Cosmic Queries – Expanding Bubble Universes

Is time dilation just the data loading in a cosmic simulation? Neil deGrasse Tyson and Chuck Nice answer grab bag questions about saving the Sun, generation spaceships, bubble universes, 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?

  This was a grab bag and everybody keeps asking about black holes.

• 0:03Chuck Nice?

  It is.

• 0:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They got black hole on the brain.

• 0:05Chuck Nice?

  And none of them have pronounceable names.

• 0:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What Chuck Mangle names the way black holes mangle matter.

• 0:11Chuck Nice?

  Very nice.

• 0:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On StarTalk.

• 0:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 0:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk Cosmic Queries Edition. Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. Chuck, nice baby. How you doing?

• 0:38Chuck Nice?

  What's happening?

• 0:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. To grab bags, you stick your hand in the bag. You don't know what you're gonna get. It comes out and it's random.

• 0:44Chuck Nice?

  Right. Exactly. So, and you know, if it's a turd, it's your fault, people.

• 0:50Chuck Nice?

  If we pull out a turd, it's your fault. These are, this is all you. All right. This is Joshua from Portland, Oregon. He says, hey, Dr. Tyson, Lord nice. I'm Joshua from Portland, Oregon. I love the movie Sunshine, but the main plot.

• 1:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I haven't seen Sunshine.

• 1:05Chuck Nice?

  I haven't seen it either. He says, the main plot of reviving our sun by sending all of Earth's nuclear material to the sun. Seen more than farfetched and even a quite bit cheesy. Putting all the cheesy aspects of the movie aside, the movie did address what it would be like getting near our sun. My question is, if you even have, if you, if you've seen the movie, did the movie Sunshine get anything right when approaching close to the sun, scientifically speaking, of course, and if not, in your opinion, what would be the funnest or weirdest thing to know about being extremely close to our sun?

• 1:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So a couple of things. So first, I haven't seen the movie.

• 1:47Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 1:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But based on what has just been told, I have comments.

• 1:51Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 1:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Our nukes are.

• 1:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, we have fission nukes.

• 1:57Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 1:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which what we call A bombs.

• 1:59Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The sun has never been in the business of nuclear fission.

• 2:03Chuck Nice?

  It's fusion.

• 2:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fusion. It takes light elements into heavy elements.

• 2:06Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We do that, but we still don't know how to control it.

• 2:09Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we have uncontrolled nuclear fusion, otherwise known as A.

• 2:13Chuck Nice?

  Hydrogen bomb?

• 2:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bomb, yes.

• 2:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bomb.

• 2:18Chuck Nice?

  Bomb.

• 2:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're good at making uncontrolled nuclear fusion.

• 2:21Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the day we harness that and we get fusion reactors, that would be very inexpensive.

• 2:27Chuck Nice?

  It will be the, it will be the beginning of a new era.

• 2:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A new era, yes it would.

• 2:33Chuck Nice?

  It, cause all of our energy problems will be solved.

• 2:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Basically, that's correct.

• 2:37Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 2:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's correct. So, now you want to send our measly nukes into the sun and believe that's gonna make a difference?

• 2:46Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 2:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, just for context.

• 2:48Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 2:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Have you ever seen spots on the sun?

• 2:53Chuck Nice?

  I mean, in pictures.

• 2:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, you know, we call those.

• 2:56Chuck Nice?

  Sunspots.

• 2:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sunspots. I ask easy questions here, alright? A sunspot is typically slightly larger than Earth.

• 3:06Chuck Nice?

  Okay, well.

• 3:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the sun has blemishes.

• 3:09Chuck Nice?

  Bigger than our planet.

• 3:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Our planet.

• 3:11Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that's crazy.

• 3:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you wanna think that our nukes don't have anything to do with the sun?

• 3:15Chuck Nice?

  Right. Yeah, why not throw spitballs at it?

• 3:20Chuck Nice?

  Just as effective. Just as effective. Get a straw. And, yeah, just as effective.

• 3:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If I could do a Chuck voice, it would be, you'd fire the nuke into the sun and say, mm, this is delicious.

• 3:32Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 3:34Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, wow. Plus, isn't that different? I mean, you can't start fusion from an explosion, right?

• 3:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, the explosion is the fusion.

• 3:46Chuck Nice?

  That's what I'm saying.

• 3:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But you want to, can you trigger it?

• 3:47Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I'm saying, cause the idea would be to.

• 3:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, you can't trigger it because the outer layers of the sun are not hot enough to sustain it.

• 3:53Chuck Nice?

  Right, okay.

• 3:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But at the center of your bomb, it was.

• 3:56Chuck Nice?

  Right. Just like at the center of the sun.

• 3:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 3:59Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, cause the fusion is happening at the center of the sun.

• 4:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And not in the outer edges. So, here's how you prolong the life of the sun. And I gotta see the movie to see why they were doing it, if the sun was running out of fuel or whatever. There's an easy way to do this.

• 4:12Chuck Nice?

  Let me guess. Now, and I'm, this is me guessing, so shut up.

• 4:19Chuck Nice?

  All right. I'm gonna say, since the sun takes hydrogen and fuses it, so that it ends up with like this four proton that creates helium.

• 4:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, four nucleons.

• 4:32Chuck Nice?

  Four nucleons.

• 4:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's two protons, two neutrons.

• 4:35Chuck Nice?

  So the four nucleons that creates helium, what you wanna do is either send the sun more helium, or send it more hydrogen.

• 4:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why send it more helium?

• 4:45Chuck Nice?

  Well, because the next step after the helium is, that's where it keeps going, from there.

• 4:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but sun won't. Only the high mass stars are gonna take it.

• 4:53Chuck Nice?

  Oh, get out.

• 4:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, sun pretty much stops.

• 4:54Chuck Nice?

  So the sun stops?

• 4:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 4:56Chuck Nice?

  Oh, so I need to send the hydrogen then?

• 4:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, yes.

• 4:58Chuck Nice?

  I should just send more hydrogen?

• 4:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 5:01Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 5:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, where's it hot enough to fuse hydrogen into helium?

• 5:07Chuck Nice?

  In the center of the sun.

• 5:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the center, in the center, okay. So.

• 5:10Chuck Nice?

  So I gotta get to the center of the sun?

• 5:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if you run out of hydrogen.

• 5:14Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the center of the sun, where is there more hydrogen?

• 5:20Chuck Nice?

  Hmm, if I run out of hydrogen in the center of the sun?

• 5:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 5:24Chuck Nice?

  Oh, maybe I can pull it in from just outside the center of the sun?

• 5:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you.

• 5:28Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From everywhere else.

• 5:29Chuck Nice?

  Everywhere in the sun. Just pull it back in.

• 5:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 5:32Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 5:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, there's what's called convection.

• 5:36Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, if you can drive a convection deep inside the sun, bring fresh hydrogen down into the core, pull out the helium, break down, then.

• 5:47Chuck Nice?

  You'll jumpstart the fusion.

• 5:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can jumpstart the fusion, and the sun, when it dies, it only used, I forgot the number, a few percent of its total hydrogen available?

• 5:56Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 5:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The sun could live for trillions of years if you can find a way.

• 6:01Chuck Nice?

  Find a way to recycle it.

• 6:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't have to find hydrogen from somewhere else?

• 6:03Chuck Nice?

  No, just.

• 6:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's sitting there in the sun, it's all. Just get away to, to get it like a conveyor belt.

• 6:08Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 6:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Send it down into the core.

• 6:10Chuck Nice?

  And now all you have to do is do that without burning up before you get there.

• 6:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so now, how do you get close to the sun?

• 6:15Chuck Nice?

  Well, first you give it a call, and you're like, hey, how you doing?

• 6:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You need a shield.

• 6:20Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 6:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because, what temperature is it in space? Because right now, you have a thermometer.

• 6:27Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's reading the temperature of what?

• 6:29Chuck Nice?

  Whatever the room temperature is. You mean here on Earth?

• 6:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Specifically.

• 6:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If I have a thermometer here and you, it says seventy-two degrees.

• 6:36Chuck Nice?

  It's seventy-two degrees at that thermometer.

• 6:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What is seventy-two degrees?

• 6:41Chuck Nice?

  Um, the temperature of the atmosphere, I don't know.

• 6:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The air.

• 6:46Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, the atmosphere, okay.

• 6:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, you said it's the temperature of the room.

• 6:49Chuck Nice?

  Right, no.

• 6:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is the temperature of the air around the thermometer, in that spot.

• 6:52Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 6:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's the air.

• 6:53Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 6:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 6:54Chuck Nice?

  Right there.

• 6:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 6:56Chuck Nice?

  Cause it may not be seventy-two degrees over there.

• 6:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, if I come over here and I'm near that lamp.

• 7:01Chuck Nice?

  Oh, it's gonna be a little warmer.

• 7:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause that's an old-fashioned bulb.

• 7:03Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 7:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 7:05Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 7:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's gonna be a little warmer, uh, because that's heating the air over there.

• 7:09Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 7:10Chuck Nice?

  You go by the window, it's gonna be a little cooler.

• 7:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A little cooler, okay, over there.

• 7:12Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you're in space, there is no air.

• 7:17Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what the hell temperature are you measuring?

• 7:21Chuck Nice?

  Um, you gotta measure the temperature of the nothingness of space.

• 7:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct, and space is not entirely nothing.

• 7:28Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There is radiative energy moving through space.

• 7:33Chuck Nice?

  Correct, right.

• 7:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Photons.

• 7:34Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So.

• 7:36Chuck Nice?

  So it's got a little bit of a temperature.

• 7:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so it'll get a temperature if the thermometer is facing the sun.

• 7:43Chuck Nice?

  Right, cause that's the radiative heat coming from the sun.

• 7:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct.

• 7:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not the air, it's just photons hitting. Now, the other side of the thermometer, well, if you had two thermometers that split, so one is facing that way, one is facing this way, that's facing deep space.

• 7:57Chuck Nice?

  And that's just like, it's cold. Why is it so cold? Man, I'm burning up over here.

• 8:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Depending on your distance from the sun.

• 8:04Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That'll be the intensity of the rays, it'll be hundreds of degrees on the other side, okay? And as you get closer to the sun, the, the radiative flux is the one, the official term, gets higher and higher and higher, that temperature will continue to go up.

• 8:20Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As long as you're shielded and you're looking out on the other side, that temperature's gonna stay the temperature of deep space, which is like the microwave background hitting it, which is there at all times, or some nearby stars if they happen to be there. So, so temperature is a, is a funny thing. Did we do an explainer on temperature? I thought we did.

• 8:40Chuck Nice?

  We did. We did an explainer on temperature.

• 8:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, okay, and you put on your lipstick?

• 8:44Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 8:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, the, the, supple lip.

• 8:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Can't do StarTalk with

• 8:50Chuck Nice?

  You can't.

• 8:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With crack

• 8:51Chuck Nice?

  I don't want the people talking about me.

• 8:54Chuck Nice?

  You know, right now, if I had ashy lips, there's some black people out there like, what is wrong with this? I cannot believe this brother on TV with ashy lips. His mother didn't, didn't, he didn't know his mother told him.

• 9:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who raised you?

• 9:06Chuck Nice?

  Who raised you? Really?

• 9:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who's a comedian? That's his, his line? Who, who raised you?

• 9:12Chuck Nice?

  Who raised you?

• 9:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One of the comedians. Uh, so if you want to get close to the sun.

• 9:17Chuck Nice?

  In this shield.

• 9:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, well, but the shield will be too cold for you. The other side will be too hot. So what you really want to do is make a rotisserie.

• 9:30Chuck Nice?

  Oh, I'm cooking evenly. Tell you right now, if you want to, somebody baste me, baste me, please.

• 9:38Chuck Nice?

  Get the butter.

• 9:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you get pretty close.

• 9:40Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 9:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you're on a rotisserie.

• 9:42Chuck Nice?

  You're on a rotisserie.

• 9:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. But there's a point where that's, you'll just burn.

• 9:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. And there's a point where that shield, wait a minute, this photon's hitting that shield.

• 9:53Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe it's very reflective, so it's not absorbing any, but it's not perfectly reflective. Some are going to get absorbed and that shield temperature is going to begin to rise. And eventually it will radiate infrared back to the other side of the thermometer.

• 10:10Chuck Nice?

  And burn you alive.

• 10:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, yeah, the sun, and then you reach a point where it is so hot, everything vaporizes.

• 10:17Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you know what has the highest melting point?

• 10:21Chuck Nice?

  Iron?

• 10:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 10:23Chuck Nice?

  I thought, what, what is it?

• 10:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no.

• 10:24Chuck Nice?

  What has the highest?

• 10:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You'd never guess.

• 10:26Chuck Nice?

  I'll never guess.

• 10:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Carbon.

• 10:28Chuck Nice?

  What?

• 10:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ain't that something?

• 10:30Chuck Nice?

  Wait a minute, but in the

• 10:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Have you ever tried to melt a diamond?

• 10:33Chuck Nice?

  Oh, well, there you have it.

• 10:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, put that on your stove and see what happens.

• 10:37Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 10:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Carbon.

• 10:40Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 10:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause the highest melting point. It's like 5,000 degree. I mean, it's, it's

• 10:45Chuck Nice?

  Insanely high.

• 10:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Insanely high. And that, so generally, if you're gonna go near the sun, you want carbon.

• 10:51Chuck Nice?

  We need a diamond ship.

• 10:54Chuck Nice?

  And it have to be piloted by a hip hop star.

• 10:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or Elizabeth Taylor, or what somebody would like. Or Carol Channing. Yes.

• 11:02Chuck Nice?

  Ice. There you go.

• 11:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. So, so I have to go see the movie now. Uh, thanks for that prompting. And maybe I can add more to that commentary. But, uh, otherwise, yeah, it'll vaporize you. No matter what.

• 11:16Chuck Nice?

  All right. Very cool. Um, sunshine. I haven't heard of it. So, uh, Bill Road Rodwalt. Rodwalt, uh, from Oregon, Ohio. Oregon, Ohio? Okay. He says, if we were to find a habitable planet within a few dozen light years of Earth, and we had the technology to send a generational ship to this planet, how likely do you think it would be that the first mission launch would be the first to arrive? It seems to me that improvements in propulsion technology might be such that technological advances may lead to later missions overtaking the earlier ones. At what stellar distances do you think this would become a practical consideration

• 12:01Chuck Nice?

  as to when to launch a mission?

• 12:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love that because, you know, what he's saying is that you'd launch a mission today with your modern technology and in 50 years, that's some old technology. And then the next ship just passes you. Waves to you. It said, sorry about that.

• 12:19Chuck Nice?

  And it's like you started out in a covered wagon and then all of a sudden a Tesla is going by you. Like, what the hell?

• 12:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, so that's a brilliant question. And I think

• 12:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  if we're gonna be passed, it'd be because we have warp drives. If you have warp drives, you can take a warp drive to the location of the ship and bring everybody aboard and put them on the warp drive too.

• 12:42Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think in practice, that's how we would do it.

• 12:44Chuck Nice?

  You wouldn't leave them like, "See you. Good luck." No, you dock, you pick the people up.

• 12:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, dock and pick them up. You put them on the warp drive. And it would have nothing to do with the propulsion. I don't see that as real.

• 13:00Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 13:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Even if we found a way to, and we reached like 20% the speed of light.

• 13:04Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 13:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's say. The nearest star to the sun is the Alpha Centauri system.

• 13:10Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 13:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Four light years away.

• 13:12Chuck Nice?

  Four light years away.

• 13:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So how long would that take?

• 13:14Chuck Nice?

  20%, so that's five years, four year, 20 years.

• 13:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  20 years, very good math.

• 13:21Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 13:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Good math.

• 13:23Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 13:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Loving it.

• 13:25Chuck Nice?

  Every once in a while.

• 13:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Every.

• 13:27Chuck Nice?

  Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

• 13:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What'd you call it? You have a comedy special, you go, "Just smart enough."

• 13:32Chuck Nice?

  That's my comedy special. Chuck Nice, "Just smart enough."

• 13:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You just got that one. So would you go on a trip for 20 years to a planet that might host you? I mean, so here's what I'd rather do. Whatever was the problem with Earth that you're trying to escape.

• 13:47Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, fix it.

• 13:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just fix it.

• 13:49Chuck Nice?

  How about that?

• 13:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just saying, fix it.

• 13:51Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 13:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And by the way, if that other planet is habitable, it means the atmosphere has oxygen in it.

• 13:56Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 13:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What do you think made the oxygen?

• 13:58Chuck Nice?

  Right, yeah.

• 13:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Life.

• 14:00Chuck Nice?

  Course, that's right.

• 14:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But you get that, you don't know where it came from. You don't know.

• 14:05Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, believe me, it's gonna eat you.

• 14:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is it all like, what, it's all Venus flytraps?

• 14:09Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know?

• 14:11Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Yeah, by the way, the fix it part is really the issue. It's like, it's like hiring a plumber. He's like, "Well, I found your problem. You gonna need a new house." It's like, "What? What kind of plumber are you?" Like, "No." Yeah, so. What a great question, though.

• 14:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, that's excellent. So I don't, so it's a great question, but I don't see that as how that's gonna play out, right? This is a moral question, generationalship.

• 14:38Chuck Nice?

  A life of isolation on a mission that they did not choose.

• 14:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct.

• 14:43Chuck Nice?

  But let's be honest, every kid's like, "I didn't ask for me, I didn't ask for me, I didn't ask for me, boy."

• 14:51Chuck Nice?

  Shut your ass up, man. Get over there to your station and do what you're supposed to do, okay? Because we gotta get to this planet.

• 15:12Speaker 02

  I'm Nicholas Costella, and I'm a proud supporter of StarTalk on Patreon. This is StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 15:31Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. This is Salvatore Mammana. Okay, from Brooklyn.

• 15:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Salvatore what?

• 15:39Chuck Nice?

  Mammana.

• 15:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Spell it.

• 15:41Chuck Nice?

  M-A-M-M-A-N-A. Mammana.

• 15:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is it Mammana?

• 15:47Chuck Nice?

  Mammana.

• 15:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. Salvatore Mammana.

• 15:49Chuck Nice?

  Salvatore Mammana.

• 15:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 15:51Chuck Nice?

  He says, "Dear StarTalk."

• 15:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From Brooklyn.

• 15:53Chuck Nice?

  From Brooklyn. "Yo, Brooklyn born and raised."

• 15:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Brooklyn in the house.

• 15:57Chuck Nice?

  "I hope you are well. What do you picture in your head when you think of the Big Bang? I've heard it's not quite like the image of a tiny dot exploding in all directions. If you had to make a diorama for a seven-year-old, what would the Big Bang look like? And what would yours be?"

• 16:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, I'm stuck on the explosion model.

• 16:15Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, but if you do that, it's exploding within three-dimensional space. But this is a sort of a four-dimensional with time as one of the dimensions. So I picture an inflated balloon. That's because that's worked for me.

• 16:32Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You gotta get rid of one of the dimensions. So our three spatial dimensions are flattened into the surface of a balloon.

• 16:37Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the time dimension is still there, emanating from the start of the balloon, where it's small.

• 16:42Chuck Nice?

  To any surface point on the balloon.

• 16:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And every larger surface point is later in time.

• 16:46Chuck Nice?

  Later in time, right.

• 16:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 16:47Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 16:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's how I got, that's how I do it.

• 16:49Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 16:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if you want to do it with your seven-year-old son, you get a nice, big, old, one of these... When you get the really big, I have to go to a party store to get like the biggest balloons.

• 16:59Chuck Nice?

  Giant balloons.

• 16:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Giant balloon. And on the balloon, just draw galaxies on it.

• 17:02Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 17:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then inflate it, draw galaxies, and then deflate it. And as you inflate it back, you'll see the galaxies expand.

• 17:10Chuck Nice?

  Spread apart. That's cool.

• 17:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 17:12Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that's the best way to do it.

• 17:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think so.

• 17:13Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I like it. All right. Well, thanks Salvatore. That's a great, uh, do it with your kid, man. And, uh, and tell him to give us credit for that A, because we know what you're doing.

• 17:26Chuck Nice?

  All right, this is, um, Sotortis DeWitt from Belgium. And Sotori says, "Hello, Dr. Tyson and Lord Nice. My name is Sotori DeWitt from Belgium. The name is Greek, but not me. Uh, as you mentioned before, space gets compressed near mass and time at faster speed slows down. This I can imagine, but if space and time are connected, does that mean I would get smaller as I go faster? If so, I would be infinitely small at the speed of light. Would I then become light? Is maybe all light matter, but infinitely small and fast?"

• 18:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My boy's got some angst there.

• 18:13Chuck Nice?

  I'm telling you right now. So first of all, Sotori, it's gonna be okay.

• 18:21Chuck Nice?

  That's number one.

• 18:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That do some panic in that question, wasn't there?

• 18:24Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, it's gonna be all right, buddy.

• 18:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The world will be fine.

• 18:29Chuck Nice?

  The world's gonna be all right.

• 18:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. So time slows down for you, as others would observe it, but you don't shrink.

• 18:36Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 18:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Your dimensions will be measured to shrink front to back.

• 18:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you'll get sort of thinner, front to back, as people measure your speed increasing. All right, they'll also measure your mass increase. They'll measure your time slowdown. We have three equations that tracks all three of those. Okay? All that happens in a black hole, you're gonna shrink only because it's compressing you down to a smaller point in space. So get, deal with it. I mean, that's, that's, there's not a way around that. And you're gonna be stretched head to toe from tidal forces, but you're gonna be squished shoulder to shoulder by the ever shrinking fabric of space and time.

• 19:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Until you descend into that abyss as a stream of atoms.

• 19:26Chuck Nice?

  Mm hmm.

• 19:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Have a nice day.

• 19:28Chuck Nice?

  There you go. Tell your kids that at bedtime.

• 19:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, yeah, and Einstein concluded matter can never go at the speed of light.

• 19:38Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 19:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because you have zero volume and infinite mass.

• 19:40Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 19:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And time would stop.

• 19:42Chuck Nice?

  That was right.

• 19:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if you're going to travel at the speed of light, you have to have zero mass like a photon.

• 19:45Chuck Nice?

  Like a photon.

• 19:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 19:47Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 19:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they have zero mass, they travel at the speed of light, and they have zero time, which we talked about.

• 19:53Chuck Nice?

  Right, well, photon only knows time the moment it is manifested by something that it hits.

• 20:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, so the photon is created in an atom.

• 20:03Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 20:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is absorbed wherever it was headed instantly.

• 20:06Chuck Nice?

  Instantly, to it.

• 20:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To it.

• 20:08Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 20:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To it.

• 20:09Chuck Nice?

  To it.

• 20:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 20:10Chuck Nice?

  Everybody else gets to see it.

• 20:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 20:12Chuck Nice?

  Do go its path.

• 20:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm hmm.

• 20:13Chuck Nice?

  Um, that's funny. And what I love is every time I'm on the beach, I always pull my, my swim trunks down just a little bit. Uh, so that whatever photons land on my ass, I'm like, sorry, you were born in the sun and you landed on my ass. In one instant.

• 20:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You did.

• 20:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is so mean of you to the photon. No, I had similar thoughts, but not so crude.

• 20:42Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 20:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I, my thesis data, my, my PhD thesis data, my thesis is right there. Okay. Can pull, pull, can we send the black one, the black one right there?

• 20:51Chuck Nice?

  This one, oh god. Jesus.

• 20:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 20:54Chuck Nice?

  Look at that.

• 20:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, a study of the abundance distributions along the minor axis of the galactic bulge. Okay, so, so this, it's single sided, so don't, don't think it's.

• 21:05Chuck Nice?

  Still, that's.

• 21:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, point is the galactic bulge is best viewed from Chile.

• 21:10Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 21:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, well, a- anywhere in the southern hemisphere.

• 21:13Chuck Nice?

  Mm hmm.

• 21:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I went to Chile many times to get data for this thesis. Here's the thing. Uh, the telescope is at the top of a mountain, which has a tiny coastal town called La Serena at the base of the mountain.

• 21:28Chuck Nice?

  Mm hmm.

• 21:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  La Serena has beaches. And the people would be laying out on the beach with bikinis on and things like that. And I would go to the mountain with detectors.

• 21:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To see photons that left the center of the galaxy thirty thousand years ago, some miss Earth and continue into space. Others hit Earth, maybe the countryside. Some of them hit the buttocks of people on the beach. Like your buttocks that you exposed.

• 22:00Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 22:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But some of them land on my detector, empowering me to deduce the nature of the galactic center. So to me, those are noble photons.

• 22:11Chuck Nice?

  Oh, you gave your photons purpose. My photons gave their life for my black ass.

• 22:22Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go.

• 22:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I can hear the photons.

• 22:27Chuck Nice?

  What is this? Where did I just win?

• 22:32Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go.

• 22:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 22:35Chuck Nice?

  This is Bodnar.

• 22:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Actually, just to be precise, if it were like high-energy photons, they were absorbed by your melanin.

• 22:42Chuck Nice?

  Oh, wow.

• 22:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 22:43Chuck Nice?

  Well, they were lucky then.

• 22:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It would just grab it right out.

• 22:45Chuck Nice?

  Right out, yes.

• 22:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Snatch it right out of there.

• 22:47Chuck Nice?

  That's what melanin is for.

• 22:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what it's for.

• 22:49Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. All right, this is Bodnar Martin Janos, who says, from Budapest.

• 22:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can't possibly pronounce any of that correctly.

• 22:56Chuck Nice?

  No, Bodnar Martin Janos.

• 22:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because he's tried to add a little.

• 23:00Chuck Nice?

  I'm not trying to add anything to that.

• 23:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 23:02Chuck Nice?

  Okay. He says, "I'm trying to solve a dilemma I've been thinking about these past couple of days. Suppose I'm traveling in my super advanced spaceship towards a supermassive black hole at the speed of light with the goal of doing gravitational slingshot maneuver at the black hole. I'm planning to do this speeding by my, speeding my spaceship close to the event horizon of the black hole. Questions. Is this even possible? If yes, how would I experience the event? Two, using strong gravitational pull of the black hole and the slingshot maneuver, could my supersonic spaceship speed beyond light speed?"

• 23:38Chuck Nice?

  I'm a 13 year old student aspiring to be an astro or theoretical physicist.

• 23:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cool.

• 23:44Chuck Nice?

  Good for you.

• 23:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In Budapest.

• 23:45Chuck Nice?

  In Budapest, yes.

• 23:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, didn't we do an explainer?

• 23:48Chuck Nice?

  We did, on slingshots.

• 23:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On slingshots?

• 23:50Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 23:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 23:52Chuck Nice?

  And it's, it's really cool.

• 23:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, but it's not what you think it is?

• 23:55Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 23:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, so.

• 23:56Chuck Nice?

  You know why? Cause everybody thinks of slingshot as this.

• 23:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:00Chuck Nice?

  That the two prongs that you pull, you put a projectile, you pull it back and then you release it and then the projectile just goes, taking all the energy of the recoil from the pullback, propelling it forward, but the way you explain slingshots, gravitational slingshots, it's not really a slingshot.

• 24:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not at all.

• 24:22Chuck Nice?

  It's not really a slingshot.

• 24:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, here's the problem. If you fall towards the black hole but not in it, you ain't getting out of the way. The acceleration of the spacecraft falling into the black hole is exactly cancelled by you trying to climb out the other side.

• 24:36Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 24:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, when you're done with this exercise, you're not traveling any faster or slower than you were before. The slingshot works because you come in from behind an orbiting planet.

• 24:48Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you go, the planet pulls you in and the act of pulling you in has you catch up with it in its orbit.

• 24:56Chuck Nice?

  In its orbit.

• 24:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, there's an extra speed that's outside of the symmetrical fall in, climb out of the gravity.

• 25:03Chuck Nice?

  Which is the planet itself dragging you along in its orbit.

• 25:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct.

• 25:07Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you just ate some of the orbital energy of the planet by, you stole it.

• 25:12Chuck Nice?

  You stole it.

• 25:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You stole it.

• 25:13Chuck Nice?

  By tagging up, you're a stowaway.

• 25:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're a stowaway.

• 25:17Chuck Nice?

  We're a gravitational stowaway.

• 25:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, you, that's not gonna happen.

• 25:20Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, A. B, if it's a supermassive black hole, you can easily fall into it and not be ripped apart.

• 25:26Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because the, the event horizon is so.

• 25:29Chuck Nice?

  So big.

• 25:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's so big that the tidal forces are not strong.

• 25:33Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So.

• 25:34Chuck Nice?

  So, you get in and now you're just falling inside of the black hole?

• 25:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're falling into, within the event horizon of the black hole and.

• 25:43Chuck Nice?

  And the closer you get to the center, that's when.

• 25:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's when things start getting interesting.

• 25:46Chuck Nice?

  That's when the tidal forces start messing you up. You all up.

• 25:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct.

• 25:49Chuck Nice?

  But in the beginning, you're just like, oh, well, this ain't bad at all.

• 25:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not bad at all. And it's because your height, if he's in thirteen, maybe he's five feet tall. Your five feet relative to the radius of the black hole is small.

• 26:00Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 26:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whereas as you get closer to the center, your five feet, it could be my, only another five feet to the center of the black hole. So the tidal forces will become greatly magnified under those situations.

• 26:11Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha. Wow.

• 26:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So.

• 26:14Chuck Nice?

  But it's great to see a thirteen year old thinking like this.

• 26:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. Oh, yeah.

• 26:17Chuck Nice?

  How cool.

• 26:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 26:18Chuck Nice?

  How cool. Well, good luck to you, man. And, uh, you know, invite us to your graduation. I mean, we're not coming, but invite us. Say, you're in Budapest. Ain't nobody who's paying that kind of money will wish you well. But we'd like to know when you graduate.

• 26:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, wait. Let me back up. So if I'm near the speed of light and I do an actual slingshot maneuver.

• 26:40Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 26:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 26:41Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 26:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Around a planet, could I be slingshot to go faster than the light? The answer is no.

• 26:46Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 26:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, because you're never, you're not going the speed of light.

• 26:50Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 26:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because you're made of material substance, which can't go the speed of light.

• 26:54Chuck Nice?

  And you're not, you're, it's not like the slingshot gives you all the energy and then you just keep it and keep going. You gotta climb out of the fall that you would, the descent that you made.

• 27:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that's exactly symmetric with it. So what would happen is, what happened was, uh, let's say going ninety-five percent the speed of light. And you were to get a slingshot, what effect would it have? It would add energy to your trajectory. And there's a point where adding energy is not simply increasing your speed. There are other ways to boost the energy of the system. He will end up going faster, but he won't catapult past the speed of light. That's the way to think about it.

• 27:35Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 27:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 27:36Chuck Nice?

  All right. Here we go. This is Writer's Eye from Ohio.

• 27:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Writer, as in W R I T.

• 27:43Chuck Nice?

  Right. Writer's Eye.

• 27:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  E Y E.

• 27:45Chuck Nice?

  E Y E. So does the fact of us living in an expanding universe contradict the premise of living in the black hole? Since we know that black holes evaporate and there is a limit upon which all matter can be compacted. We wouldn't notice any intake of energy or matter from the waves it would cause. So not since the Big Bang has any more matter, energy been introduced. Can we assume the universe in a black hole would not be expanding? Hoping to get an answer lost in illiteracy in Ohio. That's very funny. Yeah.

• 28:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I don't have a good answer for that. If we were in a black hole and the black holes are eating things in its vicinity.

• 28:30Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 28:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You would see material coming in, just as he suggested. But not all black holes are actively eating.

• 28:37Chuck Nice?

  True.

• 28:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Quasars are galactic center phenomenon where the black hole is dining on gas, stars and gases that have wandered too close and it's emitting energy in the process. There's a distance within which quasars no longer are there. They shut off. We think they just completely ate everything in their environment. And so a black hole, it's not a requirement. It's not a prerequisite that a black hole is always eating things and you would then see things coming in through your event horizon. So don't use that as a reason for not embracing the possibility that we are in a black hole.

• 29:15Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 29:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, uh, yeah, and evaporation, uh, supermassive black holes, forget black holes the size of our universe, supermassive black holes take 10 to the 100 years to evaporate.

• 29:27Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 29:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's just don't hold your breath.

• 29:30Chuck Nice?

  Lot of time, nothing to worry about.

• 29:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 29:32Chuck Nice?

  So very cool. All right, but nice, nice thought experiment. Here we go. This is Rabayaga, Robert Dudok from Flint, Michigan. He said, I read a paper validating the subliminal, subliminal, subliminal warp drive as a more realistic possibility than the Alcubierre FTL drive.

• 29:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  FTL is faster than light.

• 29:58Chuck Nice?

  Faster than light. Constant Velocity Physical Warp Drive Solution. The one thing that was not even hinted at on the paper was how one might accelerate the warp bubble. I would appreciate any thoughts on acceleration and how fast the subluminal drive might eventually go hypothetically, and thank you.

• 30:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I've got to do some homework on that. The, a couple of things. A warp drive, there's no prerequisite that it goes faster than light.

• 30:26Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You just warp space and you go, but if you can go faster than light,

• 30:32Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  then why not?

• 30:33Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like, what are you do, what are you doing?

• 30:35Chuck Nice?

  And if you were to go faster than light, this would be the only way you could do it, because you would have to compress the space, because you can't go faster through the space

• 30:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Through the space.

• 30:41Chuck Nice?

  than light.

• 30:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're stepping through basically the, um, compressed space.

• 30:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On the Alcubierre drive.

• 30:49Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was a Mexican physicist who came up with this. And so, I don't know, uh, I don't know what the problem is. Because the Alcubierre drive is a way to go faster than light, but there's nothing in principle preventing you from just dialing it down.

• 31:10Chuck Nice?

  Dialing it down.

• 31:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That just goes slower.

• 31:11Chuck Nice?

  Right, exactly.

• 31:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? I mean, your car probably goes 130 miles an hour.

• 31:15Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm. Guys, take it easy. You know, um, this part of the galaxy is a speed trap.

• 31:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, red light cameras. So, so I, I don't see that as a, as a sticking point.

• 31:29Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 31:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At all.

• 31:30Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 31:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you just dial, dial it down.

• 31:32Chuck Nice?

  You just dial it down, right.

• 31:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 31:33Chuck Nice?

  And by the one, by the way, even in Star Trek, they have warp one through nine.

• 31:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but warp factor one is the speed of light.

• 31:39Chuck Nice?

  That is the speed of light.

• 31:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, but I never hear them say warp, well, it's impulse power or something.

• 31:43Chuck Nice?

  Impulse power is less than light speed.

• 31:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Less than light, correct.

• 31:46Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. So, alright, well, there you go. So you just fly on impulse, baby.

• 32:16Chuck Nice?

  All right, this is Tyrone Morgan from Hackensack, New Jersey. Twicey, he says, hello, Dr. Tyson, Lord nice. Tyrone Morgan from Hackensack, New Jersey. Love your show and here are my inquiries. What if the graviton was not quantum? What if the spacetime that we live in is the gravitational field and black holes are the graviton in a higher dimension? Black holes having infinite mass at the singularity might be similar to photons having no mass in the electromagnetic field. Holy moly, bro, you speak some shit.

• 32:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  People, people.

• 32:49Chuck Nice?

  Wow. What would a photon look like to someone whose spacetime was the electromagnetic field? I think it's very difficult to see the full picture when you're inside of it. Thank you for everyone for the science that you do, curiosity, the passion and your discovery.

• 33:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know if I can help this man.

• 33:05Chuck Nice?

  This is a wild question.

• 33:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's got it bad.

• 33:08Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, man.

• 33:10Chuck Nice?

  The graviton.

• 33:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so.

• 33:13Chuck Nice?

  The gravitational field and black holes in a higher dimension.

• 33:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just watch, just watch.

• 33:16Chuck Nice?

  So wild.

• 33:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, there's electromagnetic force.

• 33:21Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is propagated by the photon.

• 33:23Chuck Nice?

  Right, okay.

• 33:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They go hand in hand. And a photon comes in waves as well.

• 33:28Chuck Nice?

  Of course.

• 33:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We have gravitation. Einstein said it's the curvature of space and time, but if it's going to be a force and we're going to describe it in a quantum way, there ought to be a particle that propagates the gravitational field.

• 33:45Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we already have the wave that propagates it.

• 33:49Chuck Nice?

  We've seen that.

• 33:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's called the, well, it's LIGO discovered it.

• 33:52Chuck Nice?

  Right, LIGO discovered it.

• 33:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so we got that. So what about the particle counterpart to the wave? We call that a graviton. Just like the photon is a particle counterpart to just the waves, light waves.

• 34:05Chuck Nice?

  Light waves.

• 34:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Light waves, okay? So we have a graviton is the particle counterpart to gravitational waves. And, but we don't know how to detect that.

• 34:14Chuck Nice?

  Right, but it does make sense.

• 34:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It does, well, if you can quant, if you can turn all of gravitational physics into a quantum solution.

• 34:25Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 34:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then yeah, that makes sense, but. If not, it could just confuse things.

• 34:33Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I mean, I'm already confused, so, to be honest.

• 34:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so, I think it's kind of fanciful to think of black holes as the gravitons of...

• 34:45Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 34:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it doesn't feel right to me. Because black hole, we already have that described. It's not some mysterious thing that you're finding some other mysterious thing to say that it is.

• 34:55Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, right.

• 34:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we want to avoid that anyway. You want to take this thing that we barely know, and to use it to explain this other thing.

• 35:03Chuck Nice?

  Something else that we don't know at all.

• 35:06Chuck Nice?

  Take this thing that we really don't understand and barely know and use it to describe.

• 35:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is what happens with consciousness. People are saying, "Let's take the weirdness of quantum physics that nobody understands and use it to explain consciousness was nobody understands."

• 35:16Chuck Nice?

  Exactly, right. Yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah. Alright, well, listen, that's... I like the way you think, though, man. You definitely smoking some good weed. Please send me some. Uh, this is Matt D. from Oklahoma. He says, "Good day, Dr. Tyson, and a big high five to Lord Nice. Uh, my name is Matt Dodd from Oklahoma, and I'm wondering about our bubble universe in the multiverse. If our universe is constantly expanding, does that mean our bubble in the multiverse is growing over time? Who's to say another multiverse bubble would not merge with our own? What would it mean for our universe? And thanks for the insight."

• 35:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I worry about that.

• 35:56Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 35:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because quantum physics in the multiverse model is pumping out universes left and right, and each universe has slightly different laws of physics.

• 36:05Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 36:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't want to just, "Hey, let's go visit the, you know, the Johnsons over in the other universe."

• 36:11Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 36:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If the charge on their electron is different from yours.

• 36:14Chuck Nice?

  Right, because now I just exploded. I turned to goo.

• 36:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or you collapsed into a pile of glue.

• 36:19Chuck Nice?

  Goo, that's it.

• 36:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So...

• 36:21Chuck Nice?

  Damn, I knew I shouldn't have come.

• 36:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bring something to test it with, you know, like a gerbil or something.

• 36:27Chuck Nice?

  So now, somebody, I don't know...

• 36:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would be mean. Maybe no gerbil.

• 36:30Chuck Nice?

  No, no, gerbils are fine. They ain't worth it. I'm not losing any sleep over a gerbil.

• 36:39Chuck Nice?

  Anyway, put that sucker in a Haber trail, send him right through.

• 36:45Chuck Nice?

  But.

• 36:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  None of the universe could be made of antimatter, for example.

• 36:48Chuck Nice?

  Right, that would be terrible.

• 36:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Toss at a coin and the thing blows up, right?

• 36:53Chuck Nice?

  That would be so cool. And then, of course, you meet yourself, but your other self, you know, you look has half of it is black and the other half is white. It's like.

• 37:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What, episodes from Star Trek?

• 37:06Chuck Nice?

  The antimatter matter guy that was.

• 37:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They'll have a goatee.

• 37:10Chuck Nice?

  Yes, exactly.

• 37:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And a black hat and that's the evil man.

• 37:14Chuck Nice?

  Somebody, I don't know where I saw this or heard, because I don't think I read it, saying that, is there a possibility that dark energy or dark matter

• 37:29Chuck Nice?

  is another bubble universe colliding with ours? And that's why it doesn't interact, it's just passing through?

• 37:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I'm, I'm a fan of that kind of thinking.

• 37:39Chuck Nice?

  Oh, okay.

• 37:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. Yeah, that's because that's, even though it involves a higher dimension, it's kind of simpler than other explanations.

• 37:45Chuck Nice?

  And makes sense, too.

• 37:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 37:47Chuck Nice?

  It's like, yeah, this thing is just passing through us, but it doesn't interact.

• 37:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like a sphere passing through.

• 37:52Chuck Nice?

  Passing through.

• 37:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Two dimensions.

• 37:54Chuck Nice?

  Two dimensions, right.

• 37:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a dot, then a circle that gets bigger and bigger, then it gets smaller and smaller again, then disappears from your, from your universe. So, yeah, I'm, I'm partial to those explanations, even while knowing they're probably not correct.

• 38:08Chuck Nice?

  Right, fun to think about. All right, this is Sweet Heat 223 from Dallas, Texas.

• 38:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sweet what?

• 38:16Chuck Nice?

  Sweet Heat 223, better known as Sterling from Dallas, Texas.

• 38:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sterling, all right.

• 38:21Chuck Nice?

  He says, hi, Dr. Tyson and Chuck Nice.

• 38:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sterling was not a cool enough badass name.

• 38:25Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, he had to go with Sweet Heat or C. Sweet Heat. All right.

• 38:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sterling, that's a boy name.

• 38:32Chuck Nice?

  Sterling's a boy name?

• 38:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 38:33Chuck Nice?

  Okay, so Sterling from Dallas, Texas. He said, if we could travel via warp drive, is it possible that speed to bypass the spaghettification process when entering a black hole to reach its singularity? So.

• 38:48Chuck Nice?

  Could you warp into a black hole? And then bypass the singularity? Because you're going so much faster than the speed of light itself. So you've warped through the black hole. So technically, you don't need an escape velocity to get out of the black hole. Because you're warping through it. It's a wild proposition.

• 39:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are these two black holes?

• 39:19Chuck Nice?

  No. It's you in the black hole.

• 39:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I've...

• 39:25Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 39:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm not feeling it.

• 39:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, not feeling it. It's an intriguing idea.

• 39:33Chuck Nice?

  It is.

• 39:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And like, can you bypass?

• 39:36Chuck Nice?

  Can you bypass?

• 39:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The rules. Yeah, the boundary rules.

• 39:39Chuck Nice?

  No specification.

• 39:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right, right.

• 39:41Chuck Nice?

  None of the, uh, supergravity.

• 39:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There are black holes that you can fall in and not go to the center.

• 39:46Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 39:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like rotating black holes. And there are other configurations you can imagine. But, yeah, no, I'm not feeling it.

• 39:53Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 39:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 39:55Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 39:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck got a few more minutes.

• 39:57Chuck Nice?

  Minutes. Okay, let's see what we can do.

• 39:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 39:59Chuck Nice?

  This is Patrick Laverdiere, who says, "In video games, when you walk into a complex area, the framerate drops because the system is rendering more data. If our universe were a simulation, could gravity be doing something similar? Slowing down time because the cosmic engine is processing more information?"

• 40:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like that.

• 40:20Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 40:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like that.

• 40:21Chuck Nice?

  He's saying the more complex areas of our universe require more calculus, uh, uh, computing power. And as a result, everything slows down.

• 40:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is the argument either for or against that we're in a simulation. Because the simulator doesn't have to simulate the whole universe.

• 40:42Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 40:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Only the universe that you perceive.

• 40:44Chuck Nice?

  That you are seeing at the time.

• 40:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct.

• 40:45Chuck Nice?

  That's it.

• 40:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For example, if we are in a simulation, are they simulating every molecule within the earth? If no one is looking at inside the earth? But now you start digging. So it's in their interest to simulate ahead of you without having to waste computing power on the whole earth.

• 41:03Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so that's just an intriguing scenario.

• 41:06Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 41:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 41:07Chuck Nice?

  I mean, it makes sense if you're, if you are in a simulation. Why would you waste all the computing power necessary to create the stuff that's never even being seen?

• 41:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's correct.

• 41:15Chuck Nice?

  You know? Right. All right, so this is Merwaki Ger... Merwa? Merwaki? Merwa? Merwaki? I don't know. Gerzeiger. Gerzeiger, who says, hello, everyone. I was wondering if black holes accelerate things beyond the speed of light. Once inside them, does that mean those things are going backwards in time? So the gravitational pull is so strong, once you are past that event horizon, could you then go faster than the speed of light, since light can't escape?

• 41:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, what happens is you start gaining mass.

• 41:58Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And rather than gaining speed.

• 42:01Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 42:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's how that happens.

• 42:03Chuck Nice?

  How that happens, okay.

• 42:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right, and so, no, you don't just keep getting faster and faster.

• 42:09Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 42:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And as you gain more mass, it's harder to accelerate you.

• 42:12Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 42:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, yeah.

• 42:14Chuck Nice?

  Oh, wow. But what a great question, man. That's, I like that. All right, Femke Saynabi, Say Naive, from Belgium. He says, I was wondering, would it be possible to say if we reach a black hole with conventional space travel, even if it took thousands of years, to send a quantum AI computer or quantum robot, a bit like they did an interstellar? Ultimately, sacrificing itself to send us the data and solve the quantum gravity theory, could quantum computers handle this information and send it to a spaceship in the vicinity? Or would the information forever be stuck in the black hole?

• 42:58Chuck Nice?

  They can answer your own question.

• 43:01Chuck Nice?

  Pretty sure you answered your own question, buddy.

• 43:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm going with the it's

• 43:05Chuck Nice?

  It ain't coming out. It ain't coming out.

• 43:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 43:09Chuck Nice?

  That, yeah.

• 43:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's the Hawking radiation, but it pulls it out. There's a striptease, right? One molecule, one atom here, one particle there.

• 43:17Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 43:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then you have to reassemble it later.

• 43:20Chuck Nice?

  You would have to find that, you would have to put that information back together once it all evaporates.

• 43:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly, exactly.

• 43:25Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, yeah. Oh, well.

• 43:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I have one last question.

• 43:28Chuck Nice?

  All right, this is Martin from Denmark, Martine from Denmark, who says, hello, Dr. Tyson, Lord nice. Martin from Denmark here. I think there's something undiscovered around the perception of time and the speed of light. If we humans were to travel at the speed of light, we say no matter the distance, it will feel like an instant when arriving at the destination. But since we also discovered that we can accelerate particles faster than the speed of light, when did we discover that? The hell, Martin? Martin, did you get a Nobel Prize that nobody heard about? Cause damn, bro, what you talking about? And he says, how will we perceive that? Like yesterday or thanks for a great show?

• 44:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, no, we have not accelerated particles faster than the speed of light in a vacuum.

• 44:13Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 44:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But the speed of light is slower.

• 44:18Chuck Nice?

  In, in mediums.

• 44:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In media.

• 44:20Chuck Nice?

  Right, media, right.

• 44:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plural of medium.

• 44:22Chuck Nice?

  Medium, media.

• 44:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's slower in water.

• 44:25Chuck Nice?

  Glass.

• 44:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Glass, air, and especially diamond.

• 44:29Chuck Nice?

  Right, where it gets bounced around and then comes out.

• 44:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When it's cut correctly.

• 44:33Chuck Nice?

  When it's cut correctly.

• 44:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're gonna cut it, it's just a way.

• 44:35Chuck Nice?

  Refracts.

• 44:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it looks like the diamond has a certain radiance to it.

• 44:37Chuck Nice?

  Right, yeah.

• 44:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's refraction.

• 44:39Chuck Nice?

  Yes, exactly.

• 44:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And dispersion on the way out, so.

• 44:42Chuck Nice?

  Cost you a lot of money for a little bit of like praise. I stopped buying diamonds years ago.

• 44:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And why are you forcing upon others your own marriage experience?

• 44:52Chuck Nice?

  Hmm, uh, just warning.

• 44:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For those considering.

• 44:57Chuck Nice?

  If you're considering, just warning, I'm telling you. Cuban zirconia, man, don't make the mistake.

• 45:04Chuck Nice?

  Don't make the mistake, the diamonds are expensive, buddy. Let me tell you something, they throw them all like it was no big deal.

• 45:11Chuck Nice?

  They don't put them on every time like, oh my god, look at this. This man went out and spent all this money on, they just throw them all like there's nothing to it. Okay? Get them Sir cons, save yourself some money. Take it from a pro.

• 45:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I forgot what the question was.

• 45:29Chuck Nice?

  Okay, alright.

• 45:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, no, no, so Izzy, so you can't make them faster than the speed of light?

• 45:34Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 45:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, but two points. If you could, the particles would go backwards in time.

• 45:40Chuck Nice?

  Right!

• 45:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  According to the

• 45:41Chuck Nice?

  According to the mathematics.

• 45:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, so in Einstein's equations, you can go up to the speed of light, but you cannot attain it. But nothing stops you from existing on the other side of the speed of light, and then going faster than that.

• 45:54Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 45:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if you do that, you would live backwards in time.

• 45:59Chuck Nice?

  And what's that called?

• 46:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tachyon.

• 46:01Chuck Nice?

  Tachyon, that's right.

• 46:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tachios, from the Greek, meaning fast, like a tachometer?

• 46:06Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 46:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've heard of tachometers?

• 46:07Chuck Nice?

  Of course, on your car.

• 46:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 46:10Chuck Nice?

  Well, my car doesn't have it anymore because I have an electric car, so there's nothing to tach. I'm just saying.

• 46:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so then it would be moving backwards through time. And you could then send yourself a signal.

• 46:27Chuck Nice?

  Using your tachyon.

• 46:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Using tachyons before you knew to send yourself a signal.

• 46:32Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 46:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 46:33Chuck Nice?

  Trippy.

• 46:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, yeah, it's a fun particle, someone decided to move all the way into the other side of the equations, and follow them through, and that's one of the conclusions. We've never found tachyons.

• 46:43Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 46:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the actual universe. Yeah.

• 46:46Chuck Nice?

  Well, well, it's kinda cool. So, tachyons then, if they did exist, they would be moving, we could only intersect them. At the point which they meet our reality.

• 47:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Going opposite directions in time.

• 47:01Chuck Nice?

  Directions.

• 47:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct.

• 47:02Chuck Nice?

  That's the only time we can see them.

• 47:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a perceptive point you're making.

• 47:05Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 47:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can't see them in the future.

• 47:07Chuck Nice?

  You can't see them in the future. You can't see them in the past.

• 47:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're gonna see them as it's going backwards through time and we're going forward through time.

• 47:13Chuck Nice?

  And boom, that's where you see the.

• 47:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In that instant, that's.

• 47:16Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that's wild.

• 47:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 47:18Chuck Nice?

  I like it.

• 47:21Chuck Nice?

  Well, thanks for that, Martin from Denmark.

• 47:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 47:23Chuck Nice?

  Very cool.

• 47:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, I think we're done here.

• 47:25Chuck Nice?

  All right, that was fun.

• 47:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Man, we're just knocking these out.

• 47:27Chuck Nice?

  We love the grab bags.

• 47:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They keep coming in.

• 47:29Chuck Nice?

  Well, listen, as long as you keep sending them, we'll keep doing it.

• 47:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There it is. Another installment of StarTalk Cosmic Queries Grab Bag.

• 47:38Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 47:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Edition. Neil deGrasse Tyson, you're a personal astrophysicist. Chuck, Lord Nice in the house.

• 47:45Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 47:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thanks for being here.

• 47:46Chuck Nice?

  Always a pleasure.

• 47:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As always, keep looking up.