#ICYMI - Playing with Science at BAM, with Sasha Cohen & Neil deGrasse Tyson

In case you missed this episode on the Playing with Science channel… We’re taking to the ice as we explore the physics of figure skating with host Chuck Nice, Olympic medalist Sasha Cohen, neuroscientist Dr. Heather Berlin, and resident astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. Record live at “StarTalk at BAM: Science is Everywhere.” (Adult Language).

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

• 0:09Chuck Nice?

  Thank you. Thank you.

• 0:15Chuck Nice?

  For those of you who are uninitiated, playing with science is a sports-science mashup, where Neil likes to say where jocks and geeks collide. And I like to say, without any concussions by the geeks. Because, you know, when jocks and geeks collide, only one person suffers in that collision.

• 0:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, one person walks away.

• 0:37Chuck Nice?

  One person walks away, the other one does not. And normally...

• 0:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way,

• 0:41Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 0:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In high school, I was a geek-jock.

• 0:44Chuck Nice?

  A geek-jock?

• 0:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 0:46Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 0:46Heather Berlin?

  Yeah.

• 0:46Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, you were a wrestler.

• 0:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. So, but intellectually, I associated with the geekiverse.

• 0:53Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 0:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But anytime I saw a geek sort of get beaten up or, you know, bullied, that was my sort of superhero... I would like, "The geeks need me." And I would go and I'd kick... I would just, you know... So, I felt this urge to protect the geekosphere as a high school kid.

• 1:15Heather Berlin?

  What's the superhero name for that?

• 1:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know. I don't know. But it needs one.

• 1:19Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, yeah, I feel like that's...

• 1:20Chuck Nice?

  I believe it's the Tysonator.

• 1:25Chuck Nice?

  Well, that's very cool, man.

• 1:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, who do you have?

• 1:27Chuck Nice?

  So, but before we get into our guest, who is just so, so, so awesome. Actually, I'm gonna use a different word. Who is such a superb guest.

• 1:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He said that because anytime I hear him say "awesome", he said, "It would be awesome if you could pass the salt." And I would say, when I grew up, the word "awesome" was applied to curing polio, walking on the moon. And there's a next generation that has no concept of how to use that word.

• 1:57Chuck Nice?

  And I blame the Lego Movie.

• 2:02Chuck Nice?

  You didn't see it?

• 2:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I didn't see it.

• 2:03Chuck Nice?

  All right. Everything is awesome! Okay.

• 2:11Chuck Nice?

  Okay, let me just say, first of all, I can't tell you how long I've been waiting to do that onstage.

• 2:18Chuck Nice?

  But normally, this show is co-hosted with Gary O'Reilly, who is a former professional soccer player and the co-host of Playing with Science. And he is currently a broadcaster. And he resides in the UK. Unfortunately, his flight was canceled. And so, he could not be here.

• 2:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was snowing in the UK.

• 2:39Chuck Nice?

  It was snowing in the UK. No, it was snowing here. And unfortunately, he could not be here. So, we... But he is listening right now. Not right now, but he will be listening to this broadcast. So, if we could all give a round of applause to Gary O'Reilly.

• 2:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gary.

• 3:04Chuck Nice?

  And so, what we do here is we explore the science of sport. And to help us do that today, we have an incredible guest, who is a former Olympic silver medalist. And she is also... Wait, how many times? How many times was it? Oh, God, I gotta look at these notes, because I want to get it right. Five-time world champion medalist. Please welcome the incredible Sasha Cohen.

• 3:44Speaker 03

  I'm so excited to join the fun.

• 3:45Chuck Nice?

  Oh, it's so great.

• 3:50Speaker 03

  Hop over here.

• 3:52Chuck Nice?

  Have a seat, Sasha.

• 3:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, Chuck, what did she get her medals in?

• 3:59Chuck Nice?

  Thank you, Neil.

• 4:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's okay.

• 4:01Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, the truth is that I took it for granted that everybody would know, because you're Sasha Cohen. But she is a...

• 4:11Chuck Nice?

  Sasha, of course, is a figure skater. And a damn good one.

• 4:18Chuck Nice?

  And not just a figure skater, because you're also an incredible ballerina and gymnast. All of those things like rolled in and then strap skates on and do it all.

• 4:32Speaker 04

  Exactly. I started in gymnastics. I wanted to take hip hop. My mom directed me towards ballet.

• 4:37Chuck Nice?

  Uh huh.

• 4:37Speaker 04

  For skating.

• 4:38Chuck Nice?

  That's because she wanted you to have a job.

• 4:40Speaker 04

  Exactly, exactly.

• 4:41Heather Berlin?

  Hey, what are you talking about? What's wrong with hip hop?

• 4:47Chuck Nice?

  Don't worry, your husband is still my favorite white rapper.

• 4:51Heather Berlin?

  White science rapper.

• 4:54Chuck Nice?

  But go ahead.

• 4:56Speaker 04

  So, so that was how I got started. I started in gymnastics because I was basically a bundle of energy and I destroyed the house. And they're like, how can we calm you down? So I got put into gymnastics for about three hours a day, every day. And when I was five years old, I was doing like hundreds of jumping jacks, pushups, V-ups. And when I got home, I was a very well behaved child.

• 5:17Chuck Nice?

  A V-up. Is that this here?

• 5:19Speaker 04

  Are you gonna show me?

• 5:20Chuck Nice?

  Oh, this? Is that a V-up?

• 5:20Speaker 04

  Do I gonna show you?

• 5:22Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 5:22Speaker 04

  So you're basically like this and you're like going up like that.

• 5:26Chuck Nice?

  Okay, cool. Very cool. Okay.

• 5:28Speaker 04

  That's a V-up.

• 5:29Chuck Nice?

  That's very impressive, I gotta tell you, right?

• 5:34Speaker 04

  Let me see your V-up.

• 5:36Chuck Nice?

  You know what? I'm good. You're good, you're good.

• 5:38Speaker 04

  You got it.

• 5:39Chuck Nice?

  You do later, Chuck. Later. Yeah, we'll do that a little bit.

• 5:41Speaker 04

  It exists in the space-time continuum. Just leave it there.

• 5:45Chuck Nice?

  So we of course have Heather Berlin here, Dr. Heather Berlin, who is going to break down the neuroscience, because there's a lot of neuroscience that goes into pretty much every athlete, correct?

• 5:56Heather Berlin?

  Yeah.

• 5:57Chuck Nice?

  Like when you talk about the brain and the discipline and the, they call it muscle memory, but it really isn't muscle memory, right?

• 6:05Heather Berlin?

  It's actually called procedural memory. So basically, when you're first learning, and you'll probably have had this experience, the moves or whatever it may be, you have to really focus and you're using parts of your prefrontal cortex. You need conscious focus. Even learning to tie a shoelace for the first time. And then over time, over repetition and discipline to do it all those many times, it starts to become implicit or unconscious and it moves into the basal ganglia. Which is the sort of subcortical part of the brain. And it becomes this procedural memory.

• 6:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is what we call muscle memory.

• 6:34Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, and it's like riding a bike. And then, once you get into that implicit state, if you become too self-aware of what you're doing, like, oh, exactly how should I hit that tennis ball? Or do that, it will mess up your flow. So I imagine that you practice it so much that when you go into a routine, you're almost going on autopilot, right? You want to get to that point at which your body knows what it's doing and you don't have to think about it because the thinking messes it up.

• 6:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because Yogi Berra said that baseball, 90% of the game is half-mental.

• 7:02Speaker 04

  No, it's true. And I think that's where a lot of elite athletes get in trouble. And I've, it's happened to me on, you know, several occasions is where you train your body or something over and over and over, but then you have this one moment and you're like, I can't leave it to chance. And so you get your mind involved because you also have, you know, days that you, you know, you're only practicing an hour a day once you're at competition. And then you're just thinking about it over and over. And this one moment arrives and it's very hard to put away, you know, the monkey mind because it really wants to be there to help you, but it's like too many cooks in the kitchen.

• 7:33Heather Berlin?

  Exactly. And when you turn down that part of the, it's the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex that's making you self-aware. And that's the inner critic and, oh, my God, what should I do? And then if you can manage to turn that down and just enter into the flow state and lose yourself, that's when you really perform at your best.

• 7:48Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 7:49Chuck Nice?

  You better watch her because she'll tell you to sink it to the ice.

• 7:54Chuck Nice?

  So, Neil, you, yesterday, actually, I heard you talking to somebody at another thing we were doing where you were saying that you skate or you did something at the ice rink where you wore figure skates. What didn't you do? What haven't you done?

• 8:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I spent the time in high school as a rink guard.

• 8:18Speaker 04

  But not with hockey skates.

• 8:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not with hockey, I wore figure skates.

• 8:20Speaker 04

  Which is very unusual.

• 8:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. The rink guard is like more aggressive with hockey skates, but I had figure skates.

• 8:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I had on figure skates.

• 8:29Chuck Nice?

  Now, I'm just trying to figure this out, and maybe you can tell me.

• 8:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because that toe pick can hurt you.

• 8:34Speaker 04

  That's why you had it.

• 8:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 8:36Speaker 04

  Because you're fierce.

• 8:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You ever see figure skates? There's like teeth in the front of figure skates. And so, yeah. And there were some thugs who came on who were like-

• 8:44Speaker 04

  Who's the real deal?

• 8:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hockey thugs. Who knew figure skating was so tough?

• 8:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They were like, you know, beefy, thuggy guys. And rather than fight them, I just challenged them to a race. From one end of the ice to the other, and everyone parted ways. And they're having hockey skating. So, so they got to like press their feet left and right to go forward.

• 9:05Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 9:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I had on figure skating. I just went up on my toes and just ran.

• 9:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I got to the end, wait for them to come. So, so then they shut up after that. But, so I deeply appreciate your craft. And as a-

• 9:22Chuck Nice?

  As a figure skater myself.

• 9:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As a physicist.

• 9:29Speaker 04

  We'll have to do the next episode on the rink. We'll race.

• 9:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah, oh.

• 9:32Speaker 04

  We'll race.

• 9:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. Oh, that.

• 9:35Speaker 04

  Fight, take this to the rink.

• 9:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Meet me outside on the rink with figure skates on, in a tutu. Then we'll fight.

• 9:44Chuck Nice?

  Are you aware, are you aware of the physics that? Because they call figure skating physics on ice. There's, there's so much to it. Are you aware of the physics when you're skating? Or are you aware of it at all?

• 9:55Speaker 04

  I think you are aware of it, but you don't think of it in terms like of physics. You know, the way that you define is like this like hyper body awareness. And you can feel when you take off for a jump, if you don't have enough speed. If you slightly throw your, your shoulder too much and you can feel in the air that you're, you're off kilter and that you're going to go down hard. And you also know that if you're doing a single, a double, a triple, or a quad, exactly how much torque you have to put in when you leave the ice. Because that is what determines like how fast you will rotate and if you'll be able to complete, you know, a certain number of rotations up in the air.

• 10:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So torque is a force that sets something into rotation. And otherwise, it's just a force giving acceleration to an object. So you have force- That goes in a straight line. And then you have torque, which is a force turning. So, yeah, so there you are. It's a force you are putting between your body, your skate and the ice so that you can rotate.

• 10:51Speaker 04

  To, to launch it, like to, to begin it.

• 10:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 10:53Speaker 04

  And the same with spinning, and that's something, you know, you'll kind of go into a spin slow, and then you'll, you'll glide in and you'll, you'll ride the edge. And then you'll take the right side of your body and you'll like, you'll snap it to begin the spin. And then you'll use your arms and legs to increase your speed or slow it down.

• 11:11Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my God. So, all right, so.

• 11:16Chuck Nice?

  I'm learning how to physics skate.

• 11:18Speaker 04

  Physics skate.

• 11:19Chuck Nice?

  Physics skate.

• 11:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You just invented that word.

• 11:22Chuck Nice?

  I did.

• 11:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Physics skate. Physics skate.

• 11:24Chuck Nice?

  So here's what I would love to do. If, uh, for, for those of you who are listening and do not have the benefit of visual, because everybody is here, if you could stand up and just show us the actual, but you have to talk it through because people are listening at home.

• 11:36Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 11:36Chuck Nice?

  If you could show us the physicality of what happens when you're doing that motion. And then Neil, if you can break down exactly what's happening from a physical standpoint, I think that would be really cool. I'm making this up as I go along.

• 11:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, so Chuck.

• 11:51Speaker 04

  Wait, wait, wait, wait.

• 11:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, we do this. Wait, wait, so, so we can pretend like we're, we're the Olympic announcers.

• 11:57Speaker 04

  And this is what she's doing.

• 11:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is what she's doing. So Sasha Cohen, she's wearing high heels at this moment?

• 12:01Speaker 04

  I am wearing high heels. I've not done it this way before.

• 12:03Chuck Nice?

  Okay, so what happened?

• 12:04Speaker 04

  So there's, there's two instances, right? There's a jump and a spin. And I feel like everyone, if anyone's watched any figure skating, somewhat aware of the difference. One, you leave the ice and one, you don't. Um, the jump, you leave the ice. So.

• 12:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, you got that? You know what? I'm, I'm, I'm keeping up.

• 12:21Speaker 04

  We'll start with the jump. So, for instance, like, um, I will start with, um, a saucow. Um, and so it's something where you're going to take off backwards and you're going to be gliding on the inside edge of your left foot. And you're going to determine how much speed you want to get going in, right? So I'll be doing crossovers and running and running and going fast.

• 12:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Building your speed.

• 12:42Speaker 04

  Right. And then people have different entrances, but say like when I, many, many, many years ago, I did a quad saucow and I wanted to get extra torque. So I would do a turn ahead and then I would set myself here. And then I would use the edge gliding backwards, my, the right side of my body. And I would. Dig in with my left foot into the ice and whip this up. And that's what would initiate the momentum. And I would leave the ice, push off this toe pick, and then immediately snap the weight over my right side. And based on how much I followed through with my right arm and right leg and pushed down with my left would determine how fast I would spin

• 13:27Speaker 04

  and if it would be a single jump, a double jump, a triple jump, or a quad.

• 13:30Heather Berlin?

  Wait, can I ask you a question then? The way you just broke it down was a very logical, conscious, whatever. But when you're actually doing that, you're not thinking all those things, are you? Are you feeling them?

• 13:41Speaker 04

  You feel it.

• 13:42Heather Berlin?

  You feel it.

• 13:42Speaker 04

  So I think I'm explaining exactly what I feel.

• 13:45Heather Berlin?

  Right.

• 13:46Speaker 04

  But it's like you're very fine tuned and you know exactly how much speed you need. And you know how much speed is too much that you'll lose control, that it could turn out great, but you have to get lucky because basically, speed magnifies anything. It helps you get more height and more torque. But if you are one millimeter off in any direction and you have extra speed, you're gonna go down really hard or your alignment won't be quite right. So people are a little tentative with speed because that can, you know, you can go up in flames. It's like putting leverage on your house. It can work out really well or it just can go bust.

• 14:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But now, finally, something I can relate to.

• 14:25Speaker 04

  No leverage.

• 14:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Sasha, if you, so, I get, you gave a brilliant description of how you give yourself rotational inertia, okay?

• 14:39Speaker 04

  For a jump. We haven't even gotten to the spin.

• 14:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But however, you didn't, well, okay, so to me, in physics, you generally break things apart into components and you put them all together for the one thing. I break this apart. You told me how you gain spin. But you have, if you're gonna do a quad, you have to be airborne long enough to complete the quad before you hit the ground.

• 15:03Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 15:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So.

• 15:04Speaker 04

  That's part of it because you'll notice if you've watched figure skating this past Olympics, you will see some people barely get off the ice and they can do three turns. And some people get this high up and they don't complete it.

• 15:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Two or three feet off the ice. So it really is the rotational spin.

• 15:20Speaker 04

  It's how fast you launch yourself up.

• 15:23Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 15:23Speaker 04

  And then obviously it goes into like, what's your body type? Do you have like wide hips? How fast are you spinning? And that's why men rotate faster and generally do a lot more quads than women do. They're, they spin faster, they've got narrower hips. Um, but you know, women are more flexible, so we've got better spiral sequences.

• 15:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How many, how many women have done quads?

• 15:43Speaker 04

  You know, a couple have done it in practice and I feel like maybe like one, one or two have done it in competition.

• 15:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you've done a quad?

• 15:50Speaker 04

  I have. A long time ago, a long time ago. You can, it's, thankfully YouTube exists and it will always live there. I hope. I'll be like, wow, I used to do that. Now I just sit.

• 16:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so, so people must have freaked out. I mean, did the announcer lose his shit?

• 16:14Speaker 04

  I mean, it was, it was an exciting moment because you know, people can see when you get really close or you double footed or you step out, but when you actually do it and you're kind of, you come down from four turns and you have to have tremendous amount of strength and balance to catch yourself when you come down, get out. And so it's this moment where it's like, oh, is she gonna do it? Is she gonna do it? And you have it and it's, it's very exciting.

• 16:37Chuck Nice?

  It was exciting. Watch you just do it.

• 16:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there's the launch and the landing that both matter.

• 16:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, so, so when I trained, you know, you'd work on explosive muscles for bounce. Um, and then you would also, I would jump down off of boxes this high in order um, to kind of like learn how to absorb all that pressure and momentum coming down.

• 16:59Chuck Nice?

  And you do that with the skates on?

• 17:00Speaker 04

  With, um, off ice training, I do it without skates. Um, and then on the ice, um, with the skates.

• 17:07Chuck Nice?

  Well, that would make sense. Thanks, Sasha.

• 17:12Speaker 04

  No problem, no problem. Just want to keep it clear, no misunderstandings. But then let me get to a spin, because a spin's very different, because you're not launching yourself out. And it's something that goes for much longer, it's not fractions of a second. It's a spin, you know, can be 30 seconds, it can be a minute. And you basically, you'll see most people wind backwards. And they're creating this, it's all about torque in the body. And this is why I realize I'm a terrible skier, because it's the opposite.

• 17:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So they're winding the spring.

• 17:42Speaker 04

  You're winding, right? And so my hips are going to the left, and my shoulders are going to the right. Lot of abs, lot of abs.

• 17:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Core work.

• 17:51Speaker 04

  Yes. And then, so then you step in, and you ride this outside edge. And then, again, you do the same whip momentum for a jump, except you don't take off, and then you spin. Generally, if I wasn't in heels, I could do more spins. And then, once you're there, you can, you'll keep this momentum. And then as I would bring in my arms and my legs, I can just insanely increase the speed of my spin. And likewise, if all of a sudden, I wanted to slow it down, I would just open up. And you would see the rotations just kind of almost stop. And so, in that way, I was aware of physics. But for figure skaters, we would think about it more in terms of like body awareness. Of, you know, where your hips are, what torque you need.

• 18:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus you have to look good doing it.

• 18:37Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 18:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, because you're being judged.

• 18:38Speaker 04

  And what color you look it in.

• 18:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right. There are other dimensions of the analysis, of the rank of the scores.

• 18:45Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 18:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 18:47Chuck Nice?

  So you, actually, yes, can you tell us what is happening when she does that?

• 18:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, the physics, yeah, yeah. So, so if you, I'm going to take my shoes off.

• 18:57Speaker 04

  I want to see you spin.

• 18:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, it's not the same. Wait a minute, Jeff.

• 19:02Chuck Nice?

  For those of you listening, Neil is taking off his shoes.

• 19:05Speaker 04

  She kept her heels on.

• 19:06Chuck Nice?

  And putting on Sasha's heels.

• 19:09Speaker 04

  Cinderella, doesn't fit. Doesn't fit.

• 19:13Chuck Nice?

  All I can tell you is this, Prince Charming is never coming back.

• 19:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, in physics, here's the deal. So, if you set yourself rotating, alright? So, I'll do that right now, okay? So, here I am rotating, okay? So, that's at a speed. Wait, don't applaud yet, you don't know what's about to come. Okay, so, so...

• 19:42Chuck Nice?

  So, you just spun around.

• 19:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, you can calculate how much angular... So, in physics, you might remember from your physics class, if you had it or you... So, everything that happens in a straight line, you can think of in a rotation. So, there's a force, the rotational counterpart is torque. There is mass, the rotational counterpart is moment of inertia. There is, you also have momentum, and the rotational counterpart is just angular momentum. So, here's the thing. Once you start rotating, your angular momentum is constant, okay? It's constant. So, if I start spinning, and you calculate the angular momentum by...

• 20:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, here it is. It is the mass of whatever your body is...

• 20:38Chuck Nice?

  Which, in this case, would be the biggest figure skater ever.

• 20:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here's the point. So, your hands, your hands have a certain mass, and they're rotating out at this distance. So, you have part of your body mass away from your axis of rotation.

• 21:00Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 21:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, you can calculate how much angular momentum that is. Now, watch. If I bring any part of my body closer to my axis of rotation...

• 21:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then, one of the terms in your angular momentum drops. It, so, so, so, what happens is, the distance to your, the, the axis of rotation drops. But your angular momentum stays the same, so something has to increase.

• 21:29Chuck Nice?

  So, ah!

• 21:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? So, because when you multiply these two numbers, you have to get the same answer every time. Okay? So if I start changing the distance of the mass of my body to my axis, and I make it smaller, I have to spin up. Nice! And so, so there you have, allow me? Yes? Yes, ma'am, okay. So I will spin, and then...

• 21:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. And then, just like she said, because what she needs, right? Right, isn't it, right, so, so you, you're spinning, you speed up, but then you can stop it, by just putting your mass back out. Slow it down. So here's, here's my proposal to you. Okay? Here we go. Okay. So, I don't know if this is legal? Okay.

• 22:13Chuck Nice?

  #MeToo!

• 22:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here. So... So put your arms out, okay? So you, you're my skating physics demo in this moment. So you have a certain amount of mass coming out here. All right? So...

• 22:28Chuck Nice?

  So wait, for those listening right now, Sasha has her arms...

• 22:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  T shape.

• 22:32Chuck Nice?

  Spread apart.

• 22:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Spread apart, yes.

• 22:33Chuck Nice?

  And, uh, in a T formation, and, go ahead.

• 22:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly. So it's a certain amount of mass along your arm and in your hands. And you also showed earlier, when you start a spin, you might start with your leg out. Okay? And then when you bring your leg closer in towards your axis of rotation, you start spinning faster. And, okay, so we got this. Oh, I like, you have an, this is an infinity on your wrist. Very cool. Very cool. It's an infinity tattoo.

• 23:00Chuck Nice?

  That is very, yes, that is an infinity tattoo.

• 23:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Infinity tattoo, good. Okay. Sorry, I didn't mean that. Okay. So here's my suggestion. I don't know if it's legal. Next time you do this, I think you can do a quint. Is there such a word? There is such a word. Good. Quint. Five turns. Now how would you do that? I'm gonna say, you get some lead weight to put in your hand.

• 23:28Heather Berlin?

  It's Tom Brady all over again. Tom Brady. Tom Brady of ice skating.

• 23:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So when you start, when you start spinning with lead weights in your hand, even if you're spinning at the same speed that you once were, you have more mass farther away from your rotation axis. So that as you then bring the more mass in, you will spin faster. And I don't know, people will notice if you're grabbing something, holding on to something.

• 23:55Heather Berlin?

  Oh, what's going on?

• 23:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. As you skate around. As you skate around the rink with two kettlebells in your hand.

• 24:02Heather Berlin?

  It's a little obvious.

• 24:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what you do is.

• 24:05Heather Berlin?

  Just get really heavy rings.

• 24:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that's what I'm saying. No, you can get a wrist bracelet and lead infused the wrist bracelet and you're just, it's just your jewelry.

• 24:15Speaker 04

  Meanwhile, I build up huge.

• 24:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what I'm saying is, if you did that, the same gestures, you will spin faster. And you'll have to land, you have to figure out the landing. But, but, but once you go.

• 24:31Speaker 04

  I'm gonna throw this back to you.

• 24:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's that?

• 24:33Speaker 04

  For spinning, this would absolutely work and it would give me more torque and momentum when I spin.

• 24:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 24:38Speaker 04

  But I think the extra weight would not allow me to get up as high in the air. And so even if I got extra torque when I pulled in, I would still not be able to rotate as many times.

• 24:49Heather Berlin?

  You need to work on this.

• 24:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's a trade off.

• 24:51Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 24:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Have to think about that. It's a good thing to think about. You gotta think about that. So, so this is one of the interesting physics problems where there are two variables competing with one another and you don't know if one is more powerful than the other or where they meet to get the best combination of both. And those, that's where you get the more interesting, complex problems in physics and in life.

• 25:15Heather Berlin?

  I have a neuroscience problem here that I can.

• 25:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's that?

• 25:18Heather Berlin?

  You know, why don't you get dizzy when doing all of these?

• 25:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah. What's up with that?

• 25:25Heather Berlin?

  So I have an explanation for that.

• 25:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know Chuck, if we did that, we'd be like.

• 25:31Heather Berlin?

  Cause they're going around and around and around.

• 25:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm dizzy right now.

• 25:35Heather Berlin?

  So, you know, there's actually a neuroscientific explanation for that, for that question.

• 25:39Speaker 04

  So it's interesting, for jumping, you know, it happens in a fraction of a second, and you don't get dizzy, she's very quick. But spinning is something where ballet and skating really diverge. You know, if you're a ballerina, you're spotting, you know, like to the edge of the room, and that's how you're keeping, you know, your awareness.

• 25:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And by spotting, you mean you pick a spot.

• 25:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, you pick a spot.

• 26:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You turn your head very quickly back to that spot.

• 26:02Speaker 04

  And you, like, you turn.

• 26:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That prevents you from getting dizzy?

• 26:04Speaker 04

  For ballet.

• 26:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For ballet.

• 26:06Speaker 04

  This is what ballerinas do.

• 26:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 26:07Speaker 04

  They always spot. But for figure skaters, you're spinning so fast, and you're not doing just like kind of one, one, one. You're literally doing, I don't know, like 50 turns. And you, the trick is, you have to stay in the same center, so about like one to two blade lengths. And, and I don't know, I think it's like something to do with your inner ear, that if you're not traveling, and you're kind of, you're staying in the same spot even though you're spinning, you don't get dizzy. But from personal experience, when you do a spin, and you do a bad spin, which you'll get a deduction for, and you're traveling, so you kind of start here and I end up offstage.

• 26:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would be bad.

• 26:45Speaker 04

  You get out of the spin, and it's like a cartoon where you see the stars, and you're just like, what, where am I? And so that's why they teach you, have your center and don't travel. So explain that inner ear to me in like neuroscience terms.

• 26:57Heather Berlin?

  Yes, I shall. So, your inner ear consists of these three like fluid-filled tubes, right? And each one is at a different orientation, so it's meant to be sensitive to a different orientation. Let's say if your head goes up and like, yes, like this, or no, or side to side. And within those fluid-

• 27:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  These are the three dimensions of space.

• 27:16Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, the three dimensions, and they're represented within your inner ear, in these little canal, these tubes. And within each of these fluid-filled tubes are these little hairs that are like sensing. It's almost like seaweed at the bottom of the ocean. So when you move, it senses, and sends signals to your brain. So if you think about if you're in a chair, let's say spinning, and you're holding a bottle of water, and you're spinning in this swivel chair, and then you stop, the water is gonna keep going, right, because it builds up momentum. And the same thing is happening in your inner ear. So it's telling your brain, you're still moving. That's why people get dizzy.

• 27:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 27:50Heather Berlin?

  And also there's-

• 27:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that's why when you stop spinning, you fall over because you can't keep your balance, because your brain didn't figure out that you stopped spinning.

• 27:57Heather Berlin?

  It thinks you're still moving, but then, there's also information. So there's information coming to your brain-

• 28:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Your brain's so stupid.

• 28:06Heather Berlin?

  But your muscles are telling you stuff as well. There's proprioceptive input and there's also visual input, right? Giving you information.

• 28:13Chuck Nice?

  What kind of input was the muscle input?

• 28:14Heather Berlin?

  Proprioceptive.

• 28:15Chuck Nice?

  Pro-

• 28:16Heather Berlin?

  Proprioceptive.

• 28:18Chuck Nice?

  Proprioceptive.

• 28:18Heather Berlin?

  Like proprioception, yeah.

• 28:20Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that cleared it up.

• 28:23Speaker 04

  I've heard that one before.

• 28:24Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, you know. Yeah, it's proprioceptive. So, like proprioception. We good now?

• 28:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, we good, we good.

• 28:33Speaker 04

  We're gonna move on.

• 28:33Chuck Nice?

  All right, let's go.

• 28:36Heather Berlin?

  It's signals that tell your bodies it's awareness and space. So your body, your brain is getting that information from your muscles and your joints. The inner ear is telling you you're still moving and your eyes are giving you information. So that's why they often say, and tell me if they say this to you, when you're at it, when you come out of the spin, different than ballerinas, you focus each time they make a turn, but you then are told to focus at a specific point because you want to have your eyes telling your brain, counteracting what your inner ear is telling it that it's still moving, that you're not moving any longer. And also what you do, I'm sure, is you practice off ice, just spinning, so that your brain can habituate. So it's not so much that you're spinning in one place versus moving, although the movement is going to cause it to be more confusing because there's moving in different directions, so it'll be less of movement if you're in one space. But that's not what I think is happening. I think you habituate because you practice, right?

• 29:20Chuck Nice?

  So your brain just becomes acclimated to spin?

• 29:22Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, only so much, though, right? Because it's still a physiologic effect, right?

• 29:26Speaker 04

  And what you'll see figure skaters do is they'll spin very fast and then they'll slow down. And they slow down, they're kind of getting their bearings, you know?

• 29:34Heather Berlin?

  And they're readjusting their brains.

• 29:35Chuck Nice?

  So you're kind of easing yourself out of it.

• 29:37Speaker 04

  Exactly. And then there's like a trick move that you do is you spin really, really, really fast and then you stop. And then you give your, you do it to the music, it's like bam bam. And then you give yourself like a second and then you're like, oh, I got my arm now. And you're just like, you have a choreography like you built in, you know? We have these like these breathers and so and that for a spin.

• 29:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is it true that your fastest spin in any performance is the spin you end on? So you don't have to be graceful and balancey after that?

• 30:05Speaker 04

  It's true. People generally do their more strenu-, their more strenuous, like wham bam, hit every position. It's like very dramatic at the very end.

• 30:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 30:15Speaker 04

  Also because it takes up a lot of energy and you want to get your jumping passes in earlier. Although you're seeing that change now a lot with the new judging system where you're getting rewarded and getting more points if you jump after the halfway mark. But generally you want to end on a big note. And so people will do combination spins where- You hit like six different positions. You're in a camel, you're in a sit spin, you're in a layback, and then you're on the other foot and your leg's up. So there's a lot going on.

• 30:40Chuck Nice?

  Like a fireworks, like a fireworks finale.

• 30:41Speaker 04

  It is, exactly. It's a finale. It's a fireworks finale.

• 30:43Chuck Nice?

  It's just like, oh, put them all up there.

• 30:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's one, that one.

• 30:46Chuck Nice?

  Let me have all, yeah, look at Smiley Face, oh.

• 30:49Speaker 04

  Everything you got. Throw it at the edge, exactly.

• 30:52Chuck Nice?

  So Heather, let me ask you this, because we are almost out of time.

• 30:56Chuck Nice?

  Why is it that, from a neurological standpoint, that that is our first kind of foray into getting high? You see children spin around, spin around, and then they're just like, oh, I am, I am messed up, man. Like, what, what is happening there?

• 31:15Heather Berlin?

  Well, a lot of what drugs do is they kind of play with your senses, right? So normally, we have input coming in from our senses and, and our brain is organizing in a certain way. But when you kind of mess with your senses and the way the brain is interpreting them, that's also what drugs tend to do. And it feels, it's interesting because it's a different brain state. You know, and it's not just your inner ear, by the way. Those inner ear, that information goes to that little brain in the back of your brain, the cerebellum, right? It's right in the back of your neck. And what's interesting is that that has two times as many neurons as your entire brain, right? Two times as many neurons, so.

• 31:49Chuck Nice?

  Twice.

• 31:49Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, twi-

• 31:54Chuck Nice?

  It's two, two.

• 31:56Heather Berlin?

  Twice.

• 31:56Chuck Nice?

  Two times as many morons.

• 31:58Heather Berlin?

  But it's unconscious, okay? And people who have complete damage to the cerebellum, they are still fully conscious and aware. I mean, they might have less coordination. They can't do triple axles and things, but they're fully conscious and aware. So we only need, basically, one-third of our neurons to have conscious awareness. But it's interesting how much goes into that ability to have balance and, but so, but the, I think the reason why it feels good is that we like different sensations. We like to be outside of our normal, even dream states or creative states or daydreaming. When we're not in that normal state where the prefrontal cortex is on and everything's working properly, it's, it's fun. It's interesting. That's why we like to go on roller coasters or rides that make us feel weird.

• 32:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Sasha, when you're performing, you're in an altered mental state, according to this. Is that?

• 32:44Speaker 04

  Maybe that's why I became a figure skater. It's like, the world is going to be too much.

• 32:49Chuck Nice?

  The world.

• 32:50Speaker 04

  I need to skate for 20 years.

• 32:52Chuck Nice?

  That's why you drink before competitions.

• 32:57Speaker 03

  That was our secret.

• 32:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Chuck, I have one kind of hyper geeky thing left to say about figure skating. Go ahead. Do we have time for it? Sure, go ahead. You sure? Go ahead. Okay. But it's kind of, it's like embarrassingly geeky. Are you sure? You know, you could tell me privately.

• 33:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So, so here it is. And it'll take a few minutes, but it's just... Okay. Most things, when they get cooler, they will shrink. Boy, do I know it.

• 33:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Water...

• 33:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Water...

• 33:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Does the opposite. Okay? If you cool water, take its temperature down to 32 degrees, it freezes and gets bigger.

• 34:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The same amount of water occupies higher volume after it freezes. And so the water, the frozen water, the solid water, is less dense than the water from which it came.

• 34:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the ice floats. Okay.

• 34:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is profound.

• 34:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because you can have a lake with fishes in it. Winter comes. Winter was coming.

• 34:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Winter comes. I like that show. Okay.

• 34:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did you see my dragon tweet with the dragon breath? I did not see your dragon tweet. Forget you then. All right. So, so, so...

• 34:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A lake, so it gets cold outside. Temperature drops below freezing. The water at the top feels this temperature, okay? So what happens? It turns out, as the... Water does get smaller, but then it gets bigger again. And at four degrees Celsius, water is at its densest. So the air is cooling the water. It hits four degrees. It drops to the bottom of the lake. And then it cools another, drops to the bottom, drops to the bottom. Finally, the cold air catches up with the water and the water... It freezes the water and it creates a lid of ice. Now, the temperature stays cold. How is it gonna get to the water below? It can't. And that ice insulates the lake and does not kill the fish.

• 35:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nice. If the ice... If the ice were denser... This all relates to figure skating.

• 35:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's why I said it's geeky. I told you. Wait till you get to skate on his fins.

• 35:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, if ice sank, then systematically, the cold air would freeze the lake from the bottom up. And the fishes would have less and less and less water to swim in. And that last lake would freeze and you would kill every single fish, every single winter. But we have frozen lids over running streams in every municipality, everywhere. Okay, so now... This really is geeky, you're right. I told you. Wait, so now, suppose I have a block of ice

• 36:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  and I want to squeeze it into a smaller volume. You can't. I know. As long as it stays ice. Because... Okay, so now watch. Oh, that's awesome, man! I told you! Yes, you're right! I told you! Oh my god, this is so geeky, it's great! But he's still coming. Sit down. Okay, okay. Okay, okay, okay. So now, the geek is building, okay? Oh my god. So...

• 37:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just, let me give a quick aside. Pipes.

• 37:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Pipes have water flowing in and it's cold outside. You let them go. Okay, watch. And it's cold outside.

• 37:19Chuck Nice?

  I blame myself.

• 37:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The pipes are holding on to the water. The water is trying to get colder and it gets colder and colder and colder. It gets to 32 degrees and it wants to freeze. But it can't because the pipe is holding it. But the temperature gets even colder and it wants to freeze even more. But it can't because the pipe is holding it. The ice, the water, will go to 32, to 31, to 30. And it won't freeze until it wants to freeze so badly it becomes ice and pops your pipes. No matter what they're made of, it'll pop your pipes.

• 37:54Chuck Nice?

  Oh, now that sounds good.

• 37:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Becoming, becoming ice. Now watch.

• 37:58Chuck Nice?

  That's what I'm talking about.

• 37:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So wait, so now watch.

• 38:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so.

• 38:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you reverse that, if you squeeze ice, you will melt it. If you squeeze it hard enough. Pressure. Pressure, pressure. Pressure. So now watch.

• 38:18Chuck Nice?

  Come on, baby, pop my pipes.

• 38:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sasha glides on the ice, not because ice is slippery, but because her skates are sharpened, not like a knife edge. But if you ever see a cross-section of an, of an ice skate blade, it's actually concave. It's concave. So you have two edges. You were speaking about which edge you're on. So if you're skating on an edge, her weight, even though she don't weigh much, that weight is sitting on top of a tiny area of metal blade. And pressure is force per unit area.

• 39:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if the area is small, the same force over that area becomes a higher pressure. That's how the math works out. So what's actually happening when she skates is that the ice beneath her skate blade melts the instant her blade touches it. And she's gliding on a bead of water on top of the ice. That is what she's doing.

• 39:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She's compressing the ice. It melts instantly because the ice can't stay ice. In a smaller volume, it becomes water immediately.

• 39:49Chuck Nice?

  I gotta be water.

• 39:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so watch. So, so, so she glides over it, the water, the ice melts. So she's smooth. And the moment the blade comes out the other side, the water refreezes instantly. So you think it's because the ice is slippery. No, it's because the water is slippery. Now, there is a temperature below which even the high pressure cannot melt the ice. There was an expedition to the South Pole in 1911. The Scott Expedition. He had a team. He had sleds with skate blades on it, okay? Gliding over the ice.

• 40:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He got to the South Pole too late because the Admiral, what's the guy?

• 40:37Chuck Nice?

  Admiral whatever.

• 40:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He got to, he wasn't, he beat him to it. Okay, fine, so he's ready to go back. Antarctica went into a deeper freeze than usual. They were, the moving was slow. They were running out of supplies. They had to get to a, to a, a supply station. They got within 11 miles of the supply station and they couldn't go any further. You know why? Because they were moving so slow and was taking so much energy. They had to eat their dogs, okay? They ate their dogs and that was not enough. And now they got nothing to pull the sled. So the humans are pulling the sled and they're pulling, and there's a point where they can't pull the sled anymore because the temperature dropped so low,

• 41:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  the sled blades were no longer melting the ice on which they glided and their blades just froze in the ice. He could not make it to the 11 miles to the station and everyone on that expedition died.

• 41:39Chuck Nice?

  And this is the story that Neil used to tell his children every night.

• 41:46Speaker 04

  Why didn't they walk? Why didn't they just walk and leave the sled?

• 42:00Speaker 03

  They were all men, obviously. And they didn't think of that.

• 42:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They had actually, we gotta wrap it. They had actually collected rock specimens that they wanted to bring back to England with them. And those rock specimens were just sort of dead in place with the rest of them. Later on, we came back, found the rock specimens, and they contained fossils of ferns and other prehistoric life. Evidence that Antarctica was not always ice. This was a scientific expedition, and they gave their lives for science.

• 42:34Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 42:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, we gotta wrap it.

• 42:39Chuck Nice?

  I'm gonna tell you the beauty of that story. Not one of them was black.

• 42:46Chuck Nice?

  You will not find a frozen black person anywhere on this planet.

• 42:54Chuck Nice?

  That is it for Playing with Science. Please give it up for Dr. Heather Berlin. Olympic medalist Sasha Cohen. The inevitable Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson. I've been your host for Playing with Science. Also, please, give it up for Gary O'Reilly, who is not here. And our catchphrase is this: If you play with fire, you get burned. Play with science, you get learned.

• 43:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, get on that house. Bam! Get home safely. Have a good night.