, that's a, that's a great way to put it, yeah.

• 7:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so that's the longer discussion of what it is, the conversation you were having with your friend.

• 7:53Chuck Nice?

  Cool. All right, well, let's get into it. Here's John Dunhu.

• 7:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Again, this is, uh, this is StarTalk, office hours.

• 8:02Chuck Nice?

  Office hours, there we go. Um, John Dun, Dun, Dunhu says this, oh, God. He says, uh.

• 8:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  God ain't gonna help you pronounce these words. Just, you just go. Don't say, oh, God, because you can't pronounce a name.

• 8:18Chuck Nice?

  Help me, Lord, help me.

• 8:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Help you, help.

• 8:20Chuck Nice?

  Help me, Lord, oh.

• 8:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go practice the damn thing and then come back.

• 8:27Chuck Nice?

  Hey, John, don't blame God, how about preparation?

• 8:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that.

• 8:32Chuck Nice?

  Oh man, here we go.

• 8:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright.

• 8:35Chuck Nice?

  Oh, he says, "How is there anything at all, speaking of God, Mm-hmm. Which came first? Space? Or the Big Bang?" I gotta tell you, that's a damn good question, man.

• 8:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, space as we know it was birthed in the Big Bang. So, the Big Bang started it. It birthed all the laws of physics, the existence of matter, the vacuum energy.

• 9:00Chuck Nice?

  The existence of space, which is the nothingness that where the matter exists.

• 9:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In which the matter exists. And that nothingness actually has an energy associated with it. It's called a vacuum energy.

• 9:10Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you want to get specific about it. So, it's not as empty as...

• 9:14Chuck Nice?

  Even nothing.

• 9:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's empty of matter, but it's not empty of energy. And there's what we call a vacuum energy that permeates all of space.

• 9:21Chuck Nice?

  That's amazing.

• 9:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so it's birthed into existence. That's right.

• 9:24Chuck Nice?

  So, so, so true.

• 9:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You asked what was before the Big Bang?

• 9:27Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, true, true.

• 9:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I have no idea.

• 9:29Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 9:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know. You can say, "Well, God."

• 9:32Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, keep thinking that until we got this one figured out.

• 9:35Chuck Nice?

  Find out what it is.

• 9:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 9:36Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, okay, cool.

• 9:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 9:37Chuck Nice?

  I'm going with God.

• 9:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, that's fine. You're taking a safe route.

• 9:41Chuck Nice?

  I'm taking a safe route.

• 9:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because you know I can't damn you to hell.

• 9:43Chuck Nice?

  Right, you can't, right.

• 9:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't have that power.

• 9:46Chuck Nice?

  All you can do is tell me to prepare better and pronounce words.

• 9:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I mean, names. But it's a famous thing called Pascal's wager. Have you ever heard of this?

• 9:55Chuck Nice?

  I don't know Pascal's wager.

• 9:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, Pascal, famous Pascal.

• 9:57Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 9:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Um, he said, "Every thinking person should be religious." Okay?

• 10:04Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  His argument, I'm gonna botch it a little bit. I'll get the most of it right.

• 10:08Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 10:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The argument was, "It's better to be religious on the possibility that you're right than to not be religious and then risk the chance of eternal damnation in hell."

• 10:22Chuck Nice?

  Hey, guess what? I kinda like what he's saying there.

• 10:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, it's Pascal's wager. It's, it's, you can be not religious.

• 10:29Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then risk going to hell forever on death.

• 10:33Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or you can just be religious, and if you're wrong, if there is no God...

• 10:38Chuck Nice?

  It doesn't make a difference.

• 10:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're good either way. And if there is a God, then you're good. Right, exactly. This is, it's called Pascal's wager. Yeah, it's the hedge fund of religion. Exactly. Pascal's wager. The hedge fund of religion. You hedge your bet. Hedge your bet, baby.

• 10:52Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 10:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 10:53Chuck Nice?

  Hey, man, that was a great, great question, and of course, a great answer.

• 10:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 10:58Chuck Nice?

  Okay, Lisa Piering, and here's why I'm announcing, uh, saying her Lisa goes like this. Hey Chuck, it's pronounced Pier-ing.

• 11:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, she knows.

• 11:07Chuck Nice?

  Phonetically, she hooked me up.

• 11:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She knows.

• 11:09Chuck Nice?

  Hooked me up phonetically.

• 11:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  People are phoneticizing, helping you out.

• 11:12Chuck Nice?

  Chuck Nice hooked on phonics.

• 11:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck Nice got here on the short bus today. He don't know how to pronounce words, so.

• 11:20Chuck Nice?

  So let's help him out.

• 11:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  People, so.

• 11:22Chuck Nice?

  Help a brother out.

• 11:26Chuck Nice?

  Okay, here we go.

• 11:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so how, how's her name pronounced? Has she helped you?

• 11:29Chuck Nice?

  She did Pier-ing.

• 11:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Piering.

• 11:32Chuck Nice?

  As in pier, that's my pier, peer-reviewed.

• 11:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh-huh.

• 11:35Chuck Nice?

  Ing.

• 11:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Piering.

• 11:36Chuck Nice?

  Piering.

• 11:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nice.

• 11:37Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, so she says, if a black hole is pulling in matter from a neighboring star.

• 11:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:43Chuck Nice?

  Does the gravitational well end up as big as both by the time it has pulled in the entire neighbor?

• 11:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 11:54Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 11:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus, she used a nice technical phrase there.

• 11:57Chuck Nice?

  I know.

• 11:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A gravitational well.

• 11:59Chuck Nice?

  Well.

• 11:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so it's perfectly legitimate to think of it that way.

• 12:02Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 12:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, uh, if, if I drop you into a well.

• 12:06Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It takes energy to get back out of that well.

• 12:08Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right?

• 12:09Chuck Nice?

  Unless I'm that girl from The Ring.

• 12:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What, what was that?

• 12:12Chuck Nice?

  That's a horror film where a girl came out the well, and then your TV started, like, dripping water, and then she'd be in your house, and then you couldn't see her, her hair was in front of her face.

• 12:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you actually watch horror movies?

• 12:23Chuck Nice?

  No, I'm too scared.

• 12:28Chuck Nice?

  By the way, didn't finish The Ring. I don't even know what happens at the end.

• 12:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I was jealous, because I grew up in the city.

• 12:34Chuck Nice?

  Uh-huh.

• 12:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there were always haunted houses, but never haunted apartments.

• 12:37Chuck Nice?

  Never.

• 12:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But what, but then, I've, there are two movies that have haunted apartments.

• 12:41Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 12:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We got two movies out there.

• 12:42Chuck Nice?

  Please tell me.

• 12:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Only two.

• 12:43Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 12:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Rosemary's Baby.

• 12:45Chuck Nice?

  Yes, totally haunted apartment.

• 12:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In New York City.

• 12:47Chuck Nice?

  Satan lived in that apartment.

• 12:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Totally.

• 12:49Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 12:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and that apartment building is.

• 12:51Chuck Nice?

  And he ran the co-op board.

• 12:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 12:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Always voted against you. Always voted against you. So that, that building is the Dakota. Right. Which is where very famous. John, John Lennon. John Lennon lived and died across the street from it. So, and if you look at the railing around the Dakota. Yeah. There's like a devil looking creature. Yes. With his hands. It's like gargoyley, but it's in the wrought iron. Yeah. Around the base of the buildings. Sweet. It's very devil. So that's haunted house number one. Right. And you can remember the other one. Let me see. I'll give you five seconds. Madea's Boo. No, no. Madea's Boo Two. I don't think those count for anything in any data. There's an exclusionary rule. Thou shalt not include Madea movies in any movie statistics. Alright, what's the second one?

• 13:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it was, um, uh, uh, uh, the guys that, that trap ghosts. Oh, Ghostbusters. Ghostbusters. That's right. A haunted apartment. Yep. That's right. Sigourney Weaver standing at the portal.

• 13:50Chuck Nice?

  I am the gatekeeper.

• 13:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes. I am the key master.

• 13:54Chuck Nice?

  Ooh, you are so hot.

• 13:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Yeah, so those are, so I was always jealous and then I feel, okay, I got my two movies and we're good. Well, that was a delightful digression. Why are we talking about haunted anything? If you throw you in a, if you throw somebody in a well. So, so I'm gonna answer this. There's a, there was a question that started this. That was a terrible, that was a, I don't care. So here's the thing. So you're thrown in a well and you wanna get out, it takes energy. If the well gets deeper, it takes more energy. The deeper the well is, the more energy it takes to climb out. Mm-hmm. It is the same when you are on a planet. Alright, the higher is the gravity of the planet. Right. The more energy your rocket needs to escape forever. Right. Alright, and so it takes less energy to escape the moon than it does Earth, than it does Jupiter, than it does the sun. Right. A black hole has a certain depth of its well. Mm-hmm. And there is a star next to it that got a little too close. Mm-hmm.

• 14:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It begins to flay the star. Mm-hmm. Layer by layer. Ooh. It is, it's gotta be uncomfortable for the host star. It's skinning a star alive. Alive. Ugh. And that material spirals around in what we call an accretion disk. Right. Where the material accretes and gets fed down the hole. Right. Never to be seen again. When it eats the entire star eventually, then it will have the gravitational strength of the original black hole. Uh-huh. Plus the entire star. And so the black hole grew. It's event horizon is just that much bigger.

• 15:14Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 15:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 15:15Chuck Nice?

  Okay, that is fascinating. And Lisa, that was an amazing question.

• 15:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And thank you for helping Chuck out.

• 15:21Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 15:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like I say, he came in a short bus today.

• 15:26Chuck Nice?

  All right, this is Spencer Rogers and Spencer says this, how do you make math sexy? I feel like popular scientists do a good job making science cool, but math, not so much. And you know what? Spencer's got a great point because science is cool now, but still people, people will tell you they hate math in a second.

• 15:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No matter what.

• 15:45Chuck Nice?

  No matter what.

• 15:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. Even if you're a good teacher, they'll say, okay, I enjoyed the class, but I still hate the math.

• 15:51Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 15:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, in general. So it's one of the most hated subjects out there.

• 15:55Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 15:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so I have a cop out answer.

• 15:59Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 16:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, here it is. I would say that you demonstrate something else that required math. And that's something else is so amazing, you want to figure out how it got figured out.

• 16:15Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 16:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then you're forced to then embrace the math that's behind it.

• 16:20Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 16:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I hope, I attempted that back when, was it the Bengals? Who were they were playing in the football? And it was when it's overtime.

• 16:28Chuck Nice?

  The field goal.

• 16:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The field goal. So the field goal gets kicked and it hits off the left upright. This is in overtime, so it's a sudden death score.

• 16:37Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And hits off the left upright and Kareem's in for the win.

• 16:40Chuck Nice?

  Correct.

• 16:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I looked at the, quickly, oh, wait a minute, looked at the orientation of the stadium. It was mostly north, south. I did a quick calculation and then I tweeted that the winning field goal was aided by a third of an inch deflection to the right from Earth's rotation.

• 16:57Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if people said, mind blown, oh, my gosh, that was made on ESPN and all of it. Everybody was talking about it.

• 17:03Chuck Nice?

  Remember it.

• 17:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So my sense is if you love football and you love sudden death field goals and you know that Earth is rotating, you might say, one day I want to figure out how that works.

• 17:14Chuck Nice?

  And you're going to need math.

• 17:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're going to need math. And then you will see the power of math. And because you have a separate goal in mind. That's what takes you through the math, the gutslogging that may be necessary. That's my cop-out answer, but I think you can get a lot of people to embrace math when it empowers them to do other things.

• 17:30Chuck Nice?

  Gotta be relatable. That's cool. Hey, I gotta, since you brought that up, I'm sorry, I have to say that you can hear more of that kind of science sports mashup on a little show called Playing with Science with a former professional footballer Gary O'Reilly and yours truly Chuck Nice.

• 17:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Footballers, that would be the UK, which means it was soccer.

• 17:48Chuck Nice?

  Soccer player. He's a professional soccer player.

• 17:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Professional soccer player. Oh, yeah. Sports, yes. We got a whole place to put our sports.

• 17:54Chuck Nice?

  Yes, we do.

• 17:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Does your mama know you're playing with science? I gotta ask that every single time. We're gonna take a quick break and we will be back on Facebook Live in just a moment.

• 18:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back. Our talk, Office Hours Edition. I got Chuck Nice here tweeting at Chuck Nice Comic.

• 18:18Chuck Nice?

  That's right, sir. Thank you very much for that.

• 18:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Love your tweets.

• 18:20Chuck Nice?

  Thank you.

• 18:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you.

• 18:21Chuck Nice?

  Love your tweets too, but you know.

• 18:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You only say that after I ever tell you that I love your tweets.

• 18:25Chuck Nice?

  I don't have to tell you that I love your tweets because 7 million people frickin' love your tweets along with me.

• 18:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's 9.7, but that's alright. See, he doesn't really pay attention.

• 18:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just saying, I don't know.

• 18:41Chuck Nice?

  Dude, that was awesome. By the way, that's the way you do it.

• 18:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a crazy number too. I keep thinking, do they know, like, I'm an astrophysicist, there's still like time to unfollow, you know?

• 18:51Chuck Nice?

  Well, no.

• 18:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Isn't like a mistake?

• 18:54Chuck Nice?

  That's great, man. 9 million people?

• 18:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know.

• 18:56Chuck Nice?

  And you're exciting.

• 18:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's an awesome responsibility.

• 19:00Chuck Nice?

  It is. You're exciting 9 million people to get excited about science.

• 19:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, because I get excited about science.

• 19:05Chuck Nice?

  There's a whole thing.

• 19:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Every tweet is. I try to... You catch my tweet today? Did you catch it?

• 19:09Chuck Nice?

  I did not. I haven't been on social media today.

• 19:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  More evidence.

• 19:13Chuck Nice?

  I have not been on social media today, okay?

• 19:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I'll paraphrase it.

• 19:17Chuck Nice?

  I feel like my son right now. I'm just like, "Son, is your homework done?" "What are you talk- I just got home." "What are you talking about?"

• 19:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're falling behind. I'm not gonna remember it exactly because the tweets are carefully worded. Something like, "If the world were ever going to end cosmically, I would give you plenty of notice." To do nothing about it.

• 19:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, there it is, right there. Did I get it right? Uh, if the world were really going to end cosmically, I'd let you all know, and with plenty of time, to do nothing about it. That's a great tweet. Literal tweet. Yeah, cause guess what, some things that don't make a difference.

• 19:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right.

• 19:57Chuck Nice?

  Do you hear that, Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability.

• 20:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, his voice is deeper than that. Mr. Anderson. Oh, that was pretty good. That is the sound of inevitability. Not bad, okay, I like it. My name is Neo. Don't get me quoting The Matrix, cause I'm on every- I forgot, that's one of your favorite movies. It is my, not one of, the favorite, my single favorite movie, not, Matrix 1, not 2 and 3. No, well, 2 and 3, come on, I mean, then you, you would lose all credibility. Forget about it, right, right, right. Matrix 1 is like such a great movie. I'm all there, and don't get me in it. And philosophically, it's so great. We will never stop. Yo, okay. Phil said, do you know, do you know, just one day, we'll, we'll do, don't, don't, don't, just don't. Okay, let's do a Star Talk, The Matrix. Matrix Edition, no, no, no, cause we're, no, cause this is office hours, but on another time, I will tell you, I'll give you one example

• 20:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  of what's going on there, okay? All right, all right. Um, do you know that, uh, in a Catholic church, there are the Stations of the Cross, that are, it's basically before there were movies, you would follow a sequence of drawings that portrayed a sequence of events. Okay. And in a Catholic church, it sounds like you've never been in a Catholic church. Um, you're right. Okay, just check one out, they're interesting, okay? So, there are these, every Catholic church has the Stations of the Cross, there's like 14 or 15 of them, okay? Around, it starts, and it's everything related to the, the, the key events in Jesus's life. Okay. Okay, where he's carrying the cross, he gets nailed on the cross. Okay. He dies on the cross. Right. He's pulled down from the cross. Right. Okay, all of this. Stabbed on the cross. It's basically, it's a movie. Right. It's basically a movie. Okay. Okay, before we had movies.

• 21:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, when Neo dies. Okay. When Neo dies. Okay. Okay, how does he die? Well, 14 bullets are shot into him, and only after that does he rise from the dead. Ooh.

• 21:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Neo is an anagram of one. He's the one.

• 21:55Chuck Nice?

  He's the one.

• 21:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The one.

• 21:57Chuck Nice?

  Uh, uh, which is a very, uh, is an archetype of the, of a savior, or the savior.

• 22:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is, that was kinda my whole point of what I just said.

• 22:04Chuck Nice?

  Well, you ain't gotta make me feel stupid about it. Come on. I'm figuring some stuff out, man.

• 22:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And also, when he's awoken, awakened, when he's

• 22:15Chuck Nice?

  Awakened.

• 22:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, by the knocking on the door.

• 22:17Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 22:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And this is when he follows the white rabbit by the woman with the tattoo on her arm.

• 22:21Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 22:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, when he hands them the, the code that he had broken, whatever, and the exchange for the money. That, what does the guy say to him? They said, "Oh, you're my savior. You're my regular Jesus Christ."

• 22:33Chuck Nice?

  He does say that.

• 22:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, he does. Uh, so, so all these references are throughout the movie.

• 22:38Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 22:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Movie goes.

• 22:39Chuck Nice?

  Alright.

• 22:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's deep. Okay.

• 22:41Chuck Nice?

  Alright, we're gonna have to do a, uh, StarTalk Matrix. That's, that's, I would love that.

• 22:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Matrix edition. Alright.

• 22:46Chuck Nice?

  Okay, here we go. Um, let's go back to our Cosmic Queries of the Universe from Facebook Live. We have Warren McDonald, who says, "Does the night sky look clearer on cold nights than warm nights? Is there a warm air distortion?" Now, I have heard that cold nights give you the crisp, clear view of the sky. Now, I don't know if it's true or not.

• 23:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so, there, there's, it's mostly true for, uh, but maybe not for the reasons you're thinking.

• 23:15Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 23:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, so, where are the warmer places in the world? Wait, the desert gets warm.

• 23:21Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 23:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, but at night, desert gets very cold.

• 23:23Chuck Nice?

  Very cold.

• 23:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, now, why does that happen? Because water vapor is a greenhouse gas. Water is a greenhouse gas. So, if you have a moist air on a hot day, and it stays moist at night, the heat, the, the ground that heated during the day cannot radiate back to space, and it stays, it stays that way.

• 23:42Chuck Nice?

  Wow. Whoa, you just, that's, yo, that's climate change right there, people.

• 23:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, well, well, it's, well, it's, well, except, there's a fixed amount of water. It, well, you can add to this by having, evaporating more ocean, and that exacerbates the, the, the greenhouse effect. But, I'm saying, so, it's why in deserts, the temperature drops so precipitously.

• 24:05Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 24:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because nothing gets trapped. It all just escapes, okay? Uh, all the heat escapes.

• 24:10Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 24:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So now, so deserts, we put all of our telescopes in deserts. Because it hardly ever rains. And so you don't want clouds in the way.

• 24:20Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 24:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause rain comes out of clouds.

• 24:23Chuck Nice?

  Kinda hard to see through clouds.

• 24:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. Now you go to the tropics where it's sort of moist. And hot and moist, the moisture in the air actually interferes with your observing. So you could have a hot, dry climate. And your up, your observing would be just as fine as if it were cold. Dry climate.

• 24:42Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 24:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, but when it's not dry, that's where you're looking through water vapor and things and it's never good.

• 24:47Chuck Nice?

  Got you.

• 24:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's never good.

• 24:48Chuck Nice?

  There you go, man.

• 24:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. But so that's why your view of the night sky on an, on a shoreline. Is generally not as good as if you were on a mountain top or in a desert. That, that's why. People say, let's go to the beach and see the sky. If you can go inland, go inland.

• 25:03Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Otherwise you'll get like sea mist and this sort of thing.

• 25:06Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 25:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That'll just interfere with your view.

• 25:08Chuck Nice?

  Got you.

• 25:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 25:09Chuck Nice?

  Alright. So William, uh.

• 25:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What else happened? I'm still going in. What often happens is if it's stormy and then the storm blows away.

• 25:17Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It goes off to some other place where it peters out. Typically it does so because a high pressure system comes in. And a high pressure system doesn't have moisture.

• 25:26Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then it's a crisp blue sky.

• 25:29Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 25:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you got beautiful weather and that's, we, people love themselves some high pressure systems. Cause you don't think of them that way. You just think of it as a sunny, cloudless day.

• 25:37Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But that's exactly what they are.

• 25:39Chuck Nice?

  Perfect for viewing the cosmos.

• 25:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's a high pressure, which means if you're a cloud, you go in the opposite direction of the high pressure.

• 25:46Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause you're responding to which direction the pressure points you. Okay?

• 25:50Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 25:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's a high pressure place that is pushing against you towards the low pressure place. And all the clouds gather at the low pressure place.

• 25:59Chuck Nice?

  Cause they're pussies.

• 26:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is why you get storms. It is why hurricanes are deep, low pressure places.

• 26:07Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 26:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's all the, it's a jambor, a cloud jamboree.

• 26:10Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 26:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They got pushed there by the surrounding high pressure.

• 26:13Chuck Nice?

  And that's so funny. You say that because um, when you get these really lingering storms. It's often a high pressure system that's keeping them in place.

• 26:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, yes. And then eventually you hope it'll push it out. But yeah, generally a high pressure system wins over a low pressure system. Yeah, you don't, you generally don't have a high pressure system overrun by a low pressure system generally.

• 26:33Chuck Nice?

  Cool. Alright. So let's go to William Vissel, who wants to know this. Um, a lot of us laymen. Don't know, and we are baffled by science.

• 26:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hmm.

• 26:48Chuck Nice?

  Okay, but he says, what baffles? Or is hard for you to grasp?

• 26:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay, good question. So first of all, you're not as baffled as you think. Because science is everywhere. You spoke of science like it's some edifice, like it's some thing, some place. Where if you step inside, then you gotta learn science, and you step outside, then you can ignore it. No, science is everywhere. It is where you walk. It is where you sleep. It is where you're awake.

• 27:19Chuck Nice?

  I have a very specific set of skills.

• 27:23Chuck Nice?

  I am science. I will find you.

• 27:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It'll find you.

• 27:26Chuck Nice?

  I will find you.

• 27:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so, and that's one of the things we try to do on StarTalk, especially playing with science. Chuck and Gary's show is to demonstrate all the places that science touches us.

• 27:39Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And influences how you should think about your next decision and the like.

• 27:44Chuck Nice?

  Show me on the doll where the science touched you.

• 27:51Chuck Nice?

  Where did that come from?

• 27:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know. I don't know. I have a problem. I was touched by science.

• 28:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so for me, to the scientist, we are baffled by things that baffle all scientists. The things that are not yet answered. Because anything else in principle, it's my duty to then learn. If I don't know it yet, but it is known, I gotta learn that.

• 28:15Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 28:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, as a PhD scientist, your task is not to wander in the forest of what is known. Is to find the edge between what is known and unknown and stick a foot out into that zone.

• 28:27Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 28:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But consider that as the area of your knowledge grows.

• 28:32Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 28:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So too does the perimeter of your ignorance.

• 28:35Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 28:37Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that's great.

• 28:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, uh, so the scientists will go to that edge and for me, my top three. Top three mysteries are, I wanna know what dark matter is. It accounts for eighty-five percent of the gravity of the universe and we don't know where it's coming from. It's not black holes, it's not comets, it's not planets, stars, gas clouds, galaxies. We don't know where it's coming from. Mystery number one. Mystery number two, the universe is accelerating in its expansion by some mysterious pressure operating in the vacuum of space. We can measure it, we don't know where that's coming from either. That's two.

• 29:11Chuck Nice?

  Wow, okay.

• 29:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the first mystery dates from the nineteen thirties. The second mystery dates from the nineteen nineties.

• 29:17Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 29:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there's a third mystery that's been with us forever. I wanna know how we went from organic molecules to self-replicating life.

• 29:26Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 29:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In early Earth.

• 29:27Chuck Nice?

  That's, uh, that's awesome.

• 29:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. And so those, these are baffling mysteries.

• 29:31Chuck Nice?

  By the way, that, that would.

• 29:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On the frontier.

• 29:33Chuck Nice?

  That would be the kinda meaning of life, wouldn't it? If you.

• 29:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would be the origin of life, I don't know, be the meaning of life.

• 29:39Chuck Nice?

  Uh, I guess so, yeah, you're right.

• 29:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 29:41Chuck Nice?

  Because, yeah, one is philosophical, the other is, is more technical and biological.

• 29:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, plus meaning, I think meaning, we create meaning in our lives.

• 29:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 29:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There are people who search for it.

• 29:49Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like it's behind a tree or under a rock.

• 29:52Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 29:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I'm looking for the meaning in life, when you actually have the power to create meaning within you. What, uh, you can make, you can create meaning by lessening the suffering of others or by learning something today that you didn't know yesterday. You, you, these things are what add value, that maybe that's a value judgment for me to even assert that, but for me, it adds value to my life and it is from that value that I derive meaning.

• 30:22Chuck Nice?

  Man, this is a super, super philosophical show today, I love it. And by the way, that's a, that is a, a, a great statement in terms of, uh, what creates meaning in life because, uh, a lot of people, when you say you search for that meaning, when they search for it externally, then they have to find this, they have to find something to tell them what the value is.

• 30:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, or the meaning is.

• 30:46Chuck Nice?

  Or the meaning is.

• 30:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And maybe that, that works for people, but.

• 30:48Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Most people who even pose the question are in the act of searching for meaning themselves. And I would claim that once you realize the power you have over your own life. Or the power you have over the lives of others, positive power, let's think of it that way.

• 31:06Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 31:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then you stop looking for meaning and you begin to create it.

• 31:10Chuck Nice?

  Nice, alright. Good stuff. And William, that was, uh, first of all, a great question. So, I love the answer too.

• 31:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And let me, let me speak for Bill Gates, even though I, who, who, why should I? Do I even have the right to?

• 31:23Chuck Nice?

  Let me tell you something, of the two of you, I'd rather you speak for him all the time, to be honest. I don't know if you've spent any time with this guy, but he is not the most exciting speaker. Okay?

• 31:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's the patron saint of the geekosphere, right?

• 31:36Chuck Nice?

  He really is, yeah.

• 31:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, what he decided to do with his gazillions was find problems in the world that are solvable.

• 31:44Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 31:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if they can be solved with money, and then solve them. And you put a check in that box.

• 31:49Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 31:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? Done, done, done. Uh, President Carter had the same mission. There is a disease called the Guinea worm.

• 31:57Chuck Nice?

  The Guinea worm.

• 31:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a parasite.

• 31:58Chuck Nice?

  Yes, it is.

• 31:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Called the Guinea worm.

• 31:59Chuck Nice?

  And terribly painful.

• 32:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That only attacks human beings.

• 32:03Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 32:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No other mammal in the world does this thing attack. Okay? And it gets in your bloodstream.

• 32:08Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 32:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it, oh, it's, ew.

• 32:10Chuck Nice?

  It's nasty.

• 32:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, it's nasty.

• 32:12Chuck Nice?

  And it grows to, uh, a pretty significant length.

• 32:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, correct, correct.

• 32:16Chuck Nice?

  And then it exits your body through your foot!

• 32:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, oh, yeah, no, it's na, na, it soars in your-

• 32:21Chuck Nice?

  There soars in your foot!

• 32:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And in fact, it is, it is suspected that the, is it the caduceus? The thing with the, the-

• 32:28Chuck Nice?

  Yes, with the twirling of the stick around the serpent and the snake.

• 32:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The serpent twirling around the staff is-

• 32:36Chuck Nice?

  Is a Guinea worm.

• 32:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By some, by some accounts of history, a representation of the Guinea worm. Cause the way you would remove the Guinea worm, it would, would show its head through a sore.

• 32:44Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 32:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then you sort of wrap it around a stick.

• 32:47Chuck Nice?

  And just keep doing that.

• 32:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tug on it gently, don't tug on it hard, cause it breaks.

• 32:49Chuck Nice?

  Cause you don't want a break. You don't want a broken Guinea worm in you.

• 32:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 32:52Chuck Nice?

  Oh man.

• 32:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you keep tugging on it and you keep wrapping it around until the entire worm is removed. So, if you can, if you can cure that-

• 33:02Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then you can, and people get it from other people in, in water holes.

• 33:07Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if you can rid the world of the Guinea worm.

• 33:10Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then it will never come back and you're done. So this is a solvable problem.

• 33:14Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Talk about creating meaning in life.

• 33:17Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 33:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In, in, in not only your life for doing good for others, but in the life of others, who are the receivers of that goodwill.

• 33:24Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 33:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 33:25Chuck Nice?

  That is, that's so true.

• 33:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got it.

• 33:27Chuck Nice?

  So go out and do something good, people. That's what we're saying, you know? Find meaning in your life.

• 33:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 33:31Chuck Nice?

  Make meaning in your life.

• 33:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right. That's right. So we'll take another quick break. When we come back, more of StarTalk Office Hours. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson with Chuck Nice.

• 33:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, we're back.

• 33:50Chuck Nice?

  Yes, we are.

• 33:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  StarTalk.

• 33:51Chuck Nice?

  StarTalk Office Hours.

• 33:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Office Hours.

• 33:53Chuck Nice?

  And we've got your queries.

• 33:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The doctor's in.

• 33:55Chuck Nice?

  Yes, sir. Um, okay, let's move on to.

• 33:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't like calling myself doctor. Did I tell you why?

• 34:01Chuck Nice?

  Why?

• 34:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because it implies that you should believe me because I carry these titles.

• 34:07Chuck Nice?

  Why else would I believe?

• 34:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, you might believe me because my argument was sufficiently compelling that you needn't ask what pedigree I carry with me.

• 34:16Chuck Nice?

  But see, some people make a cogent argument and that is fine and I can understand, okay, it's like that was convincing. And then other people, I'm like, you know, uh, okay, what I'm really saying is this, a lot of times doctors will make that convincing, compelling argument because they are doctors, because they have done the work.

• 34:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I get that.

• 34:36Chuck Nice?

  And the research.

• 34:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I get that. I'm just saying, just because someone has degrees after their name or before their name does not mean that everything that they will say is true or has, makes sense.

• 34:49Chuck Nice?

  Like Dr. Phil.

• 34:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 34:52Chuck Nice?

  How, how's that working out for you? I, I don't know. I don't, now how's that working out for you? You keep doing the same thing over and over again and you're expecting different results.

• 35:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All I'm saying is I, I, by not leading with my degrees, it means I have to be more compelling in my arguments. Because I want my arguments to be what is convincing to you. Not you to say, oh, this is true because Tyson said so. If that's why you think is true, then I failed as an educator. That's all I want to say. I want you to take ownership of the knowledge that has passed between us.

• 35:31Chuck Nice?

  Well, all educators feel that way. I mean, I grew up with a mother who was an English teacher and basically her thing was if you believe it because I tell you, well, then I've done you a disservice.

• 35:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, correct.

• 35:40Chuck Nice?

  Go find out for yourself from several different sources.

• 35:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Argument from authority is like not, not how discoveries happen.

• 35:47Chuck Nice?

  As a matter of fact, she would go one step further and say, you should be questioning that authority.

• 35:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 35:51Chuck Nice?

  And because that's how you get to true discovery.

• 35:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 35:53Chuck Nice?

  Is questioning that authority.

• 35:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:55Chuck Nice?

  But that being said.

• 35:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, the modern version of that is bringing truth to power.

• 35:59Chuck Nice?

  Bringing truth to power.

• 36:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's the modern translation of that.

• 36:01Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely. However, with that being said, I will ask you this. Have you met you? Because quite frankly, you're Neil deGrasse Tyson. And when you say something, people are gonna be like, oh, yeah, right. I believe that guy.

• 36:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, no, but I try to give them enough information so that they can, because here it is. It's like, if they just listen, oh, I didn't know that. Okay. I guess that's true. That's one kind of reaction. The other one is, whoa, I never thought about it that way. I, whoa, yeah. And then you turn around and go tell someone else? Okay, that's, that's enlightenment. That's learning.

• 36:36Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 36:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's, you just took ownership of that bit of information right there.

• 36:39Chuck Nice?

  I agree. And that happens to me quite a bit. That's the reason why I do this job. No, I'm dead serious. Like I will, people often say like, dude, I watched you like freak out with Neil. And I'm, it's because I've, I've learned something and now what I have to do is go research it because.

• 36:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go ahead.

• 36:57Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 36:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go, go, go.

• 36:58Chuck Nice?

  Because my mother would kill me if I just took your word for it.

• 37:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's fine, that's fine. But now you are compelled to want to learn more about it. And then, then my job is done. I can go home and go to the Bahamas.

• 37:10Chuck Nice?

  Now I don't want to learn something, I want to go to Bahamas. Okay, here we go.

• 37:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, many people do this is office hours.

• 37:15Chuck Nice?

  Yes, sir.

• 37:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, Facebook Live.

• 37:18Chuck Nice?

  Yes, sir. Here we go. This is Barbara Brian Boyd. Thank you Barbara, not only for the alliteration, but for the simplicity of your name.

• 37:27Chuck Nice?

  I have a question that I've wanted to ask you for some time. Since the moon is slowly drifting away, when will it get to the point? That is so far away from Earth that it can no longer affect tides? What exactly will happen?

• 37:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay, so, so first, some people might not have known that the moon is spiraling away from Earth. Several inches a year.

• 37:53Chuck Nice?

  Don't leave me.

• 37:55Chuck Nice?

  Come on, girl, don't leave me.

• 37:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You need that disco song, "Don't leave me this way."

• 37:59Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 38:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who is it? Gloria Gaynor? Yeah, you need that. Okay, so, so the moon is spiraling away several, about five centimeters a year, so what is it, two or three inches? And so every year, it's two or three inches farther from Earth than the year before. Okay?

• 38:16Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 38:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, what, not only that, the moon is trying to slow down Earth's rotation.

• 38:25Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 38:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it is succeeding at this. We, instead of redefining the length of a second, what we do is we add leap seconds whenever necessary. And ever since 1972, when we figured out the moon was slowing down Earth, we've added 25 or so leap seconds since then.

• 38:41Chuck Nice?

  Sweet.

• 38:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, at the end of each year. Sometimes you can add them at the end of June, depending on if you needed two that year or one. Uh, so that's a measurement we make about the rate at which we're slowing down. We're slowing down primarily, there are many reasons how we can slow down. It includes earthquakes, shifting continental plates.

• 38:58Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 38:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Changing what's called the rotational moment of inertia of Earth. If you shift plates, it's kind of like a, a, a, a skater bringing their arms in or out, that'll just change their rotation rate.

• 39:10Chuck Nice?

  That's it.

• 39:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a spinning skater.

• 39:11Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 39:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you have continental plates abruptly shifting.

• 39:15Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 39:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's tantamount to moving your arms in and out. And it'll, it can instantly change the rotation rate of the Earth. So you factor all this in. So one of the major drivers is the ocean, ocean tides sloshing back and forth on the, on the shores.

• 39:29Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 39:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Especially on the continental shelves. So that's slowing down Earth's rotation. All right. The result of all of this. Is the moon has slowed down Earth such that we only show one face to the moon.

• 39:47Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 39:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just as we have already slowed down the rotation of the moon so that it only shows one face to us.

• 39:53Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 39:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's why we always see the same side of the moon. There's a near side and there's a far side.

• 39:57Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 39:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You only ever see, see the near side.

• 39:59Chuck Nice?

  That's it.

• 40:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's it. There, there's no dark side, by the way. All sides get light. A day on the moon lasts a month, so all sides get, get light.

• 40:06Chuck Nice?

  Okay, okay.

• 40:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not if you knew that.

• 40:08Chuck Nice?

  I know, I just thought it was.

• 40:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's taken me decades.

• 40:10Chuck Nice?

  I thought the force was strong with the earth, that's all. That's why there's no dark side.

• 40:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So eventually, both earth and the moon will show the same face to one another and all tidal forces will cease at that point.

• 40:22Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 40:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is the lowest energy state of a two-body system, is when both sides face one another. And that'll ha- if you can calculate that up, that'll take more time than the life expectancy of the sun.

• 40:34Chuck Nice?

  Okay, so.

• 40:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So she shouldn't, she has, there are more pressing issues.

• 40:38Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 40:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To worry about.

• 40:39Chuck Nice?

  Other priorities.

• 40:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Other, other priorities.

• 40:41Chuck Nice?

  Priorities.

• 40:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But the moon will be significantly farther away when that happens and gone will be total solar eclipses.

• 40:47Chuck Nice?

  So with that in mind, um, will our sun nova or will our sun, will it explode or collapse?

• 40:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The sun will, the sun will die not in an explosion, but as a whimpering.

• 41:01Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 41:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  White dwarf. Right. So what'll happen is it'll enter this phase that we call the red giant phase.

• 41:06Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where it becomes.

• 41:07Chuck Nice?

  That's expanding.

• 41:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Red and really big.

• 41:08Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Red giant phase.

• 41:10Chuck Nice?

  The red giant phase.

• 41:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's how we call it.

• 41:11Chuck Nice?

  I just like the way that you guys make it very plain.

• 41:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We, we.

• 41:14Chuck Nice?

  What you're talking about.

• 41:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We call it as we see it.

• 41:16Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like the umpires. So, uh, the sun will.

• 41:19Chuck Nice?

  So the red, what's, what's the red?

• 41:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, because it cools down.

• 41:21Chuck Nice?

  Cause the sun's white.

• 41:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, the sun is white hot.

• 41:22Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the future, it will cool down and to a lower temperature and become red hot. And red hot is a cooler temperature than white hot.

• 41:30Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And even hotter than white hot is blue hot. So that's how that goes.

• 41:33Chuck Nice?

  Oh, yo, baby, I like that.

• 41:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, so that's, that's in astrophysically, right?

• 41:37Chuck Nice?

  Right, right.

• 41:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To the artist, it's the opposite.

• 41:39Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right?

• 41:40Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. You wanna be white hot if you're an artist.

• 41:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, no.

• 41:42Chuck Nice?

  Or red hot, really. You wanna be red hot.

• 41:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you want, you want it. Convey heat in illustrations you do with red.

• 41:49Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And cold, you would use blue.

• 41:51Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I wrote a poem about this.

• 41:52Chuck Nice?

  Uh oh. Yo, hold on there.

• 41:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Long ago.

• 41:55Chuck Nice?

  Wait, we gotta hear this.

• 41:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, ready?

• 41:56Chuck Nice?

  Can you do it like Sonia Sanchez though, just like, you know, I am Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 42:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. On canvas with paint in the artist's school. It is red that is hot and blue that is cool. But in science we show as a star grows hotter. It begins to grow red like the coals of a fire. Raise the heat some more, what is in sight? Behold, the star has turned bright white. But the hottest of all, I say unto you, is neither red nor white when a star has turned blue.

• 42:29Chuck Nice?

  Sweet. I like it.

• 42:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 42:32Chuck Nice?

  It's a good poem.

• 42:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, so it's a rhyme.

• 42:34Chuck Nice?

  It's still a poem.

• 42:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it's kinda had some lame parts in the middle there, but I get the point.

• 42:39Chuck Nice?

  Let me tell you something, it's a hell of a lot better than most rap music today. Let's just know that right now. If you heard this crap, oh my god, they don't even speak English anymore.

• 42:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But at least the syllables rhyme with one another.

• 42:54Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. However, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna get that and, and, and put some jazz music under it. It sounds very jazz like.

• 43:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On artist with paint. No, on canvas with paint in the artist's school. It is red that is hot and blue that is cool. But in science we show as the heat goes higher, a star glows red like the coals of a fire. Raise the heat some more and what is in sight? Behold, it's turned bright white. But the hottest of all, I say unto you, is neither white nor red when the star has turned blue.

• 43:28Chuck Nice?

  Snaps, snaps, everybody, snaps.

• 43:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You just got a double reading of my poem. I did it correctly the second time.

• 43:34Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 43:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Compared to the first time. But anyhow.

• 43:35Chuck Nice?

  I'm gonna take that and put some music under it. Throw it up on StarTalk All Access. Damn right.

• 43:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So now, why was we even going there? Well, I forgot the que- oh.

• 43:43Chuck Nice?

  So we're talking about the death of our star, our sun.

• 43:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Will enter a red giant phase where it becomes, it becomes bloated. Very low density gas and bloated and it is really, and, and it cools down to about 3,000 degrees. We're about 6,000 degrees now. It'll become so large, it will engulf the entire orbits of Mercury and Venus and Earth. And Earth will be a charred ember, ready to vaporize as it descends into the star's surface.

• 44:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Have a nice day.

• 44:12Chuck Nice?

  Hey. Tell that to the kids tonight.

• 44:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But so did I answer the question? What was the question?

• 44:17Chuck Nice?

  No, that was my question.

• 44:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, what was the woman's question?

• 44:20Chuck Nice?

  Her question was about the tides. The, her, was what will exactly happen?

• 44:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Earth will vaporize before we become double tidally locked with the moon.

• 44:30Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 44:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I used to wrestle and I wanted to invent a new move called the double tidal lock.

• 44:34Chuck Nice?

  The double tidal lock?

• 44:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and I had some preliminary.

• 44:37Chuck Nice?

  That means you would have first to invent the tidal lock.

• 44:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, no, no, no.

• 44:42Chuck Nice?

  Then how did you double it?

• 44:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The double lock is you lock one facing you and the other one faces you as well. By the way, Pluto and his moon Charon are double tidally locked.

• 44:50Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 44:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They face one another.

• 44:52Chuck Nice?

  So they just.

• 44:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In their eternal dance.

• 44:53Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 44:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right. So, so I, so I try, and so what happens is you lock up your arms facing, uh, face to face.

• 45:01Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 45:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I spin you down to the mat. So we rotate together while facing one another.

• 45:07Chuck Nice?

  Facing one another and you take the guy down.

• 45:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I take the guy down and then they're pinned.

• 45:10Chuck Nice?

  You just broke my arms.

• 45:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 45:12Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Cause, yeah, no, I'm too small.

• 45:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You were feeling it, yeah.

• 45:15Chuck Nice?

  I'm outside of, I'm outside of, I'm too, too far.

• 45:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not my weight class.

• 45:18Chuck Nice?

  That's what I'm saying.

• 45:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 45:19Chuck Nice?

  All right, let's go to Francis Wolfgang Urban.

• 45:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go on.

• 45:23Chuck Nice?

  Okay, here we go.

• 45:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How much time, how much time we, oh.

• 45:25Chuck Nice?

  We only have two minutes left in the whole show?

• 45:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Two minutes left, okay, go.

• 45:27Chuck Nice?

  Okay, all right.

• 45:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, two minutes, people.

• 45:30Chuck Nice?

  Francis Wolfgang Urban says this, do you think?

• 45:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love people named Wolfgang.

• 45:33Chuck Nice?

  Yes. Uh, do you think we'll eventually be able to travel via wormhole?

• 45:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, I, that, for me, that's the future of getting around the galaxy. Without that, uh, our human physiology is hopelessly mismatched with the time it will take to travel among the stars.

• 45:49Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 45:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The fastest thing we ever launch will take 70,000 years to reach the nearest star. You are long dead before that happens. And in my field, if you do a science experiment, the first rule is it's gotta be done before you die. So, so we're gonna need wormholes if we're gonna go anywhere. So that's what I, that's my next favorite thing I hope somebody invents.

• 46:07Chuck Nice?

  Okay, great.

• 46:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Next one, quick, one more, go.

• 46:09Chuck Nice?

  Here we go, let's see.

• 46:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go.

• 46:10Chuck Nice?

  Oh, I love this one. Adrian Gray Marsden says this. Hey Neil, what's your favorite wine of choice?

• 46:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 46:18Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. And I'm gonna put the computer down now and I'm gonna write down what you say.

• 46:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lately, I've been leaning Burgundy.

• 46:26Chuck Nice?

  Ooh, Burgundy.

• 46:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Burgundy. One day we'll do a whole show on the science of wine. I'll tell you why I'd like, cause Burgundy figured out how to perfect the middle.

• 46:33Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 46:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In America, if a little bit of something is good, we tend to think more of it is better.

• 46:37Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 46:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But then you learn as your sense of the world matures.

• 46:42Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 46:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That it takes much more talent to balance all elements in the middle.

• 46:46Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 46:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That takes talent, whereas shoving more into something that was good in small quantities, expecting it to be great in great quantities, you can blow out what made it great in the first place. So Burgundy at its best has perfected the middle.

• 47:01Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 47:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is very middle.

• 47:03Chuck Nice?

  Highly balanced.

• 47:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Imagine going to Starbucks and said, "I want very medium." They won't even know how to reply to that. That's not how our brains are wired here in America. This is America. Give me the biggest pos- we have, we have stuff, we have drinks you bring into your car that are so large.

• 47:19Chuck Nice?

  That they don't fit the cup holder.

• 47:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They, they have to squeeze down the bottom part of the shape to fit in the cup holder.

• 47:24Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 47:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  While the half gallon of liquid is sloshing around in the net. So, all I'm saying, so I'd lean Burgundy, I'd lean red Burgundy, the Vonn Romany section of Burgundy.

• 47:32Chuck Nice?

  The Vonn Romany.

• 47:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Vonn Romany.

• 47:34Chuck Nice?

  Vonn Romany.

• 47:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There are many vineyards there. I'll take them all. Give them to me.

• 47:38Chuck Nice?

  Alright.

• 47:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and especially recent vintages, 2015, uh, 2009 was beautiful, 2010.

• 47:44Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 47:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And 2005, in recent years, if you can find them, they're beautiful. But Burgundy is like expensive, you know, you gotta like-

• 47:50Chuck Nice?

  Okay, you just lost me.

• 47:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 47:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, Chuck, we'll try, Chuck, we'll try to raise, raise your salary this year, so you can-

• 47:58Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, 'cause I was gonna say, this sounds awesome, and then you were just like, "But they're expensive." I'm like, "And I hate Burgundy."

• 48:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, they come out high on that, on that list. Well, we, we ran out of time.

• 48:08Chuck Nice?

  Alright.

• 48:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Facebook Live, thanks for joining us. Chuck, nice comic, always good to have you.

• 48:11Chuck Nice?

  Always a pleasure to be here, man.

• 48:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As my co-host. I'm, I've been your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, on Office Hours, StarTalk. As always, I beg you to keep checking out.