Explosive Queries with Terry Crews

What does it take to truly thrive on Mars? Neil deGrasse Tyson and Terry Crews answer grab bag questions about Mars, magnetic fields, photons, Hot Ones spicy wings and the entropy of muscles.

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

• 0:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I gotta do this.

• 0:00Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But here's what happened. Here's what nobody told anybody. Did you fly in New York to do it?

• 0:05Speaker 01

  I did.

• 0:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, because I just took the subway, okay? Afterwards, I go home. Two hours later, I had explosive.

• 0:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 0:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk. Neil deGrasse Tyson here, your personal astrophysicist. And today is a special edition of Cosmic Queries. Coming to you from the hearth of Terry Crews. Terry Crews.

• 0:44Speaker 01

  Wait, let's get, let's get the hearth going.

• 0:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What are you talking about?

• 0:46Speaker 01

  Let's get this going. Here we go. There we go.

• 0:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, now that's real hearth.

• 0:51Speaker 01

  Now we got a hearth going.

• 0:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fireside chat with Terry Crews. So Terry, you're my co-host for this episode.

• 0:57Speaker 01

  I love this, man.

• 0:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we go back, so this should be fun.

• 1:00Speaker 01

  This is good, man. This makes my pectorals percolate.

• 1:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't even know how to react.

• 1:04Speaker 01

  It's so good.

• 1:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Watching your...

• 1:05Speaker 01

  It's so good. I love, love learning about science. I love having my mind blown. And just you, you just always, every time I talk to you, you expand my brain.

• 1:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, you live in the right part of the country. You like, you took up residence in Pasadena.

• 1:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like, near Caltech.

• 1:21Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  California Institute of Technology.

• 1:23Speaker 01

  Caltech.

• 1:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  JPL, a branch of NASA. So if there's any, you get it osmatically as it comes through here.

• 1:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. I just feel smarter being here.

• 1:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, this is good. And we'll get to the questions in a minute. But I can't channel surf without seeing you on NBC talking about America's Got Talent.

• 1:45Speaker 01

  America's Got Talent.

• 1:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're hosting that.

• 1:47Speaker 01

  I'm hosting it, um, 19 seasons.

• 1:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And every week, you got some kind of new flashy suit.

• 1:52Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Well, that's part of the whole thing. You know, yeah, let me tell you, the suit is its own character.

• 1:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 1:58Speaker 01

  You know, people are, they would be disappointed if I just came out in a gray suit.

• 2:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm ready for the suit to just walk off of your body and do its own dance.

• 2:05Speaker 01

  That's right. That's right. I, listen, I love this show. We just wrapped our 19th season.

• 2:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's crazy.

• 2:11Speaker 01

  I've been hosting six of them.

• 2:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, but I'm looking at it and I say... Who are these people? What what species are they? Are they human?

• 2:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The stuff they do.

• 2:20Speaker 01

  It's amazing.

• 2:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's it's.

• 2:21Speaker 01

  But but first of all, last season, we had a dog. That was the most incredible dog I've ever seen in my life. The dog's name was Rhythm.

• 2:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a cool name.

• 2:30Speaker 01

  Oh, it was, but the dog danced. Unbeat.

• 2:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hmm.

• 2:34Speaker 01

  Without looking at the the owner, Ronnie.

• 2:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, not even prompted.

• 2:38Speaker 01

  It was unreal. I was like, I thought it was a man in a suit for a while. I was like, you you gotta be, you're lying. It's the best dog act I've ever seen. I always have my brain is just blown every time because I think I've seen it all. You know what I mean? You're like.

• 2:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Until you realize you haven't.

• 2:54Speaker 01

  You have not seen it all.

• 2:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 2:55Speaker 01

  Never. There's no limit to human capability.

• 2:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then I realized we got eight billion people in the world. That's a lot of people with a lot of talent.

• 3:03Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 3:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Some of which is waiting to be discovered. And I wonder, do I have a talent that could work on on AGT?

• 3:10Speaker 01

  I, you know, first of all.

• 3:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You could say no.

• 3:12Speaker 01

  I don't know. No, no, no. First of all, you don't know until you try.

• 3:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 3:16Speaker 01

  I I did not know that I could act until I was 30 years old.

• 3:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 3:21Speaker 01

  30. I never attempted acting.

• 3:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh huh.

• 3:23Speaker 01

  Before I was 30 and I did not know it was my destiny. So.

• 3:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 3:27Speaker 01

  You might get on there and try something and go, wait a minute.

• 3:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you you, we collected questions.

• 3:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We went to our fan base and we said, Neil's hanging out with Terry.

• 3:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you have questions for them?

• 3:39Speaker 01

  When they came.

• 3:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They came in.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  Lots of questions.

• 3:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got them.

• 3:41Speaker 01

  Which is really.

• 3:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 3:42Speaker 01

  But we picked the best of the best.

• 3:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's go, come right off the top.

• 3:45Speaker 01

  All right, let's start with, here's Julia Lind. Uh, and she didn't list where she's from.

• 3:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, witness protection.

• 3:53Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 3:55Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Julia Lind from somewhere on earth, we presume.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  Okay, okay, she's come with the, she's come with the questions here. It's a hello, Dr. Tyson at all. Is there a possible way to generate an artificial magnetic field on Mars? So that it can have a thicker atmosphere and protect colonists on the surface from radiation? It's a two part.

• 4:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow, this is, this is deep.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  It's a two part question.

• 4:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thinking all about it.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So.

• 4:21Speaker 01

  And do you want me to go on? And this is, is there a technology that we could theoretically develop? Or would we be better off trying to build underground colonies on Mars?

• 4:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so what she knows is that here on Earth, we have a magnetic field. Not very strong, but we have one. That's why compasses, anybody remember what a compass is?

• 4:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, old school.

• 4:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Old school, old school. We have a magnetic field. And when dangerous charged particles come from the sun, we call it the solar wind. They see Earth's magnetic field and then they channel themselves away and funnel in at the poles. And they collide with our atmosphere and render it a glow, causing the aurora.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 5:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So when we see the aurora, that's the atmosphere and our magnetic field shielding us from harmful radiation.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 5:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so if we lose our magnetic field, the radiation just comes straight in wherever it hits. Mars, we may have once had a magnetic field, it does not any longer. So if you pitch tent, you're susceptible to this flux of high energy particles. So she was correct to wonder, will we just have underground colonies?

• 5:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. And then I wonder, well then, what the hell is the point of being on Mars? Live underground, you live underground here.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  We'll be basically the ants of Mars.

• 5:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The worms, you know, whatever, you know, like, what's the point of that?

• 5:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, just consider that almost anything will protect you from those particles. Like the roof of a house.

• 5:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so if you, you could just, the shielding doesn't have to be elaborate. It just has to have some kind of shielding. And there's a whole branch of NASA. Well, there's a branch that studies the sun and a subdivision of it that specializes in space weather. We call it space weather, which is when is the solar wind coming? Because it correlates with explosions on the sun.

• 6:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not just at any time.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So as the sun goes through cycles, it goes through intense periods and then it acquiesce and it's an eleven year cycle. So as it pumps up, we get more warnings about explosions on the sun. And as it drifts off, we have there's fewer. And we know when a pulse of these particles is going to hit us because it takes time to get from the sun to to earth or to Mars. So we just have a a warning sign.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that any different from saying thunderstorms this afternoon?

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, tornado warning.

• 6:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tornado warning, bring a umbrella, but this would be a special solar wind umbrella.

• 6:52Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 6:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so I don't see it as an impossible thing to overcome.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  That is cool.

• 6:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And and maybe you create some local magnetic field and direct the particles off to the north and south of you. Your your little city in a bubble, whatever. I mean, they could be engineers figure this stuff out.

• 7:10Speaker 01

  I love this.

• 7:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm not worried about it.

• 7:11Speaker 01

  I mean, you know, that that is a wonderful thing to say about the magnetic field. It's protecting us.

• 7:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Protecting us.

• 7:17Speaker 01

  It's so beautiful.

• 7:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, but this is another thing I gotta add on to this question. I heard.

• 7:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's allowed.

• 7:24Speaker 01

  I want to because it's so fascinating. I heard that the magnetic field was actually reversed at one time.

• 7:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  In the earth's history.

• 7:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 7:34Speaker 01

  That's exciting.

• 7:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  North was south.

• 7:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so now.

• 7:36Speaker 01

  And south was north.

• 7:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, now I don't want to blow your mind.

• 7:38Speaker 01

  Okay, hit me.

• 7:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, really?

• 7:39Speaker 01

  I love this.

• 7:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Guys, everyone's mind should be blown at least once a day. That that's a quote of mine. I'm just saying. Okay, you ready?

• 7:46Speaker 01

  Hit me.

• 7:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, we're about the same. I'm a little older than you, but we're approximately the same age. When we were growing up, the north magnetic pole was in northern Canada. It was never where Santa is. Okay, so earth's magnetic pole has shifted from our rotation poles. I don't feel you didn't know that?

• 8:03Speaker 01

  I did not know this.

• 8:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's not stationary.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  It moves.

• 8:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's moving. Wait, hang on, hang on. So when we were growing up, it was kind of meandering in the Canadian, you know, that whole northern area of Canada where there's just islands and lakes and things, that's where it was, which meant that if you were up in Canada, you couldn't use a compass to find north because it could be south of you.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 8:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so it's no good way up and way farther down. You get a kind of right. Good Boy Scout books would have a correction table depending on where you were in longitude. Relative good Boy Scout books. Now watch, you check it lately. That North Pole has been moving and it is now passing the North Pole on its way to Siberia. What?

• 8:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait. Yes, yes, and pretty soon it'll be Putin's North Pole. You're kidding. Okay. All right. The boy controls enough. Yeah. That's a tilt. Okay. The tilt meter just went. Okay. I can't believe it's moving. On top of all that, the magnetic field is getting weaker. Oh. And we think it's gonna get weaker and weaker until it's goes away. And then when it comes back again, it'll be in reverse. Cause it flips every time. Oh, my God. Now, check this out. You know how magnets work, right? The the plus attracts to the minus. Yes. Okay, so opposites attract. That's right. You've heard that, okay?

• 9:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you have a compass with a north, you know, with a little needle and one and it's a north side of the compass. Mm hmm. That would point to our north magnetic pole. However, that is a north needle on the compass. Yeah. Why should north point to north? It's not supposed to. I know. Which means Earth's south magnetic pole is in our north. Because all north magnets point to it. That's right. That's right. We're gonna point into the opposite. Oh, my goodness. So you've always been told that's where our north magnetic pole is, that our south magnetic pole is in our north. So, okay, so now, so so we're gonna lose the the field and then it will come back in reverse. Then all your compasses will point the other way.

• 10:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We worry that when the magnet field goes away to flip again, but this is called a dynamo effect. When it goes away and flips, that while it's not there, will it put all of us at risk? Yeah. So we go back in the fossil record, cause it's flipped before. And if you go to the points where it has flipped, there's no periods of mass extinction.

• 10:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if it wreaked havoc, it was not global catastrophe.

• 10:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I'm not so worried about it.

• 10:42Speaker 01

  That's deep.

• 10:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  Will our electronics still work?

• 10:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, because it's not, the magnetic field's not that strong.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  So it's no Y2K event?

• 10:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, not even, was that an event?

• 10:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah.

• 10:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I wasn't worried.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  So the threat is not, good. Okay, thank you.

• 10:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 10:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, by the way, everyone thought like Y2K, everything would break.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But keep in mind, the way we celebrate time, it's midnight in 24 different hours in sequence.

• 11:09Speaker 01

  True.

• 11:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It doesn't all happen at once.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  That's right. That's right.

• 11:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so it's not like the whole world blows up at once.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Even if that were gonna happen, it would blow up time zone by time.

• 11:18Speaker 01

  It would be one at a time.

• 11:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So people get confused when they say, oh, the magnetic axis is gonna flip. They think it's our rotation axis and then they freak out.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  I love this.

• 11:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I gotta tell them, no, chill. It's just a magnetic, it's happened before, it's gonna happen again.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  This is, man, Neil, you blew my mind on the first question, with the first answer.

• 11:48Speaker 02

  I'm Kais from Bangladesh and I support StarTalk on Patreon. This is StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 12:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Terry, I don't know if you realize, the people who ask us these questions, they're part of our Patreon, patrons.

• 12:08Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 12:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So they get to ask questions in our Cosmic Queries. So all of them are patrons.

• 12:13Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 12:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So check it out. What's next?

• 12:15Speaker 01

  All right, next is Sandra Pink. Sandra here from Singapore.

• 12:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Singapore, I've never been there.

• 12:20Speaker 01

  All right, can't wait to visit Singapore.

• 12:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was there, just a couple of years ago.

• 12:23Speaker 01

  I love it. I heard nothing but good things. Thank you for doing what you do, inspiring and making everyone's lives just a little bit better every day.

• 12:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nice.

• 12:32Speaker 01

  Question. Mr. Cruz has so many muscles. Yes, thank you. Sandra, you're the best.

• 12:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Stop jiggling your pets.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  I'm sorry, okay. Back to science.

• 12:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I bet. That's illegal in three states.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  And muscles are so hard to build and maintain. In the cosmic sense, how important are muscles? And why do we need to work so hard for them? If they are so important to our survival? Is this entropy?

• 13:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 13:02Speaker 01

  Whoa.

• 13:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 13:04Speaker 01

  I like it.

• 13:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, okay. So, there's a lot of speculation about like the strong man in the tribe. Cause what does that person do? Goes out and gets the, the food. Okay, they'll walk back with an elk.

• 13:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 13:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they're the one.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  I'm the man.

• 13:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm the man and I brought back the food.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 13:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. And there's further speculation that that person has almost mythical significance in the tribe. And everybody wants to mate with that person. Cause if you don't want to mate with that person, then you don't have offspring that could possibly do that in the future. And you'll just die, you'll be a, a dead end in the, in the, in the.

• 13:45Speaker 01

  And very hungry.

• 13:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so people have speculated that this accounts for the fascination we have with famous people. Because that, whatever was that urge to want to make babies with who brought back the food? Today, you don't need to do that because there's a grocery store down there. So what became of that urge? It's still there within us.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there's, there's the person on the silver screen.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who's that's the person who I want to mate with or, or I want that to be my friend.

• 14:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's an urge, even though they're a total stranger.

• 14:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they could be a total asshole.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Doesn't matter.

• 14:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so muscles have that role, but there are other roles that muscles don't really serve. Okay, so I don't know if, if everybody had muscles, you know, is that, does that work? You know, so maybe some people out of a group. Need the muscles for the tribe. And you know, others need to be able to climb trees nimbly, maybe to get the fruit. Somebody needs to uh swim. You surely know how to swim, but if you have less fat, as you surely do, you're less buoyant.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, people who have very sinew muscles are less buoyant in the water now. Olympic swimmers, of course, are are very sort of lanky. They they don't look like you.

• 15:02Speaker 01

  Not at all.

• 15:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Yeah, you've seen that, but long distance swimmers tip typically have a little more fat on their bodies. Which gives them buoyancy so that the energy you're putting into swim is not only to keep you afloat, it's actually push you forward. Cause if you're gonna sink, some of your energy has to go into not sinking.

• 15:18Speaker 01

  I love what you're saying because it it shows that the muscle is skill oriented to to what you need.

• 15:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, it doesn't have to be big.

• 15:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just skill.

• 15:27Speaker 01

  It's not about big.

• 15:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's that's correct.

• 15:29Speaker 01

  Yes, I love that.

• 15:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And are you quick? Can you catch the rabbit?

• 15:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 15:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And some big muscular person is not catching the rabbit.

• 15:35Speaker 01

  Oh, listen, I first of all. I've seen for for years of big guys in the gym who can't do anything.

• 15:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're just they can just lift weights.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  They're just big.

• 15:45Speaker 01

  I I have a perfect example. I thought I was strong and I had a mover one time, little guy. I mean, he he's just like a normal guy and there was a box I couldn't move. I was literally like, hey, man, you're gonna need to bring some other. He was like, no, I got it. And he picked it up and walked out the door. And I was like, oh.

• 16:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like the fact that you benchmarked other people's abilities to your own ability.

• 16:07Speaker 01

  Well, this is.

• 16:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You said, I can't do this. He must need help.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  Uh, I totally told him. I was like, you you better get your friend.

• 16:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 16:14Speaker 01

  And he was like, no, no, I got it. And he picked it up and walked out the door. And I realized something. I said, this is what he does.

• 16:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what he does. All his muscles are configured for that.

• 16:23Speaker 01

  Everything is configured for moving.

• 16:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  I'm not.

• 16:28Speaker 01

  I'm a celebrity.

• 16:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 16:29Speaker 01

  I don't move anything.

• 16:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're a celebrity body.

• 16:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Pop your pecks.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  That's it. Thank you, Sandra. Oh, this is great.

• 16:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. So entropy is disorder. And generally, we like living in what is ordered and we put energy into a system to order it so that we can function within it. But we have to get that energy from somewhere else.

• 16:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Things don't could be get ordered for free. Okay, so we get our energy from the food and the food gets its energy. If it's an animal, it ate plants. The plant got its energy from the sun. So ultimately, we are all solar powered.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  I love that. That's hot. That is really, that is beautiful, man.

• 17:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's beautiful.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  You know, I tend, I tend to lay out in the sun and I do feel better after I do that. Not too crazy, but you know, but I think that's right.

• 17:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Communing with the cosmos.

• 17:21Speaker 01

  That's it. It's a way to keep me grounded.

• 17:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, give me some more.

• 17:26Speaker 01

  All right, here we go. We have Will Mansell Brown. Hello, Dr. Tyson, Mr. Cruz, new patron here.

• 17:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nice, nice.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  Another patron. My name is Will Mansell Brown and I'm from North Hampshire in the UK.

• 17:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Northamshire.

• 17:39Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, so Northamshire.

• 17:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Northam.

• 17:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I gotta say it.

• 17:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They staple it all together.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, they do. They do. I'm not from there. I'm not from the UK.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  Let's see. My question is photons are massless. However, are given a mass equivalent based on their energies.

• 17:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, they do.

• 17:57Speaker 01

  Does this mean that gamma rays are affected more by the curvature of space than radio waves due to there being a higher mass equivalence? Many thanks, and I love the show.

• 18:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow, okay. So there's a lot going on there.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  Yes, it is.

• 18:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the mass equivalent, you have the energy of the photon, you plug it into E equals mc squared. You plug it in. The E is for energy. You put in the energy and on the other side is m, mass, times c squared. That's the speed of light squared. That's just a constant. You look that up, plug it in. So energy and mass are related in this way. So what he's wondering is if it has no mass, would it still respond to gravity? And if it does respond to gravity, do the higher mass equivalent photons respond more? That's the question. Mm hmm. Okay, now that's very Aristotelian and Aristotle got a lot of physics wrong. Okay. Okay, you know what Aristotle said, I'm a little bit paraphrasing, he said,

• 18:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  heavy things fall to earth faster than lighter things in proportion with their mass. He didn't use the word mass, but in terms of their their weight. Yeah. That's not true. Like a rock and a feather. Well, a feather is different, fine, that's true with a feather, because a feather is doing this. But get a heavy rock and a light rock. Right. They fall down at exactly the same rate. That's right. Exactly the same rate. Yep. That is way more profound than most people appreciate. Hmm. Okay. Mm hmm. The gravity is pulling more strongly on the heavier object. Hmm. But it takes more force to accelerate the heavier object at the same rate as the lighter object. Hmm.

• 19:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So they fall at the same rate because earth is pulling more strongly on the heavier object. Hmm. Okay, so let's back up, so I have a something light, everything's on wheels and something massive and something not mass. Put the same force on each thing. Mm hmm. On the low mass object, it's gonna scoot along real fast. Yeah. Right, and the heavy one is not gonna go very fast. Mm hmm. Okay, so if the force of gravity were the same on every object, you're putting the same force, then the lighter things would go faster. Right. The force of gravity is stronger on the heavier object. Yeah. Because if the heavier object and the light object are both accelerating at the same rate, something's pushing that harder. Yeah, yeah. So they all show up more. Yep.

• 20:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so even though gamma ray photons have higher equivalent mass than radio wave photons, because the whole electromagnetic spectrum can be thought of as photon, even though they have more mass, they're each attracted to gravity at exactly the same rate. Wow.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 20:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow. It's, by the way, that's called the equivalence principle.

• 20:45Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 20:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Advanced by Albert Einstein in nineteen fifteen.

• 20:48Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 20:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's one of the most profound advances in human understanding of the universe that there ever was.

• 20:56Speaker 01

  Well, because everyone thought something's heavier.

• 20:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 20:59Speaker 01

  It would go.

• 21:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In fact, the dudes went to the moon. They brought a hammer and a feather on the, the moon is no air, so the feather is not doing this.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Had the hammer, the feather, let go. They fell at exactly the same rate.

• 21:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 21:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's the moon pulling on them, but it's just how gravity works.

• 21:14Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 21:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so everything will respond the same.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  I love this.

• 21:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause it doesn't matter how much it weighs. It's, it's, it's cool.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  This is another thing I want to follow up on. I, I love this stuff. I heard we all have our own gravity.

• 21:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes. Yes.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  Incredible. That is amazing. I, I thought it just people, cause people liked me.

• 21:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? But I, I.

• 21:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if I put you out in space and I had like a marble.

• 21:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I gave it just the right speed and just the right direction, then it'll go orbit around you.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  Whoa.

• 21:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no marble, probably like a poppy seed.

• 21:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, maybe something like that.

• 21:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  Oh, my goodness.

• 21:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so we can make at least some of the universe orbit you. If your ego needs it.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  I know, I know. But listen, my wife believes I have my own gravity. She's like, it's, it's called narcissism is what it's called.

• 22:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the real way to say it is you and the earth attract each other.

• 22:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, yes, that's great.

• 22:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what's going on.

• 22:10Speaker 01

  That's it, that is so beautiful.

• 22:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if, if you jump out of, off a cliff and you fall to earth, what's actually happening is you and earth are falling towards each other, except you're doing most of the moving.

• 22:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 22:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Earth will come up just a little bit.

• 22:23Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 22:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 22:25Speaker 01

  Dude, that's so good.

• 22:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, keep going.

• 22:27Speaker 01

  Here we go. Samuel Tom, uh, excuse me, Samuel Tomka. Hello, Neil and Terry, Samuel here from Slovakia.

• 22:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nice.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  All right.

• 22:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm, I'm embarrassed as an American, I, I just. Geographically ignorant American, I was asking someone from Slovakia, like, what was Slovakia before? It was Slovakia, because growing up, I don't remember.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And she said, oh, it was part of Czechoslovakia.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  You know what?

• 22:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. It's like, duh. Well, then I asked another stupid question. I said, well, Sam, what was the rest of Czechoslovakia? Oh, that became the Czech Republic. Okay?

• 23:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, makes all the sense in the world.

• 23:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's like, okay, duh.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  Connect the dots here. But yeah, I believe me, I would add the same question.

• 23:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  I have a question. If humans settled on a low-gravity planet, would skipping leg day have an entirely different meaning? Or would we have to invent new exercises just to keep our legs from shrinking? Keep the fun and education going. Love you guys.

• 23:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love it. So.

• 23:29Speaker 01

  People have been accused of skipping leg day a lot.

• 23:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've, I can give two answers to that.

• 23:34Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 23:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One of them is, if you want to maintain the physique that you would have had on Earth, yeah, you're gonna have to exercise way more. And you have to use exercises where you can add resistance beyond just lifting things off the ground. You need like pullies and things. And so that's if you wanted to do that. But if you will forever be living on that low-gravity planet, you don't need the big muscles anymore.

• 23:58Speaker 01

  No, you don't. And I heard you get taller.

• 24:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes. In fact, you get tallest if, do you know that astronauts that do spacewalks, which NASA calls extra vehicular activities, I'm trying to get them, dude, just call it a spacewalk.

• 24:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Extra vehicular.

• 24:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  EVAs, they call them. Okay. So astronauts have space suits, depending how tall they are when they're launched, two to three inches taller for their spacewalk than they do for when they launch.

• 24:29Speaker 01

  Oh, my goodness.

• 24:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because in zero G, they grow.

• 24:31Speaker 01

  They just grow into it.

• 24:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you're six feet, you can grow two inches.

• 24:35Speaker 01

  That's crazy.

• 24:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  I want to go to space. I'm gonna look amazing when I come back.

• 24:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So your vertebrae.

• 24:42Speaker 01

  Six, seven.

• 24:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, no, it's not. So it doesn't keep going.

• 24:45Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 24:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So your vertebrae expand because you don't have gravity compressing them.

• 24:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you get a couple of extra inches. So they can't spacewalk in the same suit that they launch in.

• 24:54Speaker 01

  Oh, my goodness.

• 24:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 24:55Speaker 01

  I bet you zero gravity is good for my skin, too.

• 24:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's good for everything.

• 24:59Speaker 01

  Everything.

• 25:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everything.

• 25:00Speaker 01

  I love it.

• 25:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, everything just kind of floats there. Yeah. So, like I said, if you don't need your muscles, they will atrophy. If you never need your muscles, should we care that they atrophy?

• 25:10Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 25:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know.

• 25:11Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 25:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But if you ever want to come back to Earth, you better be ready for that. And the astronauts come back to Earth, and they they got all kinds of machines up there so that they.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lose their muscle mass.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, because you can you can get really hurt.

• 25:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you can still lose bone mass. There's still a unsolved problem, the bone part.

• 25:27Speaker 01

  But you can be a blob in space. That'd be great.

• 25:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You'll be blob in space, and your heart won't even know the difference. Because it's not pumping against gravity.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  That's good.

• 25:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. You don't want to clog your arteries. That would but but you can be chubby. But if you if your arteries were still clear, your heart won't even know.

• 25:41Speaker 01

  This is a great question. That was a great question.

• 25:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 26:04Speaker 01

  Daniel Frank. Hey, guys. Love the show. He doesn't say where he's from, but, uh.

• 26:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Another.

• 26:10Speaker 01

  Another, yeah, another witness protection. If one was able to stop time, is it true that you wouldn't be able to see anything because the photons would freeze too? Can we make an exception to that?

• 26:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, I I don't know if I have a good answer for that.

• 26:25Speaker 01

  No.

• 26:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because to the photon, there is no time.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 26:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You might have heard that the faster you go, the slower time ticks. This is relativity. And in the limit, at the speed of light, time stops.

• 26:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Photons, which exist at the speed of light. When they're emitted at whatever, wherever they came from. My PhD thesis was on the center of the galaxy.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 26:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which is thirty thousand light years away. And when I capture those photons, for me, watching them, they took thirty thousand years. But if you're the photon, the instant you left the center of the galaxy, you hit my detector.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  Right there.

• 27:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the same instant.

• 27:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if there's zero time, I don't know what effect that would have on the photons.

• 27:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 27:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause they don't ever have time.

• 27:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, they they're outside of.

• 27:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're out, out, in a way, they're outside of time. In that sense. So I'd have to think more about. I don't have a good answer for that.

• 27:28Speaker 01

  I feel like, you know, a fish floating in water.

• 27:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Doesn't know it's in the water.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  It's in the water, so to speak.

• 27:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 27:34Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? And that that's queer. That's really wild.

• 27:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Would a photon know that time had stopped?

• 27:39Speaker 01

  Oof, that's a whole nother deep question. Oh, we just opened a wormhole. My brain just went eh eh eh. Tilt, tilt.

• 27:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. So I don't, I don't know.

• 27:49Speaker 01

  I love this.

• 27:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, by the way, that was a very dated comment you made.

• 27:53Speaker 01

  What?

• 27:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You said tilt, tilt.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  I did.

• 27:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, my gosh. Terry.

• 27:58Speaker 01

  Pinball wizard.

• 27:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Pinball.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  Pinball wizard. I know. My kids would be like, what?

• 28:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you try to influence the the ball, you like hit your hips into the into the machine. If you do that too much, the game craps out on you. It says tilt.

• 28:11Speaker 01

  Well, I I I tell my kids, I'm like, I'm trying to read. I want to make myself so interesting, I could read the phone book and be wonderful. And they're like, what's a phone book? What are you talking about?

• 28:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 28:20Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 28:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're already not interesting.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 28:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, you should have a few more in there.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, it's more. Um, this was Mickey Pistillo. Mickey from Omaha here.

• 28:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Omaha.

• 28:33Speaker 01

  Which flavor on Hot Ones was the hardest for each of you? Thanks.

• 28:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You want Hot Ones?

• 28:38Speaker 01

  I was on.

• 28:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So was I. Oh, my God.

• 28:40Speaker 01

  Oh, I was high on Hot Ones. It made me, literally, I've never, I've never been on drugs. I've never been, I've never been drunk before in my life.

• 28:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 28:48Speaker 01

  Dude, I was hallucinating.

• 28:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 28:51Speaker 01

  It was so painful.

• 28:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 28:52Speaker 01

  That I started to see double.

• 28:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I spent six years in Texas, starting out a complete wimp and leaving where I could, I could eat a jalapeno pepper and not tear. So I, I had some, I had some bit of, I don't want to call it training, but life experience. So there were 10 of them. Where did, where did you start crapping out?

• 29:12Speaker 01

  Oh, man. I, I went all the way.

• 29:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You went all the way?

• 29:15Speaker 01

  The last dab hurt so bad.

• 29:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 29:18Speaker 01

  Uh, now you have to understand too, because I do intermittent fasting. That was my first meal of the day.

• 29:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ouch.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  That made it triply, I would say it, it, it.

• 29:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, just take a minute.

• 29:28Speaker 01

  Everything up.

• 29:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Take a minute, tell everybody what Hot Ones is in case they.

• 29:31Speaker 01

  Hot Ones is a show that, you know, you basically taste different, uh, hot wings at different.

• 29:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Buffalo wings.

• 29:39Speaker 01

  The buffalo wings at different levels of heat. The sauce was, uh, from mild all the way to the most intense heat you could ever.

• 29:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To mega death.

• 29:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, where they, these ghost peppers, they have all these names for each one of them.

• 29:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Some of them are not even found in nature.

• 29:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 29:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They became this, this contest.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  They genetically modified peppers that were like, oh, my God, like nuclear.

• 30:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that what our GMO scientists are coming up with?

• 30:06Speaker 01

  Chernobyl level.

• 30:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, yeah. And so I think the premise is you're allowed to talk about your projects to him, but only if you can get through the, the sequence of heat.

• 30:16Speaker 01

  I had heard another experiment where it's hard to lie when you're doing something else. Um, so they would make you, you know, hold a ball, uh, bounce a balloon in your hand and then they ask you questions. And you can really tell who's lying and who's not.

• 30:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Interesting. I never knew that.

• 30:31Speaker 01

  And I think that's, that's the. The premise behind Hot Ones.

• 30:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because everyone there is really honest.

• 30:38Speaker 01

  You have, it's like to think through all of the, the what's going on in your face.

• 30:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you know they're honest because they're people who otherwise have their relationship with a camera. And it goes completely out the window.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  I was, I was screaming. I literally had to yell, ah, just to keep my brain from just like, okay. Or running out of the room. Cause I, I, you know, I knew I wanted to stay in it, but I was like, it's hard.

• 31:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I was good up to eight out of the 10. And then nine was pretty severe. I already knew you're not supposed to touch it with your lips. Cause then your lips get, you, you can't, you can't feel your lips.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  Did they give you a little milk and all that?

• 31:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I did ice water, but milk would work too. And, but I went to 10 and then I took a double dose. Cause I said, I gotta do this.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 31:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But here's what happened. Here's what nobody told anybody. Did you fly into New York to do it?

• 31:25Speaker 01

  I did.

• 31:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Cause I just took the subway. Okay. Afterwards, I go home. Two hours later, I had explosive diarrhea. Okay. Two hours later. Now, I suppose I was on an airplane. Suppose I was in a taxi.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 31:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm in my own bathroom, thank you. And it was like, and I was on the floor. You, I don't, if you never got drunk, it's never happened to you in college. In college, you put your cheek on the bathroom tile just to feel the coolness.

• 31:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause you're just.

• 31:54Speaker 01

  Okay. I, I heard about people doing it.

• 31:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, this is what it was. And so, yeah, that was my final chapter of my experience.

• 32:02Speaker 01

  Hot Ones the sequel.

• 32:05Speaker 01

  Hot twos. Hot number two.

• 32:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  Okay. We, that's really disgusting.

• 32:13Speaker 01

  Oh, I'll have to start a show like that. Okay.

• 32:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it was one thing you do once in life, I think, right?

• 32:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would never do it again.

• 32:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. That show got syndicated. I think it's on Hulu.

• 32:21Speaker 01

  Oh, and listen, my, I know yours went viral. Mine went viral.

• 32:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, went viral. Yeah.

• 32:26Speaker 01

  Oh, people want to see people they know in pain. They do. Oh, look, they're celebrities. They're just like us. They hurt too. I was in tears. I was crying. It was crazy. Okay.

• 32:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Terry, we've got time for one more question.

• 32:40Speaker 01

  You got it. You got it. Here we go.

• 32:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I'm sorry, we had like hundreds of questions came in.

• 32:44Speaker 01

  This is so awesome.

• 32:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sorry, but we just pick them here. All right.

• 32:48Speaker 01

  This is beautiful. The last question is from Riley Ruffin. Hello, Dr. Tyson and Mr. Cruz. Riley Ruffin here from Illinois. All right. I must say, Mr. Cruz, I love your acting. Thank you. Really a big fan. My question is related to the edge of the observable universe. What observations have been made and can you describe what it looks like? I have heard that there appears to be some type of haze. Is this true? And can you tell us more about it?

• 33:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a purple haze.

• 33:23Speaker 01

  Oh, man. We writing songs right now. I like it.

• 33:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, a couple of things.

• 33:29Speaker 01

  Talk to me.

• 33:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Um, the age of the universe is in our way.

• 33:35Speaker 01

  The age.

• 33:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. So there's a horizon beyond which we cannot see. Because the universe isn't old enough for light from objects beyond that horizon to have reached us yet.

• 33:46Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 33:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the horizon. It's not completely different from the horizon at sea. Where you're at a ship and you see the the horizon. Are you saying to yourself, is that the edge of the universe? No, there's probably ocean beyond that.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if you sort of sail towards it, more ocean comes into view and you bring your horizon with you.

• 34:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's kind of the horizon is not an absolute thing.

• 34:09Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 34:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's relative to you and you are in the center of your own horizon.

• 34:13Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 34:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The exact center. Okay. Now, it turns out, as we look out into the universe, we see the universe younger and younger and younger and younger, until we see it just shortly after the Big Bang itself. So technically, that's not quite a horizon. It's a time horizon, more than it is a space horizon. Cause you can't see before the Big Bang. And so if you wait a few billion more years, as the universe continues to expand, then there'll be a place, a space horizon, beyond which you cannot see. And if you travel that direction, again, you can take your horizon with you. So the real question is,

• 34:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  do we really know how big the actual universe is?

• 35:00Speaker 01

  You're right.

• 35:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you know how big the actual ocean is?

• 35:03Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 35:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not really.

• 35:05Speaker 01

  No.

• 35:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Unless you keep sailing until you, until you hit land.

• 35:07Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 35:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But if you're in the middle of Pacific, that's a lot of sailing.

• 35:10Speaker 01

  You have no.

• 35:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You have no idea. So generally, when we speak of the universe, it's how big is the observable universe? We gotta contain it, cause what's beyond that, we don't know. No reason to think it's completely different.

• 35:23Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 35:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No reason to think just beyond your horizon, there's something very different from the water that you're witnessing up until the horizon. No reason to think that. So too with the universe. Beyond a, an observable horizon, no reason to think the rest of the universe is fundamentally different from what's within our own horizon.

• 35:42Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 35:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, by the way, everyone sees themselves as the center of the universe.

• 35:47Speaker 01

  That's true. That's true.

• 35:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which means there is no center of the universe.

• 35:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And one of my most retweeted tweets, I guess it's X now, it was very simple. I said, because the universe has no center, it means you can't be it.

• 36:05Speaker 01

  Oh, wait, now I'm disappointed. Now I'm very disappointed. Cause I always thought I was the center of the universe.

• 36:14Speaker 01

  But you, oh, you know what? I gotta add one more.

• 36:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's that? What's that? Okay.

• 36:18Speaker 01

  What's so crazy is looking at how endless it is out there.

• 36:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm hmm.

• 36:24Speaker 01

  I often wondered, is it as endless in here? Meaning.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  Is there an end as you go inside?

• 36:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Inside the mind?

• 36:33Speaker 01

  Inside the atom? This atom, like.

• 36:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, for a while there, people suspected, because they wanted it to be true, that you see the sun and you see planets orbiting the sun.

• 36:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we find, when we.

• 36:46Speaker 01

  Are we an atom?

• 36:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly. So when we first cracked the atom, they said, wait a minute, there are electrons going around the nucleus. So we borrowed the same vocabulary.

• 36:55Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 36:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We don't call them orbits, but we call them orbitals.

• 36:58Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 36:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, same idea.

• 37:00Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 37:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? It's something, and they said, well, if that's what it is, what happens if we go into the nucleus of the atom? Will it be that again? And then that again? Is it that all the way down? No, it's not.

• 37:09Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 37:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's just not. There's atoms and then there's us and this universe. And, you know, not to get too pop culture on you, but in Men in Black, there was the galaxy on the belt of Orion. I don't know if you remember that.

• 37:24Speaker 01

  I don't.

• 37:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Orion was a cat.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 37:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it had a, a neck.

• 37:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 37:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And in there was this sort of transparent.

• 37:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 37:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ball, and inside that ball was the entire universe that we are living in.

• 37:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's just this little dangly thing on the neck of a cat. It's fun to think that and write stories about it, but it doesn't look like that's the case.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because different laws of physics apply to the large scale universe than the small. And if it was the same thing all the way down, you'd see repeated.

• 37:49Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 37:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think.

• 37:50Speaker 01

  The rules don't stay the same.

• 37:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They don't stay the same. They're very different, very, very different. So it's, it's a fun thought.

• 37:57Speaker 01

  This is great. I love this, man. I love this. I could do this all day. I love it.

• 38:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, here, let's make a deal.

• 38:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 38:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Any future time I'm in Pasadena, we'll fire up the hearth and we'll do this again.

• 38:10Speaker 01

  Let's do it. Let's do it. I love it.

• 38:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a permanent Pasadena date.

• 38:13Speaker 01

  Absolutely, absolutely. I'll meet you at Caltech. It's no problem.

• 38:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, that can happen. And just, just quick, you, you had a very successful memoir, because your life was so interesting. You shared some of it with me on a, a previous time you've been on the podcast, just what your struggles had been from pro football and you were not quite homeless, but you were destitute.

• 38:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For a while and, and how fortunes can change if you keep confidence and you, and you have to understand what role failure needs to play.

• 38:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 38:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There are people who are ready to give up, and I say, no, that, that should be the force that drives you forward.

• 38:46Speaker 01

  Listen, the book was called Tough, and it was about.

• 38:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It still is. It's on shelves.

• 38:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's, it's about finding your true power. And, and literally, it's really the power of choice. Choice. You know, the only thing you can control is you. That's it.

• 39:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's so simple that it's deep.

• 39:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, anyway, it took me years to find that out. Because I was a professional victim. I mean, looking at all the circumstances and different things and the winds. You did, hey.

• 39:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Your fault and how come I get in because you didn't. Professional victim. I like that phrase.

• 39:20Speaker 01

  Dude, everything revolved down to my choices. And I realized that and that really opened the, it was like you said, it's so simple, it's deep. Simple doesn't mean easy.

• 39:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, it doesn't. It doesn't.

• 39:32Speaker 01

  That's the big thing. A lot of people think simple and easy is the same thing.

• 39:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It doesn't. And one last thing, I was, I was channel surfing and there's like the animated. Everybody hates Chris. Did I hear your voice still in there?

• 39:48Speaker 01

  You did. It just came out. I'm so.

• 39:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everybody hates Chris.

• 39:52Speaker 01

  Everybody still hates Chris.

• 39:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because that's the sequel.

• 39:55Speaker 01

  It's a sequel.

• 39:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's an animated sequel.

• 39:57Speaker 01

  And it literally.

• 39:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's audacious.

• 39:58Speaker 01

  It picks up where the live action show left off.

• 40:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you got all the characters come back.

• 40:03Speaker 01

  All the, the characters were, well, Tyler James Williams is an adult. So a lot of those kids grew up. So we have new voice actors for the kids. But a lot of the characters who were adults at the time did come back.

• 40:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yourself included.

• 40:16Speaker 01

  Me, Tashina Arnold, Chris Rock, Jackie Harry, Ernest Thomas. It's amazing.

• 40:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Chris is the narrator because it's his life. Okay, we look forward to that.

• 40:26Speaker 01

  Thank you. Thank you.

• 40:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, and, and of course, star host with shiny suits on AGT.

• 40:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, and don't forget Killer's Game. My brand new, my movie is gonna be out on demand. I did a movie with Dave Bautista. Where we were like assassins. We had our own app where you could, it's like the Uber for assassins. It's a, it's a. It's an action comedy, by the way. So have a great time.

• 40:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dial an assassin comedy, okay?

• 40:52Speaker 01

  You can get, you can get assassin anytime. It's Uber. You know, it's kind of like, oh, yeah, look at this.

• 40:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 40:57Speaker 01

  You rate your assassin. You do a good job.

• 40:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Give them a friendly face. Give them a friendly face. And I'll give them a like, don't [bleep] me, I'll kill you face.

• 41:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's how you do it? I've been doing this forever. All right, we out. Terry, love you, man. Love you. I love you, brother. You're the man. This has been another edition of StarTalk Cosmic Queries with special guest co-host Terry Crews. I love you guys. All right, until next time, I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, bidding you to keep looking up.