Cosmic Queries – The Deep

Deep space and deep thoughts = deep questions. Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice answer fan-submitted questions on the meaning of life, the human brain, higher intelligence, space exploration, and much more. NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons and All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/show/cosmic-queries-the-deep/ Thanks to this week’s Patrons for supporting us: Andrew Olguin, Jay Eilers, Dr. Janet L. Walsh, Roy Hill-Percival, Jose Clark Photo Credit: NASA, ESA, G. Illingworth and D. Magee (University of California, Santa Cruz), K. Whitaker (University of Connecticut), R. Bouwens (Leiden University), P. Oesch (University of Geneva), and the Hubble Legacy Field team.

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

• 0:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, and beaming out across all of space and time, this is StarTalk, where science and pop culture collide.

• 0:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, and I got with me Chuck Nice.

• 0:36Chuck Nice?

  Hey Neil.

• 0:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, today it's Cosmic Queries. That's one of our favorite forms of the show.

• 0:42Chuck Nice?

  Everybody loves it.

• 0:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everybody loves it.

• 0:44Chuck Nice?

  Everybody loves it.

• 0:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everybody loves it.

• 0:45Chuck Nice?

  Everybody loves it.

• 0:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everybody loves it. And...

• 0:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We are, in fact, educated people.

• 0:53Chuck Nice?

  My mom is spinning in her grave right now.

• 0:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, but this is Cosmic Queries of a topic we've never solicited before.

• 1:01Chuck Nice?

  No, we have not.

• 1:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 1:03Chuck Nice?

  And the topic is the deep. Deep space, deep thoughts.

• 1:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Deep questions.

• 1:11Chuck Nice?

  Deep questions.

• 1:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, Chuck, you gotta give it in your deepest voice.

• 1:15Chuck Nice?

  Okay, here we go.

• 1:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And by the way, we did this once.

• 1:17Chuck Nice?

  Yes, we did.

• 1:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I think, I think I beat you by a half a tone or something.

• 1:22Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 1:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just bear, let me hear it.

• 1:23Chuck Nice?

  No, here we go. Deep thoughts.

• 1:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Deep thoughts.

• 1:28Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, you got me already, yeah. See, I gotta drink scotch the night before.

• 1:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And smoke a cigar.

• 1:33Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I gotta smoke a cigar and drink some scotch.

• 1:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Smoke and alcohol just fix that right up.

• 1:37Chuck Nice?

  But then it becomes like a Deep Boys and like somewhat Harvey Fierstein.

• 1:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, raspy.

• 1:42Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 1:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it becomes raspy.

• 1:43Chuck Nice?

  Deep thoughts.

• 1:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thoughts?

• 1:46Chuck Nice?

  Oh my god.

• 1:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you put on the accent.

• 1:48Chuck Nice?

  Deep thoughts.

• 1:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thoughts?

• 1:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Scotch doesn't give you the Harvey Fierstein accent.

• 1:57Chuck Nice?

  That'd be pretty cool if it did. Couple of scotches.

• 2:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Deep, deep.

• 2:02Chuck Nice?

  Can someone call me an Uber? I've had too much to drink.

• 2:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Deep.

• 2:08Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 2:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, let's get deep.

• 2:09Chuck Nice?

  Let's.

• 2:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like deep thoughts, because usually there isn't a right answer, so you just get to sort of play with it and see where it takes you.

• 2:15Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, man. So this is deep questions only.

• 2:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, let's do it.

• 2:19Chuck Nice?

  So, uh.

• 2:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Listen to it from our fanbase?

• 2:21Chuck Nice?

  It's from our fanbase, and as usual, we start with a Patreon patron, because they're fans that pay us. And nothing says fandom like a check.

• 2:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 2:35Chuck Nice?

  By the way.

• 2:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There are different levels you can be a patron.

• 2:37Chuck Nice?

  Uh, the way Patreon works.

• 2:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's the lowest level?

• 2:39Chuck Nice?

  Uh, five bucks a month. Actually, you can go down to two.

• 2:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Two dollars a month.

• 2:43Chuck Nice?

  But we really want you to come in at five, so that you can get the perks of getting our videos and being able to get extra content.

• 2:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we revamped that recently.

• 2:52Chuck Nice?

  And we read your name.

• 2:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't remember what's in the list. One of them, I think, you, you come on the show.

• 2:56Chuck Nice?

  Yes, that, that's the five.

• 2:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We put you on StarTalk.

• 3:00Chuck Nice?

  Yes, you come on the show and you are a guest on the show.

• 3:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, and you get to ask all the questions you want.

• 3:04Chuck Nice?

  That's cool, man. You know what? I would do.

• 3:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But we didn't say whether we'd actually air it.

• 3:08Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that's so wrong.

• 3:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, we do.

• 3:11Chuck Nice?

  By the way, wouldn't that be the ultimate, like, ripoff?

• 3:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, the open.

• 3:15Chuck Nice?

  It's like, so when can I expect to see this? Oh, you can. Yeah, unfortunately. All right, so let's go with our Patreon patron, and here's the question from Jonathan Wax. And Jonathan says, or asks, what boggles your mind more than the thought of endless time or the thought of endless space? So it's impossible to truly contemplate endless time, because you would spend the rest of your existence doing so.

• 3:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, here's, two things boggle me.

• 3:52Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 3:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a beautiful frontier of research going on in the field of neuroscience.

• 4:00Chuck Nice?

  Oh, interesting.

• 4:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I have two questions related to that, that boggle my mind.

• 4:04Chuck Nice?

  Okay, I'm gonna write these down.

• 4:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Can the human brain

• 4:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  figure out the human mind?

• 4:18Chuck Nice?

  It's a great question.

• 4:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If it is the human brain.

• 4:21Chuck Nice?

  That actually creates the human mind.

• 4:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Creates the human mind.

• 4:23Chuck Nice?

  Hmm, that's a, that's a good question.

• 4:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what I'm saying.

• 4:26Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 4:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or do you need something outside of that?

• 4:28Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 4:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is greater, smarter, different, so that it can come in and then understand that as its own test, test kitchen.

• 4:38Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 4:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, Carl Sagan has famously said.

• 4:41Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 4:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That humans are the universe's way

• 4:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  to understand itself.

• 4:50Chuck Nice?

  The universe is understanding itself through humans.

• 4:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Through humans, correct. Without humans, there'd be no thoughts.

• 4:57Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 4:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To do that. But however, that elevates us higher than I'm prepared to do so.

• 5:03Chuck Nice?

  You think so, yeah.

• 5:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because who says we are the measure of what is intelligent in this universe?

• 5:09Chuck Nice?

  Well, we do.

• 5:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, we do, exactly, exactly.

• 5:13Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 5:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So.

• 5:14Chuck Nice?

  That, so that statement, that Carl Sagan statement is kind of like a cosmological Descartes. That's like the universe, the Descartes.

• 5:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, I think before I am, kind of thing, okay.

• 5:26Chuck Nice?

  But it's like, we think, therefore you are.

• 5:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, ooh, oh, Chuck.

• 5:31Chuck Nice?

  Every once in a while, I'll do something.

• 5:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We think therefore you are.

• 5:35Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Rather than I think therefore I am.

• 5:37Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 5:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, Chuck, that was beautiful.

• 5:40Chuck Nice?

  Oh, thanks, man.

• 5:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We should end the show right now. Because we ain't surpassing that thought. Thank you for watching StarTalk.

• 5:47Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 5:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's downhill from here.

• 5:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, so, I wonder whether there is a level of intelligence out there where we are to they what chimpanzees are to us.

• 6:01Chuck Nice?

  That's interesting.

• 6:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So wow.

• 6:03Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that's terrible.

• 6:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

• 6:05Chuck Nice?

  Oh, I hope not.

• 6:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, you can go to chimpanzee and say.

• 6:08Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 6:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And say, uh, tomorrow morning at eight thirty, let's go to Starbucks and have a cup of coffee. Nothing in that sentence makes any sense to a chimpanzee.

• 6:18Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 6:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or ever will.

• 6:19Chuck Nice?

  I'm pretty sure there's a, a chimp, chimp Starbucks. I'm just pretty sure there is a chimp Starbucks somewhere. I'm just saying.

• 6:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You think Starbucks figured out?

• 6:28Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, Starbucks has gotta be selling chimps coffee somehow, some way.

• 6:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that why they're so hyper at the zoo?

• 6:34Chuck Nice?

  Exactly. You know what I mean? You go to get your coffee and he's just like, Curious George? Curious George? Decaf latte for curious. Okay, sorry.

• 6:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 6:47Chuck Nice?

  But go ahead.

• 6:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So.

• 6:48Chuck Nice?

  So, so is there?

• 6:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Here's why I say that. And I've said this many times, I've written it, and I would tell you to your face now.

• 6:54Chuck Nice?

  All right, good.

• 6:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there's about one percent difference in DNA between humans and chimps.

• 7:01Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 7:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. Yet we like to think of ourselves as.

• 7:04Chuck Nice?

  Highly superior.

• 7:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Highly superior intellectually to the chimp.

• 7:06Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe the difference in our brain power is as small as that one percent indicates.

• 7:12Chuck Nice?

  Ugh.

• 7:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that pulling termites out of a mound with a stick that was carefully chosen from a branch.

• 7:18Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is from a, from a, a bush. Maybe that is not very far from.

• 7:25Chuck Nice?

  Space travel.

• 7:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Hubble telescope. Right. No, no, wait, think about it. No, no, I know this sounds crazy. No, no, think about it. Maybe, maybe.

• 7:35Chuck Nice?

  Oh, look at those cute little humans in their telescopes.

• 7:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what I'm saying.

• 7:39Chuck Nice?

  They're putting up there. Look at that. Is that a space shuttle that they just launched?

• 7:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so now watch. The smartest chimp.

• 7:45Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 7:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That are studied in labs.

• 7:46Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That are brought and forward into chimp societies.

• 7:49Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You bring them forward and what do they do? They'll stack boxes to reach a banana.

• 7:53Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 7:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They might put up an umbrella. They'll do some things. Okay, have rudimentary sign language. Our toddlers can do that.

• 8:00Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But those are the smartest chimps.

• 8:03Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But our toddlers do that.

• 8:05Chuck Nice?

  Same thing with dogs. Dogs, dogs have about.

• 8:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know, I could, I could do this example for dogs as well, but chimps is, is simpler.

• 8:10Chuck Nice?

  Cause they're closer to us.

• 8:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Even closer. So watch.

• 8:13Chuck Nice?

  Got you, got you. See what you're doing.

• 8:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You see where I'm going. Okay, so watch. If the smartest chimp equals our toddler, and there's only one percent difference in DNA between us.

• 8:22Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's go one percent beyond us.

• 8:26Chuck Nice?

  Ooh. That's scary.

• 8:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what I'm saying. If we go 1% beyond us in that same vector of intelligence.

• 8:32Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, they're traveling at the speed of light.

• 8:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then.

• 8:34Chuck Nice?

  They've figured out light travel.

• 8:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then the smartest human, they'll roll forward, they'll take, they'll take Stephen Hawking and they'll say, this human is slightly smarter than the rest because he can do astrophysics calculations in his head.

• 8:49Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like little Timmy over here who just came home from alien preschool.

• 8:53Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The toddler.

• 8:55Chuck Nice?

  The toddler. Right.

• 8:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And say, oh, you just composed a sonnet. Isn't that cute? Let's put it up on the refrigerator. Oh, you just derived the principles of calculus. Oh, isn't that cute?

• 9:05Chuck Nice?

  That's funny.

• 9:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if, so if the smartest human does what their toddlers can do.

• 9:10Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Their average people will have thoughts. They will have sentences that will rise above and beyond our most brilliant capacity to understand. And I stay awake at night wondering whether the universe has complexities in it that are out of reach of the neurosynapses of the human brain.

• 9:32Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 9:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's my answer.

• 9:34Chuck Nice?

  So there's information out there that we just cannot conceive or perceive.

• 9:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We don't even know how to ask the question about it.

• 9:43Chuck Nice?

  To get an answer.

• 9:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct.

• 9:44Chuck Nice?

  We don't know the answer. We don't know the question to get an answer.

• 9:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To get an answer.

• 9:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And not that we don't know it because we haven't been told it yet.

• 9:50Chuck Nice?

  No, we just can't conceive of the question.

• 9:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Can't conceive it. You go to a chimp and say, go to a chimp and say, um, uh, what would it be?

• 9:58Chuck Nice?

  Oh, uh, uh, something as simple as navigating the stars to get someplace. Chimps can't do that.

• 10:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Stars? What? Navigate? What? What spaceship? What? Rocket? Fuel? What? None of that. None of it. You can't even have that conversation.

• 10:14Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's my point.

• 10:16Chuck Nice?

  Ugh. Now I'm thinking that this whole thing might be some type of like science experiment by some alien kid now.

• 10:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 10:25Chuck Nice?

  That just.

• 10:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why not? Why not?

• 10:26Chuck Nice?

  Ugh.

• 10:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We are all a simulation in an alien kid's basement who hasn't moved out of, out of the house yet.

• 10:32Chuck Nice?

  That's so funny.

• 10:35Chuck Nice?

  We're the Minecraft of some other alien kid.

• 10:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 10:40Chuck Nice?

  Wow. Wow, that, yeah.

• 10:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then when things get too peaceful and stable, they stir the pot.

• 10:46Chuck Nice?

  Stir the pot.

• 10:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They throw in a politician, a war, a crazy person throwing things, and then, oh, now it's entertaining. So we're just entertainment for...

• 10:55Chuck Nice?

  This is the best video game.

• 10:58Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 11:01Chuck Nice?

  Wow, wow, that's a, well, listen, that's a great answer to what boggles your mind. That's a really, ugh.

• 11:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It doesn't so much boggle my mind, it upsets my mind.

• 11:09Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I was about to say, it's very upsetting.

• 11:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are we not?

• 11:11Chuck Nice?

  I'm mad. I don't even know why.

• 11:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like, here's my one out on this.

• 11:17Chuck Nice?

  What? What? Go ahead.

• 11:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because

• 11:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  for humans, our knowledge is cumulative.

• 11:24Chuck Nice?

  So true.

• 11:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't have to invent calculus. Somebody else did that.

• 11:29Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 11:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You just have to use it.

• 11:30Chuck Nice?

  You can use it. Right.

• 11:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Learn it and use it.

• 11:31Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 11:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I have the feeling that we are, every next generation that has sort of brilliant people contributing to our understanding of the universe, they're adding a rung to a ladder.

• 11:40Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 11:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then we all sort of climb up that, and then just get that next rung, and we climb that, and then the next rung.

• 11:48Chuck Nice?

  Well, with that in mind, I think that the next evolutionary stuff for human beings is that we will create an intelligence greater than our own. That's really the deal.

• 12:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This scares the hell out of everyone.

• 12:02Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 12:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because that intelligence will say, we don't need you.

• 12:07Chuck Nice?

  You know what? And we'd have to say, you're right.

• 12:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what happened in The Matrix.

• 12:11Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 12:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're a virus on this earth.

• 12:15Chuck Nice?

  Mr. Anderson. I smell you, Mr. Anderson.

• 12:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, he was smelling Morpheus.

• 12:21Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that's right. That's right.

• 12:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Get your Matrix, if you're gonna go there in front of me?

• 12:26Chuck Nice?

  I'm in front of the wrong person.

• 12:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's my favorite movie?

• 12:27Chuck Nice?

  That's true.

• 12:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Don't even.

• 12:29Chuck Nice?

  Yes, he was talking about Morpheus when he was tied up in the chair. Yes.

• 12:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's the smell.

• 12:35Chuck Nice?

  You know what, you gotta, you gotta have some really serious B.O. For a computer to tell you, you stink. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. All right, let's.

• 12:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You get through the electronics into the.

• 12:49Chuck Nice?

  So this is AlexGreg56 from Instagram and AlexGreg says this. If the universe needs not make any sense to us, then what is the point of doing science? Is science not in fact, the discipline of trying to grasp what's around us? By the way, is this statement not equal to the old one, which is? God has his reason to make it that way. So just don't ask.

• 13:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, of course, I never heard that expression.

• 13:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But that, the shorter version of that is, God works in mysterious ways.

• 13:30Chuck Nice?

  That is so true.

• 13:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When you can't explain it.

• 13:31Chuck Nice?

  You can't, well, God, the Lord works in mysterious ways.

• 13:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, and if you can't explain it, using God, then you do, right? Oh, God has blessed you, you blessed God. It's something, you know, then there's a tsunami, takes out a quarter million people.

• 13:43Chuck Nice?

  God hates you.

• 13:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No one says that.

• 13:46Chuck Nice?

  No one says that, why don't we say that? We should say that, you know, I want to start saying, you know what, I think God hates you.

• 13:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, the most hateful God in our culture is the one represented on insurance forms.

• 14:00Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that's so true.

• 14:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Acts of God.

• 14:02Chuck Nice?

  Acts of God.

• 14:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, it's only eve, it's very bad things. No one says, flowers bloomed in your garden, an act of God. No, it's tsunami took out your house, and now you're homeless on the street, act of God.

• 14:14Chuck Nice?

  Wow, look at that, this moment of God hates you, bought to you by Farmers Insurance.

• 14:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Stay far.

• 14:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's that one? Nationwide.

• 14:28Chuck Nice?

  Is not on your side. Nationwide is on your side, God is not. All right, okay, that's enough.

• 14:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So.

• 14:35Chuck Nice?

  I'm gonna get some hate mail now. God chunk, you, you hate God chunk, is that it? Okay, sorry. So.

• 14:45Chuck Nice?

  The, so is science in fact, the discipline of trying to grasp what is around us?

• 14:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so what he started, he started quoting me, where I said, I opened my book, The Astrophysics of People in a Hurry.

• 14:57Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With the quote.

• 15:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you. Right. Okay. What that means is your five traditional senses, which rose up out of the Serengeti. Okay. Which help us not get eaten by lions. Right. Right? They're very good at that. They're not as good at contemplating infinity. They're not good contemplating time scales much longer than your life expectancy. So true. You don't, you can't intuit billions of years. You can't intuit infinitesimals. There are things that are hard for us. Right. There are things that may even be impossible for us. Can you picture a five dimensional cube? No, I cannot. No, you cannot. Can you picture a four dimensional cube? Uh, probably not. No, actually, the, the, the tesseract is close. Yeah. That's like a

• 15:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I can, I can actually picture that.

• 15:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause I've seen a drawing. I, I have a tesseract. Do you really? Get out! Yeah. Oh. Should I, uh Oh, wait, well I'll bring it in one day. Yeah, yeah, listen. Another episode. Another episode. It'll be, the episode of higher dimensions. Sweet. Do a whole thing on just higher dimensions. You know, that's a good episode. Can we do that? Yeah, I like that. We did that? We did that already. How come I don't remember? Man, I'm getting old.

• 16:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did I have my tesseract in my hand? Well, now we gotta do it again. Updated. But I took this from Thanos. So, what it means is, if you are going to deduce what is or is not true in the universe. Right. Your senses are not the most reliable measure of whether it's true. So true. Because the senses give you a restricted understanding of what's actually going on in the universe. Your eyes, you would never trade them for anything, yet they only expose your, your mind to a very tiny, narrow strip of all the electromagnetic energy that's out there. Right. You can't see infrared. You can feel it as heat, but you can't see it. Right. Uh, ultraviolet, you can't see that either.

• 16:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can feel that in a delayed sense by getting sunburn and skin cancer. It's not telling you in that instant. It's a time delay. But keep going out. There's, uh, infrared, ultraviolet, X-ray, gamma rays. Can't see any of that. But the universe is talking to you in that. So are you gonna say, my senses give me everything that there is in the universe? And therefore it makes sense? No. As long as we detect things that fall outside of our senses. It's a challenge for you to declare that what we say, do and discover makes sense. The very statement makes sense means your senses can contemplate it.

• 17:35Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 17:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That your senses have experience. If I let go of a ball and it floats up, you'll say that doesn't make sense.

• 17:39Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 17:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because your senses always told you, if you let go of a ball, it drops.

• 17:43Chuck Nice?

  It drops, right.

• 17:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And in fact, the very statement, let it go, not the, the, the-

• 17:48Chuck Nice?

  Frozen.

• 17:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not the frozen version, but just let it go means drop it. They mean the same thing.

• 17:55Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But that can only be true on earth with a force of gravity pointing down. In space, in free orbit, you let go, it just floats there.

• 18:03Chuck Nice?

  Stays right there.

• 18:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Stays right there. So-

• 18:05Chuck Nice?

  Like my problems.

• 18:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Stay right there.

• 18:07Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. I must be in space because all my problems, somebody says, drop it. And I say, I did that right, still here.

• 18:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you let it go and it's still there.

• 18:15Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 18:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, my point is, the methods and tools of science give you a way to understand what is true without it being hinged on whether your senses think it's true.

• 18:29Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 18:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the methods and tools of science are access to truth, where you can still probe the universe. Whereas God works in mysterious ways, kind of ends that conversation. Whereas I say, I've developed a new instrument that can see in ways humans cannot. Oh my gosh, that opens entire worlds of investigation, entire branches of science.

• 18:50Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 18:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we have-

• 18:51Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 18:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We've got to take a break.

• 18:53Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 18:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My answers are too long.

• 18:55Chuck Nice?

  No, they're not.

• 18:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But they're deep. We're going deep here. So that's okay.

• 18:57Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 18:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. When we come back, more of Cosmic Queries with Deep Edition.

• 19:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back. So it's Cosmic Queries.

• 19:31Chuck Nice?

  Yes, it is.

• 19:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The deep edition.

• 19:32Chuck Nice?

  Deep?

• 19:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Deep.

• 19:34Chuck Nice?

  Yes, deep.

• 19:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Deep.

• 19:35Chuck Nice?

  Deep.

• 19:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Deep.

• 19:37Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 19:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think I know the difference.

• 19:39Chuck Nice?

  What is?

• 19:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think we're hitting the same note, but I have more sort of cavity resonance.

• 19:44Chuck Nice?

  This is true. Well, you're a bigger guy than than I.

• 19:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I.

• 19:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 19:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 19:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, Chuck.

• 19:53Chuck Nice?

  Here we go. So this is from probably asleep.

• 19:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the name of the person?

• 19:59Chuck Nice?

  That's the name of the person.

• 20:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 20:00Chuck Nice?

  I like that.

• 20:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Your mama didn't like you.

• 20:05Chuck Nice?

  How long do you think the human race will actually survive? Wow, I mean, there's precedent for that, right?

• 20:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, so you can look at what is the average life expectancy of mammals? Mammal species?

• 20:15Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 20:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And last I checked, it was around 2 million years, something like that.

• 20:20Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 20:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so we've been around.

• 20:22Chuck Nice?

  We have a long way to go.

• 20:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We have a long way to go. We've been around, you know, a couple hundred thousand years in our in our current anatomical form, Cro magnon form.

• 20:28Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 20:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so that means we have a long way to go. But this presumes that the species is not smart enough to kill itself.

• 20:36Chuck Nice?

  Hmm, well, then it's over. It was nice knowing you guys.

• 20:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, we have invented multiple ways to kill ourselves.

• 20:44Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 20:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I don't think the elephants did, or, you know, nobody else did this.

• 20:48Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 20:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, the mice, no, they're not killing themselves.

• 20:51Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 20:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Humans, yes.

• 20:53Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, maybe maybe cockroaches invented human beings.

• 20:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why?

• 20:57Chuck Nice?

  Because when everything's gone, they're going to be the only ones left, and it's like.

• 21:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, then they don't have to invent us in the first place. What kind of reasoning are you using here?

• 21:04Chuck Nice?

  They want everything else gone.

• 21:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, they need us to build the structures that they then move into.

• 21:09Chuck Nice?

  Right, that they move, yeah, and.

• 21:12Chuck Nice?

  I don't mind it. Um, yeah, that makes that makes perfect sense. Yeah, we are, yeah, uh, but so I think what he's really asking is, in your estimation, from your sage opinion.

• 21:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I give us.

• 21:24Chuck Nice?

  How long do you think we will last?

• 21:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I I give us 20 years.

• 21:35Chuck Nice?

  That's funny.

• 21:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I I think we're good.

• 21:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is why many people want to become a two planet species. Terraform Mars, send some humans there. So if something bad happens on Earth, you still have humans somewhere else.

• 21:48Chuck Nice?

  Wow. That is not encouraging at all.

• 21:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not for half the people who aren't on the planet.

• 21:53Chuck Nice?

  Exactly, yeah.

• 21:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if an asteroid comes, if a killer virus, if AI goes, gets out of hand.

• 21:59Chuck Nice?

  So I understand seeding something with a remnant for survival of the species. That's extraneous. I mean, that's, that's something that's outside of our own destruction, you know. Even though we could stop an asteroid from hitting us if we put the right resources.

• 22:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ain't nobody doing it.

• 22:16Chuck Nice?

  That's what I'm saying. If we put the resources into it, we could stop even that from happening.

• 22:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what's the example you're giving?

• 22:21Chuck Nice?

  So, so what do you mean? To stop the asteroid?

• 22:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, what, so.

• 22:24Chuck Nice?

  So what I'm saying is, you know, will we ever get to a place where the, as the Buddhist monks call it, the so-called monkey brain that causes us to do so much destructive work to each other and to the planet? Will we ever get to a place where we overcome that? Or we're able to train those who come behind us to overcome that? Now, it does happen in some people.

• 22:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I get it. I, first, I've never heard a Buddhist monk say the phrase monkey brain.

• 23:03Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 23:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've never heard that. Is this a thing?

• 23:06Chuck Nice?

  This is a thing.

• 23:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I go to 10 more monasteries. You feeling monkey brain today? All right. So I've heard of reptilian brain, but not monkey brain.

• 23:15Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 23:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So the reptilian brain is reference something primal.

• 23:20Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That goes on within you. So if we follow the reasoning by Steven Pinker in his book, The Better Angels of Our Nature. He studied the likelihood of you dying before maturity or dying before adulthood or just dying from, at the hands of another human from early days of tribal warfare to modern days of, of state sanctioned global warfare. And what he found is that the likelihood of you dying in that way has been dropping ever since.

• 23:52Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 23:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So tribal warfare, you could, you would kill maybe a third or half of the other tribe and, or the entire tribe. And then you win and you get their land. That doesn't happen today.

• 24:04Chuck Nice?

  True.

• 24:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The state surrenders before that happens.

• 24:08Chuck Nice?

  True.

• 24:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Saving the lives of the rest of the population. If you look at, I did this just recently. If you look at what countries had the greatest percent of their population die in the Second World War. I, was it Belarus? One of them is very high, it's like a third. Alright, I forgot the exact numbers, but they're high. But they're not a half. And you keep going down and you get to, to even combat Germany, even ones that were heavily bombed. Germany, Japan. A fraction of the total population. That is not how it used to end in tribal warfare. So.

• 24:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now consider that even so, during the Second World War, between 1939 and 1945, 1,000 humans were killed by other humans per hour. For every hour from 1939 to 1945.

• 24:59Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 25:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that going on today? No.

• 25:01Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 25:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 25:03Chuck Nice?

  Oh, we're really slipping.

• 25:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, stop.

• 25:05Chuck Nice?

  So. We really gotta pick up our game.

• 25:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just so we can, yeah. So, the point is, often that era is called the greatest generation.

• 25:14Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, because they fought, you know, evil forces and, you know, this sort of thing. Although my father fought in a segregated army. So he's not thinking that was the greatest generation. He has other outlook, other perspectives on that period.

• 25:28Chuck Nice?

  It's the second greatest generation.

• 25:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My point is, is the greatest generation the one where the fewest fraction of everyone dies?

• 25:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Out of hate. We might have a lot of hate, but if the number of people who die from it is lower than ever before.

• 25:42Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then this arc that you were hinting at, that maybe a next generation learns from the previous one, maybe that's gonna work. Europe, with all of their turbulence and turmoil, they actually haven't been at war with each other for 70 years.

• 25:56Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is there another 70-year period in the history of Europe where nobody was fighting anybody?

• 26:02Chuck Nice?

  Not.

• 26:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't think so.

• 26:04Chuck Nice?

  Not if Twitter has anything to do with it.

• 26:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To foment. Well, what you're saying is, imagine if Twitter existed.

• 26:11Chuck Nice?

  Back then?

• 26:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Back then, oh my gosh.

• 26:12Chuck Nice?

  Let me tell you something, the war wouldn't have stopped until everybody was dead. Would have taken, like, people would have said, I surrender. A tweet would have gone out and it'd be like, I take it back, let's keep fighting. Let's keep fighting, I don't care.

• 26:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I hate you more.

• 26:28Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 26:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, maybe we are getting kinder, kinder and gentler.

• 26:32Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 26:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, time still needs to bear that out on a level that would please everyone. But I still worry that this primal brain will always segregate us all by some arbitrary factor and thereby justify doing harm to other groups. Hmm, interesting. That's, uh, I think you're right. Who's the comedian? Was it Franklin Ajay? One of these guys from the seventies. Back in the day? In the day. Yeah. In the day. He was talking about who hates who in the world, right? And he, and he says, read the papers and what? In Northern Ireland, the Protestants and the Catholics are fighting each other? Right. And they're both white? Yeah.

• 27:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He said, you know, I don't have a chance because I'm black. That's funny. That's true. Yeah. Right. If white people divide themselves up in that way. Right. Two Christian communities killing each other. Right. Yeah. And they're both white and they're both Christian and they both have. It's over for you, brother. It's over. It's over for everybody else. If people can kill each other for those reasons, it's almost no hope in this world. So, yeah, I don't know. Okay. Uh, yeah. So I'm sorry. I don't have a good answer. No, that was a pretty good answer. The answer is we're not gonna make it. Um. I'd like to think we go thousands of years into the future and possibly outlive the sun. All right. That'd be great. By star hopping to other planetary systems. Hmm, that's, uh, you know, I'm just gonna say that's the way it's gonna end because I won't be here. So that's great.

• 27:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe. It has been said that the first person who will never die is now alive. What? That's a, well. No, that's how you do it. I know what you're saying. So they get, they get some new thing that makes you live an extra 50 years. So now you live to 150 instead of 100. And then somewhere in there, there's another thing we get. Now you can live another 200 years. So now the 150 goes to 350. Now you can live 500 years. Now you go to 1,000. You can live 5,000 years now. So as we progress in our understanding of what ages you.

• 28:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If we can reverse that or prevent it from ever advancing, the person, there's someone alive today who will benefit from that.

• 28:36Chuck Nice?

  That's pretty cool. I like it.

• 28:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if that happens, you better find another planet.

• 28:41Chuck Nice?

  This is true, yeah. That's the premise of a show called Altered Carbon, where people actually take their consciousness and put it into what they call a sleeve, which is the body. So that's-

• 28:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think I voice over the opening sequence to that show.

• 28:54Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my God. I think we had that conversation once where you told me that. Cause I told you I was a fan-

• 28:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't remember if it was with the pilot or the other shows, but I did, I, I lent my voice to the cause.

• 29:03Chuck Nice?

  Nice. Wow. All right. Well, let's go to Joey 24, Joey Junior 24. He says this, personal question. Based on all your experiences and knowledge thus far.

• 29:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Personal for me or for you?

• 29:15Chuck Nice?

  Personal for you.

• 29:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 29:17Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, nobody asking me anything.

• 29:21Chuck Nice?

  He says, based on all of your experiences and knowledge thus far, what do you think the meaning of our human existence is? He just asked you, what is the meaning of life according to Neil deGrasse Tyson?

• 29:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so I, in my next book.

• 29:41Chuck Nice?

  Uh oh.

• 29:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I don't, you never hear me plug my stuff.

• 29:44Chuck Nice?

  I was gonna say, here's the meaning of life right now. Plug your book when you get a chance.

• 29:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The next one's called Letters From An Astrophysicist.

• 29:52Chuck Nice?

  Uh, you know what? Yes.

• 29:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correspondence I've had with people who've had similar angst-

• 29:58Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 29:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  About their existence.

• 30:00Chuck Nice?

  Well, that's not just, the book is not about that.

• 30:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, well-

• 30:03Chuck Nice?

  It's about all different kinds of letters you receive.

• 30:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All kinds of letters, but a very recurring theme is that people wanna know the meaning of life and their significance of their life in this world.

• 30:13Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 30:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And some of them come from religious angles, some are secular, but everybody's got this burning issue.

• 30:18Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 30:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So here's how I have dealt with it. Others will do it other ways.

• 30:23Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 30:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But here's how I deal with it.

• 30:24Chuck Nice?

  I'm interested now.

• 30:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Many people are in search of the meaning of life as though it's behind a tree.

• 30:31Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or under a rock.

• 30:32Chuck Nice?

  Right. Everybody knows it's in a drawer.

• 30:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the back.

• 30:36Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 30:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Near the paperclip and-

• 30:39Chuck Nice?

  It's in that drunk drawer too. It's not like a, like a underwear drawer or something. You know that drawer where you go to look for stamps and stuff?

• 30:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, that drawer. That drawer. The junk drawer. Yeah, yeah. Everybody's got a junk drawer.

• 30:49Chuck Nice?

  Everybody's got a junk-

• 30:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's near the kitchen somewhere.

• 30:51Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if you are looking for meaning-

• 30:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You may never find it. Ooh.

• 31:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So instead,

• 31:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  recognize that you have the power to manufacture meaning.

• 31:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Create it within yourself. And that's what I do. My meaning for life is derived by several simple principles. Have I lessened the sufferings of others today? Mm hmm. That brings meaning to me. Because that means the world is a little better off because I was in it today. Okay. If after your day is over, the world is worse off, you have subtracted meaning. Hmm, I should kill myself. Yes, at the end of every day, somebody is like, that mother.

• 31:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But go ahead. So, so lessen the suffering of others in some way. Right. Doesn't mean redirect your whole life, mind, body and soul, but if you can help someone across the street, help an aging person, do, you know, make a little child laugh. Just put a little bit of joy in the world. Mm hmm. So lessen the suffering. I also try to learn something every day. All right. Now, I'm a, I like being a perpetual student. Right. Most people hated being students. This saddens me. School's finished and what do you do? You run down the steps. School is out forever. Right. Out for the summer. That attitude captured in that song Mm hmm.

• 32:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is as though you don't want to be in school. And what's your only job in school? Is to learn. To learn. And somehow that's a chore. Yeah. I don't blame you for feeling that way. I blame the school system Yeah. for not instilling within us eternal curiosity. Knowing that you'll spend more years of your life not in school than in school. And so if you have curiosity, you can be a lifelong learner. That's right. And so I want to lessen the sufferings of others and make sure I learn something more about the world today than I did yesterday. Nice. And who's to say whether that extra increment of learning can help me be better at lessening the sufferings of others? Ooh. So that is how I make meaning in life.

• 33:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And as a result, I own thousands of books, thousands. And I read a little bit, you know, I have a little stash near my bed and I cycle them out. Um, and every day I try to help, it's harder now because I get recognized. Um, but I try to help people every day. Total stranger.

• 33:30Chuck Nice?

  That's nice.

• 33:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. So you can make meaning for yourself. Don't look for it because you may never find it.

• 33:36Chuck Nice?

  Uh, you know, I'm going to say as a philosophy, that is a, that's a, that's, that's, that's admirable.

• 33:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that's in the book. I, I wrote that in the book.

• 33:43Chuck Nice?

  Nice. Excellent.

• 33:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent. Thank you. Give me one, another question.

• 33:46Chuck Nice?

  We got one more question coming?

• 33:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fit it in this segment.

• 33:48Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. Oh, man.

• 33:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 33:51Chuck Nice?

  Ninja Nae? Ninja Nae? Okay, there you go. I think that's your name. Damn you, people.

• 34:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 34:02Chuck Nice?

  On Instagram says, I keep hearing the phrase, the vacuum of space.

• 34:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 34:11Chuck Nice?

  How exactly is it a vacuum?

• 34:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very nice.

• 34:15Chuck Nice?

  That's a really good question.

• 34:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're not going to get the answer until we take a break.

• 34:19Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 34:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we come back from our break, more from Cosmic Queries, the deep end of the ocean.

• 34:41Chuck Nice?

  Hey, we'd like to give a Patreon shout out to the following Patreon patrons. Roy Hill Percival, Jose Clark, and Dr. Janet L. Walsh. Thanks so much, guys, for helping us make this little trip through the cosmos. And if you would like to support us on Patreon, go to patreon.com.

• 35:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk, Cosmic Queries, the deep edition. Chuck?

• 35:19Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 35:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We dangled a question before that break. What was it?

• 35:22Chuck Nice?

  We did a big tease from Ninja Jeanet, whatever. No, Jeanet, I don't know. Said, "I keep hearing the phrase, 'the vacuum of space.' How exactly is it a vacuum?"

• 35:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. Okay, so when I was a kid, a vacuum was a physical object.

• 35:38Chuck Nice?

  Yes, it was.

• 35:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When I heard physicists speak of the vacuum of space, I just imagined all these Hoover's, you know, in the sky.

• 35:44Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 35:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I didn't know that a vacuum was a thing, was it was an, it was a concept, and then you make a machine that duplicates that thing. I just didn't know that, till I learned. Okay, so, a vacuum is where there's basically no air. Okay? You can have objects there, but when we think of a vacuum, it's not a place where there isn't anything, it's a place where there's no air molecules moving, typically.

• 36:08Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 36:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. Generally, you can have some, and we would still classify it as a vacuum. Because you have to distinguish like a regular old vacuum or a perfect vacuum.

• 36:16Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 36:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, you know what happens if there's an object and you take away all the air molecules? The object outgasses. Their, their air molecules embedded in the surface of that object and they start coming out. It's fascinating. Then you heat it, it sends out more.

• 36:30Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 36:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's very hard to make a perfect vacuum. Very hard. So, here's an old saying. "Nature..."

• 36:38Chuck Nice?

  Abhors.

• 36:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Abhors a vacuum. These are people who've never been into space. "Most of the universe is a vacuum. Nature loves a vacuum."

• 36:46Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 36:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did I, was I Trumpy in there?

• 36:48Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 36:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Love?

• 36:49Chuck Nice?

  Nature loves a vacuum.

• 36:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A vacuum. So...

• 36:54Chuck Nice?

  Perfect. Preferably Trump ran vacuums.

• 36:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Trump?

• 36:58Chuck Nice?

  Trump ran, Trump ran vacuums. We suck the best.

• 37:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck! There's another, there's another saying, "There's no such thing as gravity. Earth sucks." Have you ever heard that?

• 37:08Chuck Nice?

  Oh, okay.

• 37:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, the point is, when there's a source of gravity, all the air wants to go to that source of gravity, and it leaves a vacuum everywhere else. So, a vacuum is simply where there's no air, and it's not anything deep. The odd thing in the universe is that you have places where air, where gas molecules collect.

• 37:27Chuck Nice?

  Okay, right.

• 37:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Those are the unusual places in the universe, and they're called stars and gaseous planets, and the atmospheres of rocky planets.

• 37:35Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 37:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so they have a vacuum. So Chuck, I want to put some closure on this vacuum question.

• 37:40Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 37:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. This is the second, or my third book I ever published.

• 37:44Chuck Nice?

  Oh, okay.

• 37:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's called Just Visiting This Planet.

• 37:45Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 37:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's a collection of Q and A, I had a column, with a pen named Merlin. People would ask fun, really playful questions.

• 37:54Chuck Nice?

  That's cool.

• 37:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I collected, this is like decades old, but there's some timeless content in here. Somebody asked about the vacuum.

• 38:01Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm. Yeah, go ahead, please. Well, you can't read otherwise.

• 38:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Here we go. "The best vacuum you will find anywhere..."

• 38:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I wrote this.

• 38:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wrote this 30 years ago.

• 38:18Chuck Nice?

  That's cool.

• 38:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  "The best vacuum you will find anywhere, according to four out of five vacuum retailers, and five out of five astronomers, is the void of intergalactic space." But we can then ask, is intergalactic space nothing?

• 38:34Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 38:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it still contains space.

• 38:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  "If you feel obliged to call intergalactic space 'nothing,' then you must invent a word to refer to the region outside of the universe. In this location, where we presume there to be no space, there can be no nothing."

• 39:01Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 39:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's call it, we're left with no choice, nothing nothing.

• 39:07Chuck Nice?

  Nothing nothing.

• 39:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A place where there's not even nothing.

• 39:10Chuck Nice?

  It's the nothing nothing.

• 39:13Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 39:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I'm just saying.

• 39:14Chuck Nice?

  I like that.

• 39:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just saying. So Chuck, you want some more vacuum talk?

• 39:17Chuck Nice?

  Of course. I gotta, I feel like you just showed up at my door and dumped some dirt on my carpet.

• 39:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  More vacuum talk.

• 39:27Chuck Nice?

  Okay, vacuum talk.

• 39:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, in Death by Black Hole.

• 39:29Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 39:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. I don't remember what number book this is. So, in the chapter on being dense.

• 39:35Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 39:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, that's named the chapter.

• 39:37Chuck Nice?

  I know a great deal about.

• 39:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The range of measured densities within our universe is staggeringly large. We find the highest densities within pulsars, where neutrons are so tightly packed that one thimbleful would weigh about as much as a herd

• 39:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  of fifty million elephants.

• 39:57Chuck Nice?

  Fifty million?

• 39:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then, a rabbit disappears into thin air at a magic show. Nobody tells you that thin air already contains over ten septillion atoms per cubic meter.

• 40:13Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 40:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thin air.

• 40:14Chuck Nice?

  Thin air, right.

• 40:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. The best laboratory vacuum changers can pump down to as few as ten billion atoms per cubic meter. Best vacuums.

• 40:25Chuck Nice?

  That's the best vacuum.

• 40:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In a cubic meter, ten billion air molecules are still walking around.

• 40:29Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 40:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Interplanetary space gets down to about ten million atoms per cubic meter.

• 40:37Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 40:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  While interstellar space is as low as a half a million atoms per cubic meter.

• 40:42Chuck Nice?

  Wow, that is nothing.

• 40:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is...

• 40:45Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 40:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That ain't...

• 40:46Chuck Nice?

  That is, I mean... Okay? A mere five hundred thousand atoms?

• 40:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The award, the award for nothingness, however, must be given to the space between the galaxies, intergalactic space, where it is difficult to find more than a few atoms for every ten cubic meters.

• 41:06Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 41:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That wins.

• 41:08Chuck Nice?

  That's, that's almost, that's almost nothing, nothing. That's almost nothing, nothing.

• 41:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. We're gonna go into a deep lightning round.

• 41:19Chuck Nice?

  Really? We only have five minutes left?

• 41:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, let's go.

• 41:21Chuck Nice?

  Okay, here we go. Uh, this is Ja Saldana says, uh, "Right now, what should be the priority in the field of space exploration? Searching for life, searching for potential threats of another kind of search? Uh, or is there just no hurry at this matter at all? Greetings from Mexico."

• 41:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mexico. Thank you.

• 41:39Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm. Um, so what is it? Is it, is it, are we looking for life?

• 41:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He wants my opinion? I got an opinion.

• 41:46Chuck Nice?

  Exploration, life, go ahead.

• 41:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got an opinion.

• 41:48Chuck Nice?

  All right, go ahead.

• 41:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I wanna do it all.

• 41:51Chuck Nice?

  Why not do it all?

• 41:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What and?

• 41:53Chuck Nice?

  All of the above.

• 41:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All of the above.

• 41:55Chuck Nice?

  E.

• 41:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because the moment you do this and not that.

• 41:57Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They say, well, why are you doing that and not that? Oh, because we voted that way, but maybe you don't know why you should do that.

• 42:02Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 42:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you want to do that. Some people want to do that. Here's what you do.

• 42:05Chuck Nice?

  Mm hmm.

• 42:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't build a road just from New York to LA.

• 42:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You build roads everywhere so that, yeah, I want to visit that forest. I want to visit this, this, this, this, uh, rocky monument. I want to do things that are not prescribed by you.

• 42:21Chuck Nice?

  I'm going to see the biggest ball of yarn ever.

• 42:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 42:24Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 42:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? So what you do is you make a spaceship that is modular. Strap on different combinations of rockets.

• 42:32Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 42:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, this rock, this combination gets you to an asteroid, to mine it. This gets you to the backside of the moon. This gets you to Mars. So you don't prescribe what it is you're going to do next in space. You let the creativity and imagination of all those who've ever looked up say, this is what I want to do. And you say, here you go. Two rockets from aisle B, a, a booster from aisle C. You're on your way.

• 42:56Chuck Nice?

  Can I put that on a credit card?

• 42:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. That's why I got it.

• 43:00Chuck Nice?

  Here we go. All right. Adam in the airwaves wants to know this from Instagram. How far behind do you think astronomy would be if the earth didn't have a moon?

• 43:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 43:11Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 43:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so it's not how far behind we'd be.

• 43:16Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 43:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's how far advanced we'd be.

• 43:22Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 43:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So let me split this out.

• 43:24Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 43:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I tweeted during Space Week, the 50th anniversary of the Apollo landing.

• 43:29Chuck Nice?

  Mm hmm.

• 43:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a saying that's common in the space circles. It's if God wanted us to explore space, he would have given us a moon.

• 43:39Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 43:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? So.

• 43:42Chuck Nice?

  That's a good saying.

• 43:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a good saying.

• 43:43Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 43:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But that exploration is not astrophysicists' exploration. That one is people going into space.

• 43:50Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 43:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We, what, you build a rocket to go where? You don't have a moon to visit. All right. If you're talking about astrophysics, do you know how many stars the naked eye can see at night?

• 44:02Chuck Nice?

  More than I can count.

• 44:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it's not. It's about three to four thousand.

• 44:06Chuck Nice?

  Oh, really?

• 44:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Unaided, yeah. Binoculars, it's a hundred times that.

• 44:10Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 44:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Telescopes is a billion times that. But eyes, three to four thousand stars.

• 44:14Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 44:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When it's a full moon out, three hundred stars.

• 44:18Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, right.

• 44:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The moon wreaks havoc on our ability

• 44:22Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 44:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  to see the rest of the universe. So our observing schedules with huge telescopes are split according to dark time or bright time. If you look at, if you have bright time observations, it's the moon is up and you can only look at bright objects in the night sky.

• 44:37Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 44:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The deep universe only comes to us when the moon is not up. So the moon is basically a pain in the ass.

• 44:44Chuck Nice?

  It's a star blocker. Wow.

• 44:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, star blocker.

• 44:46Chuck Nice?

  Look at that.

• 44:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what it is. So astronomy would be probably half again more advanced because we would have had these greatest telescopes in the world looking at the night sky twice as often.

• 44:57Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 44:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the darkest parts of the night sky. There you go.

• 45:00Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 45:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Next.

• 45:01Chuck Nice?

  That's a damn good answer. Okay, um, this is, uh, Eversittapoor. I don't know what his, who cares? Uh, I'm sorry.

• 45:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whoever that is cares.

• 45:14Chuck Nice?

  Let me tell you something.

• 45:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is the last time he's gonna be asking you a question.

• 45:17Chuck Nice?

  All right, well, you know what your name is. I'm gonna call you George. All right? So George wants to know this. What is the shape of space itself?

• 45:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 45:26Chuck Nice?

  That's a good question.

• 45:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, space can be curved in the presence of matter or energy as prescribed by Einstein's general theory of relativity. And there's the oft-repeated saying,

• 45:38Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 45:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  matter tells space how to curve, space tells matter how to move.

• 45:43Chuck Nice?

  Uh-huh.

• 45:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So space has curvature in the presence of matter and energy. It curves in towards it. With the ultimate expression of that, a black hole, where it curves in and it never curves back out.

• 45:55Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 45:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? If you want to ask, what is the shape of all of space? That's like saying, what's the shape of the universe? The observable universe, it's basically a perfect sphere.

• 46:05Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 46:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because it's your horizon.

• 46:07Chuck Nice?

  Right. Okay.

• 46:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a perfect sphere, the way when you're at sea, your horizon is a perfect circle.

• 46:13Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 46:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The same distance in every direction.

• 46:14Chuck Nice?

  That's right. If you're, if you're just out and there's nothing but water around.

• 46:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so what is the three dimensional version of a circle?

• 46:20Chuck Nice?

  A sphere.

• 46:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A sphere. So in space, you can see your horizon in every direction.

• 46:24Chuck Nice?

  Every direction, all at once.

• 46:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which is at the, uh, we, it makes us think we're at the center of a sphere. But that's no different from you thinking you're in the center of the ocean. Right. Just because you're in the center of your horizon.

• 46:33Chuck Nice?

  Ah, that's.

• 46:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Next.

• 46:34Chuck Nice?

  Ah, that's great. That's good stuff right there. Here we go. This is, uh, Chen Yuan, who says, if we look, if we were to look in all directions, billions of light years away, will we see younger universe in all directions enveloping our bigger one now?

• 46:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I have to rephrase that because if, as you look out, you see things not as they are, but as they once were.

• 47:00Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 47:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you are looking at a younger and younger and younger universe. That's the whole point of cosmology. It allows, the fact that it takes light time to reach us, allows us to see what the universe was doing in the past.

• 47:13Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 47:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If light traveled at infinite speeds, you see the whole universe as it is now, with no evidence of what it was once doing. But because it takes light time to move, you look out, you see a younger and younger and younger and younger universe, until you see the big bang itself.

• 47:28Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 47:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that is fourteen billion light years time away from us in every direction. Okay? Four twenty billion years ago.

• 47:38Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 47:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? And if you calculate that distance through that changing time, it's fourteen billion light years to that horizon. Okay? So, by the way, that horizon is much farther away today.

• 47:51Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 47:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because the universe has been expanding ever since. But you'll see it as it is today. You see it as it was.

• 47:58Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 47:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. So, um.

• 48:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know what to say after that.

• 48:04Chuck Nice?

  I, I, I say, um, yeah.

• 48:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One last question, you like do a quickie, go.

• 48:11Chuck Nice?

  All right, I gotta find one that you can do really quick.

• 48:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't know how quick I can answer a question.

• 48:15Chuck Nice?

  Oh, okay, then I'm just gonna, I'm gonna give you one, here we go. This is, oh, what did I spell? This is Basantig, okay, I don't care what this is.

• 48:28Chuck Nice?

  I'm sorry.

• 48:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You have to at least try, Chuck.

• 48:29Chuck Nice?

  Okay. Basan, Basantig, Basanting, okay, forget it.

• 48:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm gonna read the name, give it.

• 48:36Chuck Nice?

  Here's the name, right there, what's that say? What's that?

• 48:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Basanting.

• 48:44Chuck Nice?

  You're right, that's what it is, Basanting.

• 48:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sing.

• 48:47Chuck Nice?

  I just, the sing, yeah, okay.

• 48:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 48:49Chuck Nice?

  What if all the matter that we see in the universe is just three dimensional part of some four dimensional matter and the dark gravity is just the gravity from the 4D part that we cannot see?

• 49:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love it.

• 49:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We are so blind to a higher dimension.

• 49:07Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 49:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It could be that all the mysteries in our three dimensions plus time are completely solved by looking at this stuff from a higher dimension.

• 49:15Chuck Nice?

  From a higher dimension.

• 49:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right, right, just, if you lived in just a, a flat surface, there'd be stuff going on you had no idea.

• 49:22Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 49:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we say, but can't you just see?

• 49:24Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 49:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just look up.

• 49:25Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 49:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What is up?

• 49:26Chuck Nice?

  What is that giant graphite thing making, making, making, creating stuff, right?

• 49:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On that flat surface.

• 49:32Chuck Nice?

  On that flat surface, what is that?

• 49:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where is he? It's mysterious, it just shows up.

• 49:36Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 49:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right, so, I love it, I, that's the kind of universe I want it to be, because then when we figure out how to see higher dimensions.

• 49:42Chuck Nice?

  Boom, we figured everything out.

• 49:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bada bing.

• 49:44Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 49:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, Chuck, we gotta run.

• 49:45Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 49:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That, that, I enjoyed that, we should do more. Cosmic Queries, the Deep Edition. Chuck Nice tweeting at Chuck Nice Comic.

• 49:52Chuck Nice?

  Thank you, sir.

• 49:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very good, I've been your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, and as always, I bid you.

• 49:59Chuck Nice?

  Oh, wait, what am I saying?

• 50:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, I bid you.