Cosmic Queries - Flat Universe

If you crunched the asteroid belt into one object, would it make a planet? Neil deGrasse Tyson and cohost Chuck Nice answer fan questions about the shape of the universe, the origin of matter, the Casimir Force, pizza toppings, and more!

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

• 0:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, that might be a world record, how many questions I answered.

• 0:02Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 0:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the time allotted.

• 0:04Chuck Nice?

  Exactly, and you only got two of them right.

• 0:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, coming up, StarTalk Cosmic Queries.

• 0:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 0:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk. Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. This is gonna be a Cosmic Queries grab bag. And whenever you hear that, you know who's sitting next to me, Chuck Nice.

• 0:45Chuck Nice?

  Hey, that's right. What's up, Neil?

• 0:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 0:47Chuck Nice?

  Grab bag, baby.

• 0:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Grab bag, baby.

• 0:49Chuck Nice?

  That's right. It used to be, I liked it when we were Galactic Gumbo.

• 0:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 0:54Chuck Nice?

  You know, I don't know why we, you know, because you know, that's the old middle.

• 1:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I never know what the hell you're saying.

• 1:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gumbo kinda left menus. You don't see it much anymore.

• 1:10Chuck Nice?

  You don't see Gumbo a lot. I'm going to New Orleans next week and...

• 1:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, give me a full report.

• 1:16Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 1:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because the first time I had it, it's like, why are there 100 things in my soup?

• 1:21Chuck Nice?

  That's Gumbo, in a nutshell.

• 1:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. So, what you got?

• 1:27Chuck Nice?

  This is Jordan Sinnerth. Greetings, Dr. Tyson and unnamed co-host, hopefully Lord Nice.

• 1:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 1:35Chuck Nice?

  All right. Jordan from Boston here. I understand an object's mass to be the sum of its invariant mass.

• 1:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 1:42Chuck Nice?

  Rest energy and its momentum.

• 1:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 1:46Chuck Nice?

  A photon, because it has no mass, must then be pure movement, momentum or energy.

• 1:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:54Chuck Nice?

  Okay. Here's my question. Okay, good, you have one. He says, I thought he was just showing off.

• 2:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that's a little bit of that too, but that's fine. Nothing wrong showing off, if you got it.

• 2:04Chuck Nice?

  He says...

• 2:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you got it, flaunt it.

• 2:05Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. He says, are the gluon and the graviton then pure something else energy?

• 2:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, so the graviton is the, is the particle version of a gravitational wave.

• 2:24Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With, it's not been detected. It's presumed to exist with, if you look at it from a quantum gravity worldview.

• 2:33Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 2:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, and the gluon is the mediating force of baryons and quarks within the nucleus of the atom. So gluons hold the quarks together.

• 2:48Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And.

• 2:50Chuck Nice?

  Glue.

• 2:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's how you can get two protons that close to each other. Think about it, they have the same charge.

• 2:55Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like charges, what?

• 2:56Chuck Nice?

  They should be popping off.

• 2:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly, like charges repel, and so that is repelling from the electromagnetic force.

• 3:04Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 3:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But if you get them close enough, the strong nuclear force, which is brought to you by the gluon, the strong nuclear force is stronger than their urge to separate.

• 3:17Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 3:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it keeps them together. And so what we're asking here is there, can we think about the graviton and the gluon in the way we think of as a photon? See, think of a photon as pure energy, whereas the graviton is not.

• 3:34Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 3:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would be a particle.

• 3:35Chuck Nice?

  It'd be a particle.

• 3:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and same with the gluon. So, we're stuck with the on suffix to the word, making you think that they would be the same thing. But regardless, there's a mass equivalent of the graviton and the, and the, and the gluon.

• 3:52Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 3:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can always, even if it's just energy, you can figure out how much mass equivalent that is, using what equation?

• 3:58Chuck Nice?

  E equals mc squared.

• 3:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you. Other than the gluon and the graviton being particles and the photon being energy.

• 4:07Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 4:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know what other distinctions to make there. What else you got?

• 4:12Chuck Nice?

  All right, this is Chuck Betlatch, or Betlock. He says, hello StarTalk team, I understand that anything with a mass also has gravity.

• 4:24Chuck Nice?

  Can a small mass such as a CO2 molecule orbit a larger mass such as a person? So he has localized gravity down to like objects.

• 4:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I, I, the answer is yes.

• 4:44Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 4:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  However, many particles have their own, when they're in a, in a gas, they have their own motion commensurate with the temperature of that gas.

• 4:54Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 4:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, so for many gases, their motion is so high

• 4:59Chuck Nice?

  Mm hmm.

• 5:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  that they would just escape the system. That's why the moon has no gas.

• 5:04Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To speak of.

• 5:05Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 5:06Chuck Nice?

  I mean, except on Taco Tuesdays. Sorry, I had to do it. I am so sorry. I know, that was terrible.

• 5:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was terrible, terrible, terrible.

• 5:17Chuck Nice?

  Terrible.

• 5:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so, but if you want to just isolate a molecule.

• 5:23Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then the answer is yes, it could orbit you.

• 5:26Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just, you just give it the right speed, at the right distance, in the right direction, and there you have it.

• 5:33Chuck Nice?

  And you have that one molecule just.

• 5:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's it. By the way, all the CO2 molecules in the air.

• 5:42Chuck Nice?

  Mm hmm.

• 5:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're not quite orbiting the earth, but they're attached to earth, so earth drags them with it.

• 5:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As it, as it turns, so, and then it's not escaping because there's gravity. Gravity is strong enough to hold the atmosphere, so that's not orbiting the earth, but it's carrying it with us.

• 5:59Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, if you like your molecules and you want to keep them, that's another way to do it.

• 6:03Chuck Nice?

  Right. Okay, there, there you go Chuck, way to go, great name. This is Larry Infante, and Larry says, hello, Dr. Tyson and all. One thing that has bugged me about some sci-fi movies is their use of earth's. Time, for example, they may use minutes, hours and days saying, we'll be back to claim your planet in 24 hours. These apparently are some very hostile aliens.

• 6:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As they all are, as aliens want to be.

• 6:37Chuck Nice?

  And they have given us an ultimatum for some reason, even though they have traveled across this galaxy. And they are able to.

• 6:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They could totally kick our ass that instant.

• 6:46Chuck Nice?

  That instant, why do they have to give us 24 hours? I don't know. But clearly they're just like, you have 24 hours to surrender and we'll be back. And he says, if you had to create a system of time with no reference to a planet orbiting a star, how would you do that? Lorenzo Infante from San Antonio, Texas.

• 7:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Great question. So, keep in mind, we evolved on a planet that has a 24 hour day, night cycle.

• 7:11Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Since that is our bio rhythms. Who cares if you're on earth or near the sun? If you want to respect your bio rhythms. So go on a journey to another star, keep the 24 hour day.

• 7:26Chuck Nice?

  That's what, we all have internal cellular clocks that are our circadian rhythm. So whether or not you're around the time or not, you're going to, your body's going to know 24 hours.

• 7:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Body's going to know and we, because we evolved in that state.

• 7:41Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, from studies that I've seen a few decades ago, I haven't seen them duplicated, but I was intrigued. They took people, put them underground.

• 7:49Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 7:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Living underground.

• 7:51Chuck Nice?

  Judds.

• 7:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can't see day, night. They took all the clocks away. So they're just living there.

• 7:57Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 7:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so.

• 7:58Chuck Nice?

  I think they call that a casino.

• 8:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No windows, no clocks.

• 8:04Chuck Nice?

  No clocks, underground.

• 8:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, again, this is a study from many decades ago, but they found that people naturally fell into a rhythm that was 25 or 26 hours long.

• 8:20Chuck Nice?

  Makes sense.

• 8:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not 24.

• 8:22Chuck Nice?

  Not 24.

• 8:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then I thought about that and I said, that's why everybody's groggy when they wake up.

• 8:28Chuck Nice?

  Right, we need an extra hour.

• 8:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  An extra, extra two hour, we're forcing ourselves into 24 hours when maybe the body is saying, give me, I need.

• 8:36Chuck Nice?

  I need a 26 hour day.

• 8:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So they didn't have to touch their snooze, their snooze bar.

• 8:41Chuck Nice?

  Got me working 26, 7.

• 8:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That doesn't sound.

• 8:46Chuck Nice?

  It doesn't sound good at all.

• 8:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Twenty six. So I'd be perfectly happy keeping my sixty second minute, sixty minute hour, twenty four hour day.

• 8:57Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't care about weeks or months or years.

• 9:00Chuck Nice?

  Mm hmm.

• 9:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause I'm counting days.

• 9:02Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 9:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause we sleep on day cycles. So that's what matters to me. No matter how long my voyage is.

• 9:08Chuck Nice?

  Well, what about the aliens knowing the fact that we're on a twenty four hour clock?

• 9:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, because if they said, we'll be back in forty seven gloops.

• 9:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's not helpful. So, so.

• 9:22Chuck Nice?

  They would have done a little research.

• 9:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They'd done a little research. It's use a time unit that we know and care about.

• 9:29Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And by the way, we don't think about time in tenths of a second or hundredths of a second or billions of a second.

• 9:37Chuck Nice?

  Unless you run track.

• 9:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you're Usain Bolt.

• 9:39Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But generally, that's not a thing.

• 9:42Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So a second is, by the way, your heart beats about once a second.

• 9:48Chuck Nice?

  That's right. Yeah, I mean, if you're really healthy.

• 9:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, if you're healthy.

• 9:51Chuck Nice?

  If you're healthy, you get about sixty, sixty two.

• 9:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, sixty.

• 9:55Chuck Nice?

  Sixty four beats a minute.

• 9:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 9:56Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 9:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So these feel kind of natural to me. And if the alien wants to communicate with us.

• 10:04Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It better damn straight use my units.

• 10:07Chuck Nice?

  Right, yeah, exactly. Yeah, and by the way.

• 10:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And by the way, if they land in America, they better know inches and feet and miles too.

• 10:13Chuck Nice?

  Let me tell you something. Wouldn't that be something they come here and they're just like, we'll be back and you're, you're, we're going to make sure that in fifty kilometers, you're gonna, and we'd be like, what is this guy talking about?

• 10:28Chuck Nice?

  Dude, where are you from?

• 10:46Speaker 02

  Hey, this is Kevin the Sommelier, and I support StarTalk on Patreon. You're listening to StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 11:03Chuck Nice?

  Uh, Mike says, "Hello Neil, hello Lord Nice, long time listener, new to Patreon."

• 11:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nice, welcome. Well, let me say it right, "Welcome to the universe."

• 11:13Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 11:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Didn't say that right.

• 11:15Chuck Nice?

  He says, "My question is about the likelihood of 2001 a space odyssey, in particular, the new form of life observed in the dual star system, as well as the fabricated central hub for the wormholes."

• 11:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He mentioned 2001?

• 11:31Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 11:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I think he's referring to scenes in 2010, which was Arthur C. Clarke's sequel to 2001.

• 11:37Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 11:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, uh, if my memory serves, I saw that long ago.

• 11:41Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 11:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, when it, on first run, when it came out, but that's my memory of it.

• 11:44Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 11:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. Uh, I'm cool with, if you're alien, you're, and you're more advanced, I'm cool with all that.

• 11:50Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 11:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What would we look like to our own species from 100 years ago?

• 11:54Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 11:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What would we look like today? Oh my gosh. I mean, if we are that amazing in the future compared to our own species on our own planet, imagine aliens. So I'm not, I'm not gonna second guess their double star system and their wormhole factory. Le, fine.

• 12:12Chuck Nice?

  I mean, there are, uh, binary star systems.

• 12:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 12:15Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, that's, that's not a weird thing.

• 12:17Chuck Nice?

  And what about, what about, what about planets around binary?

• 12:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're a little unstable because their, their gravitational allegiance is challenged every time they try to make an orbit. Who am I closest to? Who am I far away from? Who, who am I?

• 12:28Chuck Nice?

  Maybe you this time. Maybe you this time.

• 12:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, it's, it's, so you need to, a really big orbit, so that the two stars are seen as one field of gravity.

• 12:39Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 12:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? Cause only when you get really close do you?

• 12:42Chuck Nice?

  Do you, would, would you have the perturbations?

• 12:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 12:45Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly, exactly. If I remember, in 2010, 2010, uh, Europa was where the, the intelligent aliens lived. Uh, one of Jupiter's moons.

• 12:55Chuck Nice?

  Now, that's, that's a little too, I'm sorry. First gonna put the intelligence on the white planet.

• 13:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On Eu, on Europe?

• 13:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so they're asking the plausibility of it. Yeah, I mean, double star system, sure.

• 13:10Chuck Nice?

  Yep.

• 13:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Aliens that have control over that, give it to them.

• 13:13Chuck Nice?

  Why not?

• 13:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why not? Yeah.

• 13:14Chuck Nice?

  All right, this is Alex Romillion, uh, million. He says, hey, what's up, lads? Alex from northeast England here. Uh, simple question for you all, uh, just for fun. Do you agree with pineapple on pizza? Inquiring minds would like to know. I love your show and have fun. I'm a big no, but guess what? I've never had it, so I can't say I'm a no.

• 13:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Generally, if you do it, it's kind of Hawaiian style and it'd be pineapple with a ham thing. And because we know pineapple goes with ham.

• 13:46Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely.

• 13:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I, as a native New Yorker.

• 13:50Chuck Nice?

  Mm hmm.

• 13:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know where this is. This is not going to end well.

• 13:54Chuck Nice?

  Where you going? What are you doing here with the pineapple on the pizza? What's your problem?

• 14:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm eating over here.

• 14:02Chuck Nice?

  I'm eating over here. I ought to slap you one. Yeah, yeah, mooc, what's your...

• 14:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm crossing the street here. I'm eating here, over here. Uh, so for me, pineapple.

• 14:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Belongs in a pina colada.

• 14:17Chuck Nice?

  Ooh.

• 14:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And not in a pizza.

• 14:19Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 14:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of all the things I would do with a pineapple.

• 14:22Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Pizza is not on that list.

• 14:24Chuck Nice?

  Not on the list.

• 14:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 14:26Chuck Nice?

  Okay, I got you.

• 14:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 14:27Chuck Nice?

  I love it.

• 14:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's my opinion.

• 14:29Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, you know what? I'm gonna have to try it now because I, it just, I'm cringed by the whole thought of it. But I've actually never put slice to mouth to say that sucks.

• 14:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, plus, it's also hot fruit at that point.

• 14:44Chuck Nice?

  I know, that's so.

• 14:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's, that's what I'm saying.

• 14:46Chuck Nice?

  Except for blueberry pie or peach.

• 14:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's different, yeah, yeah.

• 14:48Chuck Nice?

  It's a whole nother hot fruit thing, but that's okay.

• 14:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm hmm.

• 14:50Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. This is Hugh Kaylee. Hugh says, hello, Dr. Tyson Lord and I. Hugh Kaylee here from Richmond, California. During the most of my life, if you read a layman's book on cosmology, it would confidently state that if you somehow moved in a straight line long enough, you end up where you started. Is this still the case now that the universe is thought to be flat? Thanks.

• 15:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, that, what he's remembering was not that statement given confidently. It was that statement given as one of the alternatives of what the shape of the universe would do for you.

• 15:31Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 15:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, I don't believe that that was stated confidently. We didn't know. But, we had the formulas to tell us what the universe would look like depending on if it was saddle-shaped, spherical, or flat. It turns out the universe is flat.

• 15:49Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 15:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, no, you don't come back to where you are.

• 15:50Chuck Nice?

  You don't come back.

• 15:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't come back, it's forever.

• 15:52Chuck Nice?

  You just keep going.

• 15:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, by the way, and if it weren't flat, and if it was positively curved, then the coming back happens because the universe would re-collapse on itself.

• 16:04Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And everything's back in the same place at the same time. So, that's how you end up back where you are. It's that, it's that future spacetime.

• 16:15Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Trajectory that brings you back. Time would be in a loop in the case of, with the universe re-collapsing.

• 16:23Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right? But, how about just, we are here, if we're in a spherical universe, you walk straight, eventually you come right back to where you started, and it's no different from walking on Earth.

• 16:34Chuck Nice?

  Right. Same difference here.

• 16:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Same difference.

• 16:36Chuck Nice?

  That's the...

• 16:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And when people say, "Where's the edge of the universe?" in that scenario, I'd say, "It has no edge." It's gotta have an edge! It has no edge. Okay, let me, where's the edge of Earth's surface? It has no edge.

• 16:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because it has, well, you can see the edge as going up.

• 16:53Chuck Nice?

  That's a different story.

• 16:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As Carl Sagan said.

• 16:55Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Earth's surface is the shoreline of the cosmic ocean.

• 17:00Chuck Nice?

  Mmm.

• 17:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The three-dimensional shoreline.

• 17:02Chuck Nice?

  There you go. Wait for the tsunami. It's gonna be something else. Whew!

• 17:10Chuck Nice?

  And this is Joe Boone, and Joe says...

• 17:14Chuck Nice?

  Kia ora, Dr. Tyson.

• 17:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 17:17Chuck Nice?

  I am from New Zealand and I have a question related to your explanation of time dilation. Specifically, that time does not exist at the speed of light. In science fiction, there are often cryopods for interstellar travel. But often those spacecraft, like the Nostrum from Alien, travel faster than light. Therefore, shouldn't there be no travel time from the point of view of the crew? The cryopod is only necessary for Ripley in the shuttle at the end of the film because it was just drifting in space. In reality, wouldn't the people of Earth need cryopods if they ever wanted to see a crew again in their lifetime? I'd love to have your take.

• 18:00Chuck Nice?

  Apologies if I've misunderstood time dilation.

• 18:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That, what's the person's name again?

• 18:06Chuck Nice?

  This is Joe Boone.

• 18:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Joe, you understand it perfectly.

• 18:10Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 18:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And everything you said is 100% accurate.

• 18:12Chuck Nice?

  Correct.

• 18:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you were traveling the speed of light, you don't need cryopods.

• 18:15Chuck Nice?

  Because there is no time. Well, there is time, just not from your frame of reference.

• 18:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You get there as soon as you left.

• 18:21Chuck Nice?

  As soon as you left.

• 18:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 18:22Chuck Nice?

  As a matter of fact, you wouldn't know that, you wouldn't know what happened.

• 18:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You, you don't need the cryopods. So it's a correct?

• 18:28Chuck Nice?

  Just like a photon is born and dies the moment that it hits whatever it's hitting.

• 18:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct. And ideally, my detector at my telescope.

• 18:35Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 18:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And not the buttocks of someone.

• 18:38Chuck Nice?

  And not the black behind a chuck nice laying on the beach. Like, ooh, look at these photons.

• 18:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just a photon trap. Goes through 30,000 years on the beginning of the galaxy.

• 18:49Chuck Nice?

  And then you just hear it coming straight for my butt like, no, no! Now where's the telescope? Where's Neo? Why doesn't this guy shave? Anyway.

• 19:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Shave your butt? What? I don't even want to, no, stop there.

• 19:09Chuck Nice?

  Okay, I'll shut up.

• 19:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, he's completely correct. I have nothing to add or subtract from that entire account.

• 19:14Chuck Nice?

  He did a great job.

• 19:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do a great job.

• 19:16Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. By the way, the reason you need a cryopod is because. Yeah, eh, for storytelling purposes.

• 19:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 19:22Chuck Nice?

  One, something always goes wrong with somebody's cryo.

• 19:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is how science fiction.

• 19:27Chuck Nice?

  That's.

• 19:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Stories work.

• 19:28Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 19:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They go into space and something goes wrong.

• 19:30Chuck Nice?

  Something goes wrong.

• 19:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm hmm.

• 19:31Chuck Nice?

  So you need the cryopod as a mechanism for storytelling.

• 19:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To kill people.

• 19:35Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 19:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To kill innocent people.

• 19:37Chuck Nice?

  So, anyway, uh.

• 19:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But one other thing.

• 19:40Chuck Nice?

  Uh huh.

• 19:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's, as far as we know, you cannot travel the speed of light if you have mass.

• 19:45Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 19:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's, that would put a kibosh on that whole idea.

• 19:49Chuck Nice?

  Right, yeah.

• 19:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But otherwise, yeah.

• 19:51Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 19:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm hmm. Well, in all fairness to that.

• 19:52Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 19:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can go ninety nine point nine nine nine nine percent speed of light.

• 19:56Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 19:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's essentially not age, but you still wouldn't need the cryopods.

• 19:59Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 19:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Actually.

• 20:00Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. So instead of getting there instantly, you get there just like, oh, man, I didn't even get a chance to get an in-flight meal.

• 20:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct.

• 20:07Chuck Nice?

  Damn.

• 20:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right.

• 20:08Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. All right. Elaine Burdew says this, hello, my name is Elaine Burdew from Montreal. Just a quick question. If a spoonful of neutron star material.

• 20:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm hmm.

• 20:21Chuck Nice?

  Can weigh as much as Mount Everest.

• 20:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Easily, yeah.

• 20:27Chuck Nice?

  Would Mount Everest come rushing out of the spoon if we brought it to Earth very quickly? Come on, lady, this ain't Jumanji.

• 20:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jumanji.

• 20:39Chuck Nice?

  This ain't Jumanji.

• 20:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 20:44Chuck Nice?

  It's densely packed. It's, it's.

• 20:49Chuck Nice?

  It's not a, it's not a sea monkey. It's not a friggin' sea monkey.

• 20:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a Chia Pet Greenberg.

• 20:58Chuck Nice?

  Nah, I'm joking.

• 20:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me, let me go neutron star city, but to, to open out the, the.

• 21:03Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 21:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The spoon.

• 21:04Chuck Nice?

  That's so funny.

• 21:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, uh, here's the way to think about that.

• 21:08Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 21:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The answer is no.

• 21:09Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 21:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As described, but here's the way to think about it. The energy would take to scale a mountain on Earth is the same as the energy it would take to step up onto a sheet of paper on a neutron star.

• 21:23Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 21:26Chuck Nice?

  That is rough.

• 21:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's rough.

• 21:28Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 21:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's rough. And so neutron star flattens everything.

• 21:31Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 21:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we think neutron stars might be the best spheres in the universe.

• 21:35Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 21:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because whatever's there just got flattened.

• 21:37Chuck Nice?

  Flattened out.

• 21:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And she wants the thing to pop back up as a mountain.

• 21:40Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 21:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When it comes here, but once you're flat, you don't go back.

• 21:43Chuck Nice?

  That's it. Well, look at that. Once you go flat, you never come back, baby.

• 21:50Chuck Nice?

  Emery says this, Dr. Tyson and Lord Nice, Emery from Florida here. I remember in high school, we would take 1.5 volt dry cell battery and hook the wires up to two inverted test tubes in boiling water connecting hydrogen and oxygen. Using the collection principle, wouldn't it be much more efficient collecting the hydrogen and oxygen off the cavitation of a propeller? Almost free on ocean cargo ships.

• 22:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh. Two things.

• 22:22Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 22:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  First.

• 22:23Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I did not know, is that true? I'm not denying it. I just never heard that you could, what the word is dissociate. So hydrogen and oxygen are very tightly bound. That's why water, to go anywhere, it's coming out of the sky and the ground. Water is water.

• 22:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. To break that molecule apart requires a huge investment of energy.

• 22:52Chuck Nice?

  Lot of energy.

• 22:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you know the evidence that it requires a lot of energy?

• 22:54Chuck Nice?

  Uh, my stove?

• 22:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 22:58Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 22:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You bring them back together.

• 23:00Chuck Nice?

  Oh, and they create a lot of energy.

• 23:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Create a lot of energy.

• 23:03Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 23:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's all the energy it took you to pull them apart.

• 23:05Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's why when we go to the moon and find water, we don't say, oh, that's just rocket fuel, which it is, but you have to put the energy in it to separate them to get that energy out as rocket fuel.

• 23:17Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 23:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not just like oil sitting in the ground for you.

• 23:20Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So I did not know if that's the case, that it would be at the tip of the fastest moving part of the propeller blade, that there's high enough energy there to break apart the oxygen and hydrogen. If there is, that's kind of cool.

• 23:36Chuck Nice?

  It is.

• 23:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And yeah, why not put a collection mechanism there?

• 23:39Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, but you're really after the hydrogen.

• 23:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because oxygen is, you get that for free anywhere in the atmosphere. So if it does that, that I'm intrigued by that and you, and you're right, there's propellers going across the ocean all the time.

• 23:55Chuck Nice?

  All the time.

• 23:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 23:56Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 23:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I can't comment on whether that's a real thing, but if it is a real thing, yes, do it for sure. But keep in mind, it requires energy.

• 24:06Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 24:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To make that happen.

• 24:07Chuck Nice?

  That's what I'm saying, yeah, yeah.

• 24:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But the propels already expending that energy.

• 24:11Chuck Nice?

  That is the energy that they're expending.

• 24:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 24:13Chuck Nice?

  It's a great thought experiment, but right now, shipping companies are reinvesting in sales.

• 24:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow.

• 24:21Chuck Nice?

  To.

• 24:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To help out the propeller?

• 24:23Chuck Nice?

  To help reduce the amount of fuel that they use.

• 24:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow.

• 24:28Chuck Nice?

  And there's a company, I believe it's called Cargill or something like that, they're making these giant sails that are controlled by computers and it cuts like the fuel consumption of a, of a tanker like by 50%.

• 24:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what's it getting its energy from?

• 24:46Chuck Nice?

  It's a sail.

• 24:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, people don't think about it, but, but it sails getting its energy from wind.

• 24:52Chuck Nice?

  From the wind.

• 24:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wind gets its energy from the unequal heating of Earth's surface.

• 24:56Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 24:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So air moves to where it's hot or not hot.

• 24:59Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And where the pressure is.

• 25:01Chuck Nice?

  So it's really solar power.

• 25:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's solar power.

• 25:03Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 25:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's, that's what I was getting at.

• 25:04Chuck Nice?

  Okay, gotcha.

• 25:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 25:06Chuck Nice?

  Everything's solar power and.

• 25:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Almost everything.

• 25:08Chuck Nice?

  Almost, almost everything's solar, and but, but here's, here's the kicker.

• 25:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 25:13Chuck Nice?

  Can't use that for energy. How are we gonna have a, how are we gonna have a solar power like, no, you gotta burn something, man. Come on. Anyway, just so, so infuriating.

• 25:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Drill, baby, drill.

• 25:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 25:30Chuck Nice?

  Drill, baby, drill, yeah, that's it. Anyway, that's what I told somebody, I said this last week to somebody when I was, where, oh, Florida, I was down in Florida. And I said, uh, so that big thing up there, it's 93 million miles away. It takes eight minutes at the speed of light for the light to actually get here. And yet you can lay on that beach and it will burn your ass. But yeah, you're saying that it wa, it's not effective, because they were saying like solar power doesn't work. It's, it's too expensive and it's not effective.

• 26:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's called brainwashing.

• 26:05Chuck Nice?

  You know what? There you go.

• 26:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's really that simple.

• 26:07Chuck Nice?

  I really didn't think of it until you just said that and I'm now I'm like, why did you argue with that idiot? Why would you argue with that dude, dude?

• 26:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If an argument lasts more than five minutes, then both sides are wrong.

• 26:20Chuck Nice?

  And so I'm clearly, I was right, because you know what? I'd said that to him and he was like, no, it doesn't work. When he said that, and I was like, okay.

• 26:31Chuck Nice?

  That was the end of the argument.

• 26:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 26:32Chuck Nice?

  I was like, okay.

• 26:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 26:35Chuck Nice?

  All right, there we go. This is Tom Izak, and Tom says, hi, I have a question about the many worlds theory of quantum physics. The question is, if every quantum measurement causes the universe to split into multiple universes, where does all the energy and matter come from to create the new universes? It just materializes? Out of what?

• 26:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I can't comment philosophically on this.

• 27:01Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 27:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I can comment from practical terms.

• 27:04Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 27:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The many worlds hypothesis is an attempt to make rational sense of something that's otherwise completely irrational.

• 27:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's to understand experiments in quantum physics. You invent a whole universe so that the other result goes into the other universe. That's the result that you didn't see, but might have seen but didn't see. And, okay, but I don't know what I can add or subtract from that. Because if you're going to create a whole universe, yeah, where does it get the energy from? I don't know.

• 27:39Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe they've thought about it? I don't know the answer.

• 27:44Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 27:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I'm perfectly happy to say, we forged our sensibilities, our senses and sensibilities, on the plains of the Serengeti, trying to not get eaten by lions. And there's nothing about our primate brain that prepares us for quantum physics. So when quantum physics doesn't make sense, I recite the opening line of my book.

• 28:10Chuck Nice?

  The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.

• 28:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you.

• 28:15Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 28:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you.

• 28:17Chuck Nice?

  Yep, alright.

• 28:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And by saying as many worlds, you're forcing it to make sense to you. But it brings out other issues as well.

• 28:23Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 28:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That go unresolved.

• 28:25Chuck Nice?

  Alright. So, this is, uh, Mile Milkovsky or Millie Milkovsky?

• 28:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, or? They didn't give you help?

• 28:35Chuck Nice?

  Millay. Alright, so, that's weird, okay.

• 28:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Millay, it sounds good, I like that.

• 28:40Chuck Nice?

  Millay, maybe we'll say, alright, so he says, "Hi Neil and Chuck, my name is Mile, no. Mil, oh no. He's, he gave it to me, Me? La? He gave it to me phonetically and I still can't say it.

• 28:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, that's bad.

• 28:57Chuck Nice?

  Oh, Jesus God.

• 28:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, that's bad.

• 28:58Chuck Nice?

  I.

• 28:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck?

• 28:59Chuck Nice?

  I know.

• 28:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can't pronounce the word nor the phonetic spelling of the word?

• 29:02Chuck Nice?

  No, I cannot. Meal, Millay, okay, Millay, I'm gonna go with that. Uh, "From Macedonia, Balkan, Europe." Okay. He, he says, "Neil, in your last book to Infiniti and Beyond in the chapter 'To the Edge', do you mean that when we talk about the expanding universe, we are referring to the observable universe expanding?"

• 29:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 29:23Chuck Nice?

  "I thought that when everyone talks about the universe expanding, it's about the total universe expanding."

• 29:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's also that.

• 29:30Chuck Nice?

  "Please explain what I'm doing wrong."

• 29:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, you're not doing anything wrong.

• 29:34Chuck Nice?

  No, you got it right on both accounts.

• 29:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Both counts. Uh, the expansion of the universe is the entire universe.

• 29:39Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 29:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But when we speak about it in practical terms and what your telescope can see, and we see, quote, "The edge of the universe with your telescope," that's the observable universe.

• 29:48Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 29:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But we, I, myself as well, have been a little sloppy there distinguishing the universe from the observed universe. And I get a little sloppy, uh, I ask forgiveness there. The whole thing expands. But the part that's expanding that matters to us is within our horizon.

• 30:06Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright.

• 30:07Chuck Nice?

  What we, okay. I hope, uh, Millay.

• 30:12Chuck Nice?

  Uh, you're right and you're right. There you go.

• 30:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's it, that's it.

• 30:15Chuck Nice?

  You're right and you're right, that's all there is to it.

• 30:42Chuck Nice?

  This is Trisha Lynch, who says, "Hi, Dr. Tyson and Lord Nice." This is Trisha Lynch from Beaverton, Oregon. What would happen if the Milky Way galaxy stopped rotating? Both suddenly or gradually?

• 30:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow.

• 30:56Chuck Nice?

  Thank you for everything that you do.

• 30:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think I drove by Beaverton, Oregon.

• 31:01Chuck Nice?

  Oh, really?

• 31:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Last year.

• 31:02Chuck Nice?

  Oh, okay.

• 31:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or earlier this year.

• 31:03Chuck Nice?

  Oh, is it that kind of place? You just gotta drive by?

• 31:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no.

• 31:07Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my God. What's that over there?

• 31:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, visiting Ashland, Oregon.

• 31:10Chuck Nice?

  Oh, okay.

• 31:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I think Beaverton is somewhere in the area there.

• 31:14Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 31:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I went to see the Shakespeare Festival there in Ashland, Oregon.

• 31:19Chuck Nice?

  Oh, wow. Look at that.

• 31:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just saying.

• 31:21Chuck Nice?

  And I guess Central Park was not good enough for you.

• 31:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Central Park, New York?

• 31:25Chuck Nice?

  I guess. You left Manhattan to go to Beaverton, Oregon? Because, you know, that's where the good Shakespeare is. Yeah. Forget Shakespeare and the park. Yeah, alright.

• 31:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, now, I forgot the question now. What was it?

• 31:43Chuck Nice?

  So, basically, she's saying if we stopped our little spiral gallery, galaxy from spiraling,

• 31:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 31:51Chuck Nice?

  Either very quickly, or slow down to a stop, what would happen?

• 31:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 31:59Chuck Nice?

  Uh-oh.

• 31:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a good one.

• 32:00Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 32:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. The fact that we are rotating

• 32:04Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  is the only thing

• 32:07Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  preventing us from falling into the central black hole.

• 32:11Chuck Nice?

  Wow. So, at the center of our galaxy is a black hole?

• 32:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes. And if we stopped rotating,

• 32:17Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 32:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  it means we're no longer orbiting

• 32:19Chuck Nice?

  That black hole.

• 32:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That black hole, and so we just descend.

• 32:23Chuck Nice?

  Damn.

• 32:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everything in the galaxy would fall into the black hole.

• 32:30Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 32:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everything. That's right. By the way, it's no different from saying, here's a, the space station, let's just stop it in its orbit.

• 32:40Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 32:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's it gonna happen?

• 32:41Chuck Nice?

  It's a

• 32:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a fall right out of the sky.

• 32:43Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 32:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yep.

• 32:44Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 32:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So be glad we have orbits.

• 32:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 32:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Even around black holes.

• 32:48Chuck Nice?

  So, oh wow. That's a tenement of physics.

• 32:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, it is.

• 32:52Chuck Nice?

  Spin stabilizes.

• 32:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, no, it's a different.

• 32:55Chuck Nice?

  No, I know, I know that's a physics here on Earth, but I'm saying.

• 32:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no, no, spin stabilizing is a different phenomenon.

• 33:00Chuck Nice?

  Altogether.

• 33:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yes. But, I, I, football is spin stabilized.

• 33:04Chuck Nice?

  That's a spin stabilized, but this spin is not stabilizing us?

• 33:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's

• 33:09Chuck Nice?

  What I'm doing is interpolating.

• 33:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's preventing us from falling into the middle. It's preventing that.

• 33:16Chuck Nice?

  It's just preventing.

• 33:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Our sideways motion, that's correct. And you can say, oh, look how perfectly the galaxy is

• 33:21Chuck Nice?

  See, you said it differently now, and that's the difference. It's not spin, it's sideways motion.

• 33:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, it's orbiting, it's an orbit.

• 33:27Chuck Nice?

  That's what an orbit is.

• 33:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 33:28Chuck Nice?

  Sideways motion.

• 33:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct.

• 33:30Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct.

• 33:30Chuck Nice?

  So, yeah. So we're falling around a black hole right now.

• 33:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And by the way, any matter that was there that didn't have the proper speed.

• 33:37Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It fell in already.

• 33:38Chuck Nice?

  Right. So we're actually falling, we just have sideways motion that keeps us from going in.

• 33:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct.

• 33:43Chuck Nice?

  There you go. I got you.

• 33:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got it.

• 33:44Chuck Nice?

  I got you.

• 33:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:45Chuck Nice?

  Okay, cool. Great question.

• 33:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if it slowly came to a stop.

• 33:50Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then slowly, the orbits would just sink in.

• 33:54Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Until it came to a stop, and then everything would just rapidly fall.

• 33:57Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 33:58Chuck Nice?

  Slow, yeah. So once a slow death. There you go. Monopoly World wants to know this. Uh, to whomsoever it may concern.

• 34:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 34:07Chuck Nice?

  All right, what do you think it just like? What do you think, this is Science Friday?

• 34:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 34:12Chuck Nice?

  I just put this question out to everybody. And whoever picks it up, please answer it. You know? I don't care who it is, it's still nice, Science Friday, Brian Greene, just to whom's

• 34:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 34:26Chuck Nice?

  All right. He says, please explain the Casimir force. I saw Harold Sonny White on Joe Rogan. Talk about it, but I need your version.

• 34:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, thank you. Thank you.

• 34:39Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 34:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So let me give what I think is my best account of that.

• 34:42Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 34:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't think I'm missing anything, but I might.

• 34:45Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 34:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay?

• 34:46Chuck Nice?

  I'm gonna be Joe Rogan now.

• 34:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 34:47Chuck Nice?

  Okay, here you go, go ahead.

• 34:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, you have two parallel plates of conducting material.

• 34:54Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 34:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Metal, let's say.

• 34:56Chuck Nice?

  Um, and what's metal?

• 34:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Metal conducts electricity.

• 35:01Chuck Nice?

  Okay, alright.

• 35:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm. One of the properties of metal is that it conducts electricity. But there's other properties that define it to the chemist.

• 35:08Chuck Nice?

  Okay, I only have three hours here, so let's talk about that.

• 35:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So.

• 35:14Chuck Nice?

  Alright, go ahead.

• 35:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Two plates, very flat metal plates.

• 35:18Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 35:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there's air in between them.

• 35:20Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 35:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, why don't I evacuate the air? So that there's no... Nothing going on.

• 35:27Chuck Nice?

  Nothing between them at all?

• 35:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nothing between them, okay? There's no vibrations from the mol... Okay, so there they are. Now, there's a vacuum between. And I just slowly bring them closer and closer together. There is a distance within which they will feel an attractive force and pull together.

• 35:45Chuck Nice?

  And pull together.

• 35:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As a Casimir force.

• 35:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 35:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think this is correct. Interpretation is, it is so close that the particles on either side of the vacuum we're now so close to each other that the distance between them rivals the wavelength of the particles in the parallel plates to begin with.

• 36:12Chuck Nice?

  Okay. The distance between them.

• 36:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Between the two plates.

• 36:16Chuck Nice?

  Rivals the wavelength.

• 36:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 36:18Chuck Nice?

  Of the particles.

• 36:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That comprise the plate.

• 36:22Chuck Nice?

  That comprise... Oh! Okay.

• 36:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so, so you're now contained within a wavelength of the subatomic material.

• 36:31Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that's frickin' amazing.

• 36:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's frickin', right. The fact that, that someone would even do that experiment and find that that's the result.

• 36:39Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 36:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's crazy.

• 36:41Chuck Nice?

  That is incredible.

• 36:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm. So, that's the Casimir effect. I, and it's a purely quantum mechanical phenomenon. It doesn't have an analog in classical physics.

• 36:52Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 36:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 36:54Chuck Nice?

  That is really, I gotta tell you, some of the creep freakiest crap right now as I'm thinking about right now. That is really freaky, man. Because there is nothing between them.

• 37:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 37:07Chuck Nice?

  But what you're saying is... The wavelength of the particle now becomes like a pressure.

• 37:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 37:16Chuck Nice?

  And that pressure of the wavelength of the particles itself, even though there's nothing between them.

• 37:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 37:22Chuck Nice?

  Creates this force that mim- mimics magnetic attraction, but it's not magnetic attraction. It's not. It's the two coming together.

• 37:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, I'm just thinking about this out loud. No, it is, it is.

• 37:36Chuck Nice?

  I love it.

• 37:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If I got something wrong in that explanation, it might not be the particles on the plates. It could be the wavelength of the virtual particles that exist in the vacuum.

• 37:49Chuck Nice?

  In the vacuum itself.

• 37:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's between them.

• 37:50Chuck Nice?

  Well, yeah.

• 37:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it's a similar phenomenon.

• 37:53Chuck Nice?

  It's the same principle no matter what. Whether you got that part right or not, it doesn't make a difference. We're talking about the phenomena itself.

• 37:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 37:59Chuck Nice?

  That's amazing.

• 38:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's just a whole new phenomenon.

• 38:03Chuck Nice?

  Gosh.

• 38:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I think it even won a Nobel Prize. So that's a testament to people asking questions and doing experiments.

• 38:08Chuck Nice?

  It really is.

• 38:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 38:10Chuck Nice?

  Wow. How the hell have I not heard about the damn Casimir?

• 38:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You didn't know about the Casimir effect?

• 38:14Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that's...

• 38:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:16Chuck Nice?

  That's but, I mean, it's brilliant. What a brilliant experiment. I love it.

• 38:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, yeah, so that's the Casimir effect.

• 38:22Chuck Nice?

  Wow, that's pretty cool, man.

• 38:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. What's next up?

• 38:25Chuck Nice?

  All right, this is Scott.

• 38:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Time for one or two more questions.

• 38:26Chuck Nice?

  All right, Scott W. Peterson says this, "Hey, gang, Scott from generic suburban Denver." Very nice, buddy. Very nice. Uh, on a recent, on a recent episode, Dr. Tyson corrected the movie idea about the density of objects in the asteroid belt.

• 38:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 38:43Chuck Nice?

  We just go through, don't have any constantly twists and turns to avoid things. Related, if the asteroid belt ever got it together, how large an object would it be? In other words, would we have another planet or would Neil?

• 39:07Chuck Nice?

  End up putting it in the dustbin like Pluto.

• 39:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  People still haven't gotten over Pluto.

• 39:12Chuck Nice?

  No, they, no, they never.

• 39:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, so a couple of things.

• 39:14Chuck Nice?

  Alright.

• 39:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you look at the distances between the planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, there's a huge gap between Mars and Jupiter.

• 39:25Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 39:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And people are saying, there should be a planet there.

• 39:27Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 39:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's look. This is in seventeen hundreds. Let's look. There's gotta be a planet there. And we discovered a planet there. We discovered Planet Ceres. And then Pallas, and Vesta, and Juno, the first four planets discovered in the asteroid belt. If you look up in eighteen oh five textbooks for how many planets there were in the solar system, it was Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Pallas, Vesta, Juno, and the fourth one. I forgot what. So they would count those planets until we said, wait a minute, they're all in the same place? And they're kinda different, and they're really small, they're kinda rocky. They're not planets. They're asteroids. They're star-like. Asteroid.

• 40:09Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 40:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Star-like.

• 40:10Chuck Nice?

  Star-like.

• 40:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because they're tiny dots of light, just the way stars are, except they have nothing to do with stars. People presumed there was a planet there, they found these fragments. And they were very excited about that. However, if you take all those fragments and glue them together into one object, you get something about five percent the size of the moon.

• 40:31Chuck Nice?

  Well, that ain't a planet. That's all I'm saying. That ain't even.

• 40:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was never a planet.

• 40:37Chuck Nice?

  That ain't even a moon. You kidding me?

• 40:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was never a planet.

• 40:41Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 40:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 40:43Chuck Nice?

  So.

• 40:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's an excellent question.

• 40:44Chuck Nice?

  It's, it's a great question. So it's basically just, it's, it's trash. It's just leftover trash from the creation of our solar system.

• 40:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 40:53Chuck Nice?

  That's all.

• 40:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, that's what, debris.

• 40:55Chuck Nice?

  Debris.

• 40:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 40:56Chuck Nice?

  Okay, excellent. Alright, this is Rye Guy, and Rye Guy says, "Greetings, Dr. Tyson and Lord Nice. Rye Guy here from Arlington, Virginia. Is it possible that space and time existed separately to one another prior to the Big Bang? And the Big Bang is the result of separate dimensions violently merging? Are there any signs we could theoretically look for to confirm that as our origin story? Is there anything that exists that would explicitly disprove that possibility?"

• 41:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So this, this, which possibility again?

• 41:32Chuck Nice?

  The possibility that space and time itself were separate.

• 41:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Were separate.

• 41:38Chuck Nice?

  The big bang itself fused them and now they're inexorably tied.

• 41:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But you have never noticed a time unless you were at a place.

• 41:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you've never been at a place without having noticed a time.

• 41:52Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So why should we believe they were ever separate? What would it even mean?

• 41:58Chuck Nice?

  For them to be separate.

• 41:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To be separate. It's not clear.

• 42:02Chuck Nice?

  Well, I think what he's getting at, because we've talked about this before. In a higher dimension, we're free from the constraints of time in this dimension.

• 42:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 42:16Chuck Nice?

  So what he's saying is, is it possible that this is some kind of derivative of that higher dimension where we were free, where we're free from time?

• 42:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 42:32Chuck Nice?

  And now we're bound by time.

• 42:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so I can't imagine a higher dimension where you can move freely in the time coordinate.

• 42:40Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's, that's what you're talking about.

• 42:42Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 42:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and so that's a good fact if we lived in a place such as that.

• 42:46Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 42:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, I gotta quote Einstein here.

• 42:49Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 42:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  "Time is defined to make motion look simple."

• 42:55Chuck Nice?

  Damn, Einstein was gangster. Time was defined to make-

• 43:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To make motion look simple.

• 43:02Chuck Nice?

  That is so profoundly simplistic that it's scary.

• 43:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, and the scary part is that it might be correct.

• 43:13Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 43:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I don't know what it would mean to have a universe without time.

• 43:20Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 43:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How do you have events that follow other events?

• 43:23Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 43:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is it just frozen there forever? I, I don't know.

• 43:28Chuck Nice?

  Interesting, you're right.

• 43:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 43:30Chuck Nice?

  Right, because the motion itself connotes time.

• 43:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct, correct, and so, yeah, I, I don't-

• 43:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm not, I'm not convinced.

• 43:41Chuck Nice?

  Right. This is Jaden Peters, who says, greetings from Utah. Jaden here, longtime listener, my question is a simple one, but simultaneously complex. We'll be the judge of that, Jaden. All right. He says, what advice would you give to a physics major currently in college, particularly considering today's political climate and the defunding of scientific programs? I have great apprehension of completing my degree in astrophysics. Thank you so much. Wow. I was joking when I said that, but that is a really serious question. That Jaden puts, uh, puts, puts forth for you.

• 44:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. So I, I'll give a cop out answer, then I'll give a real answer. My cop out answer is, and this too shall pass.

• 44:32Chuck Nice?

  Okay. Right. Science is gonna be here no matter what.

• 44:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's true.

• 44:35Chuck Nice?

  When we went through, there were dark ages.

• 44:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can say, I don't want to fund science, but somebody will.

• 44:41Chuck Nice?

  Somebody's gonna do it.

• 44:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Somebody's gonna, somebody's gonna play the tune, and you have to dance to that tune. Because whether or not it is we, there are other countries in the world that value science on a level that makes our investments look bad. So, yeah. So, but anyhow, I would say physics is foundational to, there is no understanding of biology without chemistry, and there's no understanding of chemistry without physics. I have, I have chemistry books from the 1800s. You open them up, it's like, well, add three parts pitch blend and two parts sulfur and you get, next page, add one part hydro.

• 45:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's, what's up? There's no, it's, it's, it's kitchen recipes for chemistry. Not until we understood the periodic table of elements. Why is it periodic? Why do elements in a column make the same kinds of molecules? What's going on? It's all explained with physics, all of it. And don't judge. Any future of anything based on what's going on in the present when you're still in school? Yeah, if it was 80 years ago, you say, "Oh, what's the good industry will be in 20 years?" I'll tell you that.

• 46:00Chuck Nice?

  Plastics, son. Plastics.

• 46:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I mean, back then, the things didn't move as fast. So, your whole career could be planned out and you'd know exactly what you'd be working on. Today, I mean, oh, my gosh.

• 46:13Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 46:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think we're good there.

• 46:15Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, man. That's a great, that's great advice. Science is gonna be here no matter what.

• 46:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, especially physics.

• 46:20Chuck Nice?

  And physics. So, stick with physics.

• 46:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just stick with it.

• 46:23Chuck Nice?

  And go for it.

• 46:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then, as a physicist, you understand matter, motion, and energy. And there's nothing going on in the world that doesn't tap at least one of those three.

• 46:32Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 46:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And most of it involves it all.

• 46:35Chuck Nice?

  Nice way. Nice way to end it.

• 46:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. Yeah, yeah, all right. Another installment. Galactic gumbo.

• 46:41Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, no, I don't move. Matter and emotion. That's right.

• 46:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are there any high pitched galactic gumbo voices?

• 46:51Chuck Nice?

  There can't be.

• 46:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There can't be?

• 46:53Chuck Nice?

  There's just, there's nobody in New Orleans who's walking around going, "Damn, now, can't be wrong." No. Nah, gotta be like this. I know what I'm saying. Don't move, Nicky. You're showing guarantee.

• 47:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. That's, that's all the time we have, Chuck.

• 47:14Chuck Nice?

  Oh, man, that was good, though. That was fun.

• 47:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was fun. That was fun. I'm glad. I'd never got through that many in my whole life.

• 47:20Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that's.

• 47:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. All right. This has been another installment of StarTalk Cosmic Queries Grab Bag Edition, or according to Chuck, Galactic Gumbo. Always good to have you, man.

• 47:31Chuck Nice?

  Always a pleasure.

• 47:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. Neil deGrasse Tyson. For StarTalk, as always, bidding you to keep looking up.