Cosmic Queries – Scars in Spacetime

Can we influence the strong nuclear force? Neil deGrasse Tyson and Paul Mecurio answer grab bag questions about sci-fi laser guns, the Roche Limit, how we interact with the fundamental forces, 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?

  So Paul, thanks for doing Cosmic Queries Grab Bag.

• 0:02Paul Mecurio?

  I love these, always great questions.

• 0:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, some of them came from deep space.

• 0:06Paul Mecurio?

  Very deep, which means they're either really smart or really drunk. I got a headache from some of the questions.

• 0:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Check us out and find out what gives Paul a headache on StarTalk.

• 0:18Neil 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, Cosmic Queries. I got with me Paul Mecurio.

• 0:38Paul Mecurio?

  What's up, my man? Good to see you again.

• 0:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back.

• 0:41Paul Mecurio?

  Always great to be here.

• 0:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You collected the questions from our Patreon members.

• 0:45Paul Mecurio?

  Always great. We got some really fun ones, good mix.

• 0:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I never see them in advance.

• 0:50Paul Mecurio?

  No, this is like, this is like Karnak where you hold the envelope and now you're gonna say you're dating.

• 0:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Karnak from 50 years ago.

• 0:59Paul Mecurio?

  You know what? It's okay for viewers to not know something and then know something. That's like saying I'm only gonna teach science that goes back 10 years. I am fed up with this. All right, go ahead, let's continue.

• 1:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I want to just take a moment to just reflect on the privilege it is to have you in this role. You're a multi Emmy winning comedy writer.

• 1:23Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah, comedian, comedy writer.

• 1:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Emmys, we're talking about actual Emmys.

• 1:27Paul Mecurio?

  And Peabody Awards.

• 1:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Peabody, that's the best one, the Peabody.

• 1:31Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah, it's small, but it's large, if you know what I mean. And.

• 1:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you for taking time out of your day.

• 1:37Paul Mecurio?

  Are you kidding? I love doing this, it's so fun.

• 1:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You also work on Colbert and his days are numbered.

• 1:42Paul Mecurio?

  Yes.

• 1:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So taking time out of your day might not be such a task.

• 1:45Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah, what are they gonna do, fire me? I'm already fired.

• 1:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It might not be so stressful to take time out of your day.

• 1:52Paul Mecurio?

  We're counting down and I am available for kids' parties.

• 1:58Paul Mecurio?

  I can do balloon animals. Pretty much I could do a dachshund, but just the body part. And no head, ears, or tail.

• 2:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or legs or tail. And on this show, you've been knighted Baron.

• 2:12Paul Mecurio?

  Yes, by yours truly. So I'm honored, I'm honored.

• 2:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I did that with my Excalibur.

• 2:18Paul Mecurio?

  You did.

• 2:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sword.

• 2:19Paul Mecurio?

  You did. You cut my jugular, but I'm okay now.

• 2:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you brought questions in, and this is a grab bag.

• 2:24Paul Mecurio?

  This is a grab bag.

• 2:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This seems to be a fan favorite, grab bags.

• 2:27Paul Mecurio?

  The fans are amazing. I mean, I always say this. And it's worth saying, like, it is, oh my god. You know what? It's borderline annoying.

• 2:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And by the way, I judge how smart someone is not by how much they know, but by the depth of their curiosity.

• 2:41Paul Mecurio?

  The level of curiosity.

• 2:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 2:43Paul Mecurio?

  Yes, and that's the only thing that matters.

• 2:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the hungry mind.

• 2:46Paul Mecurio?

  Yes.

• 2:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In search of enlightenment.

• 2:48Paul Mecurio?

  And I always say, if I had you as a science teacher, I'd probably be doing something in science. Your enthusiasm and everything else, yeah.

• 2:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 2:54Paul Mecurio?

  I don't care that you're taller than I am, that's annoying. Monopoly world. Hello, I'm just curious about where the differences and...

• 3:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who is this? Who, who?

• 3:02Paul Mecurio?

  It just says monopoly world.

• 3:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Monopoly world, okay.

• 3:04Paul Mecurio?

  That's all it is. You know, the person wants to be secretive about this.

• 3:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, bring it on.

• 3:08Paul Mecurio?

  I'm just curious about where the differences and/or similarities are between wormhole and a black hole.

• 3:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah. I mean, just because the word hole shows up in both, just, you know, chill out. Don't, don't, don't over, don't overthink it.

• 3:24Paul Mecurio?

  Don't be a hole about it.

• 3:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, for me, one of the fun things about a black hole, because our word hole is a two-dimensional idea. Think about it. There's a hole in the ground, you fall through the hole.

• 3:39Paul Mecurio?

  Right. It's depth and it's, it's depth and it's width.

• 3:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's that circle, and you fall through.

• 3:44Paul Mecurio?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay?

• 3:45Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 3:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whereas a black hole is a hole in every direction you approach it.

• 3:50Paul Mecurio?

  Which is why, once you get sucked into it, you're not...

• 3:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's no path out of the black hole.

• 3:55Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 3:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? And so, it's a region of space where gravity is so high that the speed of light is insufficient to escape. And just to put this in context, I, sometimes I make too many assumptions about what people might know, so let me back up just a little bit.

• 4:11Paul Mecurio?

  Okay.

• 4:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. You know the old saying, what goes up must come down?

• 4:14Paul Mecurio?

  Yes.

• 4:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's, that's bullshit.

• 4:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sorry. And did you write a paper on bullshit? I wrote a whole page. And that was the conclusion of your dissertation? So, no, I learned early, how is it that we can go to the moon if you're gonna say what goes up must come down? Right. Okay, so it turns out there is a speed above which if you leave Earth, you'll never come back. And that is sensibly called the escape velocity. Right. On from Earth's surface, it's seven miles per second. So Grandma's adage works for anything anybody would have thrown. Right. You throw it, it goes up, but if you have rockets? Yeah. You're not beholden to Grandma's adage. With some kick ass boosters and everything. Right, right, you're not beholden. Right. So it will never come back ever.

• 5:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It'll go to the edge of the universe before it thinks about coming back to Earth. So you can ask, if it's seven miles per second on Earth's surface, you can imagine objects, planets with higher gravity, where the escape velocity is higher than seven miles per second. Right. Everything would weigh more, so that makes sense. Continue this line of reasoning, you get to a point where the escape velocity is the speed of light itself. The speed of light is insufficient to carry the beam out of the black hole. So you fall in, you ain't never coming out. Light's not coming out. Is there a better term for it than? The black hole. No, I think you're right, but both come from general relativity, right? And both involve extreme warp in a space time. What's the other one, the wormhole? Yeah, the wormhole.

• 5:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the wormhole, I had some early ideas about what that could be or what it might be. Right. If you look at the math that gives us a black hole, the solution, there's a second solution to it, which is the mathematical opposite of a black hole, which you might call a? Wormhole.

• 6:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, go ahead, say it again. I really wasn't paying attention. If you were to name the mathematical opposite of a black hole, what would you call it? Uh, a white? Thank you, a white hole. That's a solution to the equations. And it's the mathematical opposite of a black hole.

• 6:21Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 6:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. So black hole sucks everything in. A white hole would probably do what?

• 6:26Paul Mecurio?

  Push everything out.

• 6:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Push everything out. So we said, let's look for that in the universe. Couldn't find anything that resembled anything remotely what a white hole should look like.

• 6:36Paul Mecurio?

  Okay.

• 6:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we don't think they exist. But how would they connect? We say, would they connect with a wormhole? Connecting the black hole and the, and the white hole.

• 6:44Paul Mecurio?

  But since black holes are naturally formed from collapsing matter, is there any sort of known process in the universe to like could naturally create some kind of a wormhole? That's known?

• 6:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We don't know, and we don't think so. We think you're gonna have to make one on your own time.

• 7:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, we know how to make a wormhole.

• 7:04Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah.

• 7:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We just don't have the right ingredients. What we need is negative gravity stuff. Not the same as antimatter. Antimatter has rate, has ordinary gravity.

• 7:15Paul Mecurio?

  Mm hmm.

• 7:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, an anti-proton has the same gravity as a proton. Negative gravity stuff, because what does gravity do? It collapses spacetime.

• 7:24Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 7:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A wormhole, you try to pry it open.

• 7:26Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 7:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you want the opposite.

• 7:28Paul Mecurio?

  And travel through it.

• 7:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that's, that's, that's, you do that for free. Once it opens the hole, you just step through. That doesn't quite, just open the hole.

• 7:36Paul Mecurio?

  And you get sucked through.

• 7:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's no sucking. You just step through. If you can pry it open.

• 7:41Paul Mecurio?

  But if a black hole is millions and billions of miles away from another locate? Isn't a wormhole connect? There's a tunnel in a way?

• 7:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If they're connected by a wormhole, you watch where you're stepping when you go through the other side.

• 7:54Paul Mecurio?

  Cause you don't know where.

• 7:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Get one of those mirrors.

• 7:58Paul Mecurio?

  Do you need?

• 7:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One of those look under the car mirrors. Do that through the.

• 8:02Paul Mecurio?

  Oh, I know that. I'm Italian. I know that.

• 8:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Stop.

• 8:06Paul Mecurio?

  Do you need EZ Pass in a wormhole? And what do they charge?

• 8:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I bet some municipality will put one up as the first wormhole.

• 8:14Paul Mecurio?

  But you could naturally create a stable wormhole?

• 8:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So.

• 8:18Paul Mecurio?

  Or no?

• 8:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Aliens, for example, if they have access to materials that we don't.

• 8:22Paul Mecurio?

  Mm hmm.

• 8:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they discover a negative gravity thing, then they, if they're smart, will can, know how to configure it to pry open a hole through the fabric of space and time. You step through and you land in another place at another time.

• 8:38Paul Mecurio?

  So it's sort of like wormhole versus black hole. It's like you. Black hole, you check into a hotel, you ain't checking out.

• 8:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's what they call the Rochamotels.

• 8:47Paul Mecurio?

  And wormhole, you're checking out of the hotel, but you end up in a worse hotel with a lousy buffet breakfast.

• 8:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Speaking of checking in and out, I think a lot about wormholes. And you know what the closest we have to wormholes in our civilization? An elevator. There's like, whatever's out here, you walk into this room.

• 9:05Paul Mecurio?

  It's a box.

• 9:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a little box. Someone pushes some buttons, and then the door's open, and it's a whole other place.

• 9:12Paul Mecurio?

  But what people don't explain, and science will never, is why I have to make small talk during that wormhole travel where I want to kill myself.

• 9:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The universe brims with mysteries. So, so I think of that all the time. Plus, if you're coming from an elevator that, that opens to the outdoors, and you come in, and then you're not outdoors anymore. You're in some other place. And if I don't tell you where you are, you have no idea. If I bring an alien into an elevator, it'll have no clue.

• 9:40Paul Mecurio?

  Because it's moving through time and it doesn't know.

• 9:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It doesn't know what I just did with him. As far as it's concerned, it'll be a wormhole.

• 9:46Paul Mecurio?

  Just to finish this up and move on, the stuff that you refer to.

• 9:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We don't know what it could be or what it is, or even if it exists.

• 9:52Paul Mecurio?

  Are we close to some?

• 9:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, nothing close. Negative gravity, come on now. If we had that, we wouldn't need rockets.

• 9:59Paul Mecurio?

  Do you think we'll ever get there?

• 10:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nothing in the universe looks like it's operating under negative gravity.

• 10:04Paul Mecurio?

  But I know the way science operates, keep your mind open to every and any all possibility.

• 10:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is, and we're looking in the universe, we don't see any. It's open is, oh, we can't explain that, I wonder if it's negative gravity. That would be a way to think about negative. There's nothing out there that needs negative gravity to account for it. So, I'm skeptical, but it's nonetheless fun to think about.

• 10:27Paul Mecurio?

  It is.

• 10:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And maybe in the end, we just need magic like Doctor Strange. Okay? But I kind of want to solve it with Rick. Of Rick and Morty, because he uses real science.

• 10:37Paul Mecurio?

  It's sort of, yeah, it's the, we've talked about that.

• 10:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's completely real science in Rick and Morty.

• 10:41Paul Mecurio?

  Well, I mean, wormhole, it's theoretically possible, but science is like, uh, we're on our coffee break. Don't ask us to do it. Natasha Shaw Davis, hello, Dr. Tyson, this is Natasha from New Mexico. I'm currently at band club with other medical students and our mics are broken, so.

• 10:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What, you're at a where?

• 10:59Paul Mecurio?

  She's at band club.

• 11:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Band club?

• 11:02Paul Mecurio?

  Band, B A N D.

• 11:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a thing?

• 11:04Paul Mecurio?

  She plays it, yes, there's a club, they play in a band.

• 11:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And people admit to this.

• 11:07Paul Mecurio?

  Yes.

• 11:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm at band club.

• 11:09Paul Mecurio?

  She was writing this while she was getting beaten up.

• 11:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, they can't beat them up too much, because then they can't perform for the, for the game.

• 11:17Paul Mecurio?

  Not the fingers, not the fingers. No, this is literally hilarious to me, because she's writing this as she's at band club, and she's a medical student, so apparently you have time in medical school to be in a band, which is troubling to me. I am not coming to you, Ms. Davis, for any medical treatment, because I don't want you to play your flute while you're working on me. Okay, so, I'm currently at band club with other medical students, our mics are broken, so while other instruments are cool, I must yell, how quietly should a singer whisper to affect one quark at a time? What about just one atom? Any good uses of my nonsense? Thank you both. I love this question.

• 11:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so.

• 12:00Paul Mecurio?

  I mean, it's not about whispering quietly.

• 12:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can divide the universe up into four forces.

• 12:04Paul Mecurio?

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the obvious one is gravity, we all know about that. Another one is the electromagnetic force. That's what holds all our model atoms and molecules together.

• 12:13Paul Mecurio?

  The third is palmicureo charisma? That's a force?

• 12:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, that's, I checked, in fact, I double-checked, it's not there.

• 12:20Paul Mecurio?

  That's negative gravity.

• 12:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then there's the weak nuclear force, which operates within particles that describes how they decay into other particles. And then there's the strong nuclear force in the nucleus of an atom. We don't have access to the strong nuclear force.

• 12:38Paul Mecurio?

  But we have.

• 12:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You gotta be like 10 million degrees to get in there.

• 12:41Paul Mecurio?

  But we have quarks that make up atoms.

• 12:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, hang on, hang on, hang on. We don't have access to that.

• 12:45Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 12:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The weak nuclear force, we're not really messing with that either. We can interact with gravity and we interact with the electromagnetic force. All right. Whatever you do, that's what you're doing. Okay, now we had someone in that chair.

• 13:01Paul Mecurio?

  Did you take a hit of acid before you came here? What am I supposed to do with that? Whatever you do, that's what you're doing?

• 13:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We, we had someone in this chair, Batul Katar, who said something I'd never heard before. I had to pause and reflect on it and say, wow, that's deep. The world is simply electrons looking for a place to rest.

• 13:24Paul Mecurio?

  Wow.

• 13:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and I didn't wanna embrace that until I kept thinking about it. And it's like, yeah, that's what's going on at all times. That's what happens in, in when atoms get together with atoms to make molecules. The electrons are finding a place to hang out.

• 13:40Paul Mecurio?

  Okay, I have this pen. This is a solid state.

• 13:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is held together by molecules and the electrons that bind, enabling it.

• 13:48Paul Mecurio?

  First of all, did you wash your hands before you touched that?

• 13:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I licked my hands.

• 13:52Paul Mecurio?

  Okay. But no, there's, you're saying electrons are in motion within that?

• 13:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At all times, at all times in everything. So there's the electrons, that's the electromagnetic force. But she's talking about quarks.

• 14:05Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 14:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You ain't getting in a quark. Quarks are, they're locked up inside.

• 14:08Paul Mecurio?

  Right, so it's like Legos make up a brick building. Within the Lego, you've got atoms and you've got, within the atom, you have the quark.

• 14:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're not getting into the quarks without higher power than what we have access to. But she wants to still influence it. And it's kind of a metaphysical question. Whatever you do ever at all, you're invoking electromagnetic fields and forces.

• 14:28Paul Mecurio?

  Right, but the issue here is wavelength and it's not about loudness. It's about the fact that the collective wavelength.

• 14:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't care if she.

• 14:34Paul Mecurio?

  Are too large to localize into a quark.

• 14:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If she breathes, that's true. That was good.

• 14:41Paul Mecurio?

  Come on, huh?

• 14:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was good.

• 14:43Paul Mecurio?

  I have Peabody Awards.

• 14:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The point is, she wants to whisper at some volume level that will somehow tickle quirks. The fact that she-

• 14:58Paul Mecurio?

  Which by the way, is a fun parlor game.

• 15:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tickling quirks?

• 15:01Paul Mecurio?

  Yes.

• 15:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you do anything at all, you are moving around electrons and you're bringing the quirks with you in the nuclei of the atoms that are parts of the molecules that comprise you. So you cannot do anything without setting into motion electrons and quirks. So- Either bound into the molecules that move because as she whispers, vibrations go into the air and the molecules of the air vibrate, carrying it to another location.

• 15:35Paul Mecurio?

  So a whisper doesn't target anything, it just bothers everything equally like the human resources department. Right? I mean-

• 15:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're there for your own protection.

• 15:44Paul Mecurio?

  Yes, that's true.

• 15:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We have to worry about this in science all the time. If the mics are down and everyone is screaming at each other and she wants to be heard, the background level of conversation creates what we call a noise level. Okay, that's the random sounds that are out there. If she wants to be noticed, she has to break through that noise, either in frequency or intensity in order to get noticed by anybody else.

• 16:10Paul Mecurio?

  You define intensity as loudness?

• 16:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Loudness. And frequency is, if she comes at it with a frequency that no one else is communicating with, everybody will hear it.

• 16:19Paul Mecurio?

  So you have a deep voice, if everybody's higher, your voice is gonna cut through.

• 16:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My voice is gonna cut through.

• 16:24Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 16:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if I come in in a high pitched voice, that'll get heard in the din of other noises.

• 16:29Paul Mecurio?

  Well, but at the atomic scale, does sound stop being a precise tool and become like more of like a shove, like a statistical shove of some kind?

• 16:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it's always just, it's a pressure wave moving through the medium.

• 16:41Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 16:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At all times.

• 16:42Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 16:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are we alone in the universe? Or just early to the party? In my latest book, Take Me To Your Leader, I explore how aliens might find us, what they'd be like, and what we should do next. Curious? You should be. Take Me To Your Leader is available now in print and in audiobook, which I narrated. Don't wait until after you've had your first alien encounter to grab a copy of Take Me To Your Leader, because then it would be too late.

• 17:37Paul Mecurio?

  Mikhail Boisvert. Hello, Guardians of the Geeks.

• 17:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nice.

• 17:42Paul Mecurio?

  Mikhail from Canada.

• 17:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 17:43Paul Mecurio?

  If I submerge my arm in a sink full of water, first of all, you need to get a hobby, or...

• 17:51Paul Mecurio?

  Get in a swimming pool.

• 17:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Damn, you cold-blooded.

• 17:55Paul Mecurio?

  Come on now.

• 17:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  These people coming in out of their honest home experiments.

• 17:58Paul Mecurio?

  Hey, you know what?

• 17:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you're gonna talk smack about them.

• 18:01Paul Mecurio?

  Screw you and the cork you didn't ride in on. If I submerge my arm in a sink full of water or get in a swimming pool, I don't really feel squeezed by the water. However, if I do the same with rubber gloves, say, on washing dishes or getting a river wearing a waterproof fishing wader, and I hope you're fishing and it's not some weird thing, I feel disturbingly squeezed. What's up with that? Shouldn't I feel less having something rigid in terms of material around me?

• 18:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If he put on mittens and then submerged, it's not gonna... He's putting on latex gloves. Of course they're gonna squeeze it.

• 18:40Paul Mecurio?

  Okay, that's what I mean. The guy needs a hobby.

• 18:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you're putting on rubber gloves, they're gonna squeeze your hand.

• 18:46Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah, well, because it doesn't feel like it's squeezing you, you're just pushing your body.

• 18:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, so here's the thing.

• 18:52Paul Mecurio?

  Water, air pressure is created between the skin.

• 18:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right now, you're in equilibrium with the air pressure. You know how I know that? Because you're not shrinking, you're not expanding.

• 19:02Paul Mecurio?

  Thank you.

• 19:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, all pressure is equal on all parts of your body.

• 19:06Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 19:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know that.

• 19:07Paul Mecurio?

  Okay.

• 19:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right now. Okay. Here's a cool thing you can do. If you're sitting in a pool, we're approaching summer now, just sit at the edge of the pool up to your neck, like, sit on a step where you're up to your neck. Then inhale a very deep breath and your body comes up a little in the water.

• 19:26Paul Mecurio?

  Oh, I was a swimmer.

• 19:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because you're getting less dense.

• 19:29Paul Mecurio?

  Why does my bathing suit get air in it and it just fills up?

• 19:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because you're farting.

• 19:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No one told you that?

• 19:39Paul Mecurio?

  These are practical questions. I've been a swimmer my whole life.

• 19:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because you're wearing Speedos and there's no air exchange.

• 19:46Paul Mecurio?

  Oh, you know I am.

• 19:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it becomes a...

• 19:48Paul Mecurio?

  I don't do waders, man. I just do a Speedo. Everybody take that in at home. Drink that in. But, look, the glove traps air and when the air gets squeezed, the glove tightens.

• 20:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so...

• 20:02Paul Mecurio?

  And that's what he's feeling.

• 20:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you have something underwater that is squeezable, the water pressure will squeeze it. If you have a plastic bag and put anything in it, okay?

• 20:15Paul Mecurio?

  A head?

• 20:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Doesn't matter. It won't matter what you put in it.

• 20:18Paul Mecurio?

  Okay.

• 20:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what the word "anything" means. The air inside the bag is in equal pressure with the air in the atmosphere. So the bag is just the bag. We don't even think about it.

• 20:29Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 20:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you take that bag and immerse it without letting water get in...

• 20:35Paul Mecurio?

  So you seal the bag?

• 20:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, don't seal it. Don't seal. Leave it open up top.

• 20:39Paul Mecurio?

  Okay.

• 20:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And lower it into the water.

• 20:42Paul Mecurio?

  Before the point where the... to stop where the water doesn't get in?

• 20:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct.

• 20:45Paul Mecurio?

  Okay.

• 20:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That bag will collapse completely around what you put in it.

• 20:51Paul Mecurio?

  That's air pressure?

• 20:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is water pressure winning out over air pressure.

• 20:56Paul Mecurio?

  Air pressure between the heads?

• 20:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's gonna take all... between all the heads that are in the duffel bag,

• 21:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  it will squeeze out all of the air that's in that bag.

• 21:08Paul Mecurio?

  Okay.

• 21:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then you zip it and now you have a, basically, a vacuum sealed bag.

• 21:12Paul Mecurio?

  So like, water itself is chill, there's no pressure, but you put a glove on?

• 21:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, I didn't say that. I'm working my way to that. I'm just saying that if you have a glove, typically there's air between your hand and the glove. If you put your hand in the water, the water's gonna press the air out and it'll feel like the glove is squeezing on your hand.

• 21:31Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 21:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it's not. It's just taking the air out.

• 21:33Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 21:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so now watch. If you go deeper...

• 21:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then water pressure becomes significant. And there's a point where your body cannot resist the water pressure. And your eardrums will pop. Your, your lungs will collapse. And if you go deep enough, you just implode.

• 21:54Paul Mecurio?

  It's like you're, you're, it's like the, the water is the mafia and your body owes the water money. And it's squeezing you.

• 22:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that the exact analogy to whatever?

• 22:04Paul Mecurio?

  I think that works.

• 22:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You said earlier, you're Italian.

• 22:06Paul Mecurio?

  I am. I'm talking from experience.

• 22:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we were talking about heads in a duffel bag.

• 22:10Paul Mecurio?

  I know a guy who knows a guy and I owe somebody money.

• 22:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so it's fun to watch this happen. Just take a bag, like a Ziploc bag, but leave it unzipped.

• 22:18Paul Mecurio?

  Yes.

• 22:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And just dip it into the water. Just watch all the air come out. It'll be snug onto what's in there. Then zip it up.

• 22:26Paul Mecurio?

  I get a Ziploc.

• 22:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's how to get all the air out of it.

• 22:28Paul Mecurio?

  I get, well, I get a Ziploc sandwich rag. I put something in it and if I squeeze the air out, what it does is it, it forms, the, the bag forms pretty closely around that object.

• 22:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct. You can get water do that for you for free, but you have to set it up to make that happen.

• 22:43Paul Mecurio?

  Okay.

• 22:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. So that's water pressure getting the air out. But five inches into the water, that's not enough water pressure for you to feel that as the pressure on your body. Here's what'll happen. As you submerge, there's pressure on you. You, you have skin, right? So your skin is pretty good, but your eardrums, they are sensitive to pressure. Your, your capacity to breathe against pressure is, will be challenged.

• 23:10Paul Mecurio?

  Still fighting pressure.

• 23:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As you're fighting it, as you get lower and lower.

• 23:13Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 23:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's fascinating. Pressure is a fun, not fun, it's a fascinating feature.

• 23:19Paul Mecurio?

  It's a little unsettling, but I'll keep it in mind. Lee Robertson, greetings gentle folk of the universe. Lee from Florida here. What is the determination for an object to be affected by the Roche limit? I know Saturn's rings were likely made by one of its former moons being destroyed by the planet's Roche limit. But how are we able to maintain orbit around Earth with our own Roche limit?

• 23:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Roche limit. Matters for objects that are held together by the force of gravity. If you're just a solid object, the Roche limit is irrelevant to you. Okay, you're a solid object. You are not held together by the forces of gravity.

• 23:58Paul Mecurio?

  Wait, if I, if I push the bounds of the Roche limit, aren't I gonna be?

• 24:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I can, you can just walk across the Roche limit and laugh in the face of crap.

• 24:07Paul Mecurio?

  Which I've wanted to do for a long time.

• 24:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of objects that are gravitationally bound?

• 24:11Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah.

• 24:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You could just laugh as you walk by them.

• 24:14Paul Mecurio?

  So why the distinction on solid objects versus non-solid?

• 24:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm gonna tell, I'm gonna tell you. So let's distinguish solid objects that are rigid and solid objects that are held together by gravity. We think of Earth as a solid object. But it's held together by gravity. All right, how do you know if something's held together by gravity? It's spherical.

• 24:34Paul Mecurio?

  Always.

• 24:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, pretty much, yes.

• 24:38Paul Mecurio?

  Why does it have to be spherical?

• 24:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because that's what gravity does to something when it is in charge.

• 24:44Paul Mecurio?

  I'm gonna go back to this pen cap, isn't this held together by gravity?

• 24:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it's held together by electromagnetic forces which swamp the effects of gravity. That's why, that's not falling apart, even though we're within the Roche limit of Earth. You can walk around and not get torn apart. Because crossing the Roche limit is, Earth is not really tearing you apart. It feels like, it looks like that's what's happening, but that's not what's happening. I would tell you what's happening, you ready?

• 25:11Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah.

• 25:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, the closer you get to an object, the stronger its tidal forces are. And tidal forces go up as the inverse cube of your distance. If you are one-third the distance to an object that you used to be,

• 25:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  what's the inverse of one-third?

• 25:29Paul Mecurio?

  Three.

• 25:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Three, cube it, what do you get? Three times three times three, what do you get?

• 25:33Paul Mecurio?

  Twenty-seven.

• 25:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Twenty-seven, the tidal forces are twenty-seven times higher.

• 25:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you're one-third the distance than they used to be, if you're one-fifth the distance, it's 125 times higher. So these are tidal forces. All that means is it's pulling on one side, the side closest to the planet, way more than it is on the other side. So, at the Roche limit, the tidal force simply exceeds the gravity.

• 26:03Paul Mecurio?

  And what is that point? How do we?

• 26:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you calculate where that is. If it exceeds the gravity.

• 26:09Paul Mecurio?

  But it's different for every object.

• 26:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If it exceeds the gravity of the object that's holding it together, then gravity loses. The tidal forces win. And so mountains just float up and because they're not held down by gravity anymore. Rocks float up and the whole thing just breaks apart. It doesn't break, it just lifts apart from itself.

• 26:35Paul Mecurio?

  Because the Roche limit is kicking the ass.

• 26:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Disassembles is the better term than break apart.

• 26:40Paul Mecurio?

  I like kicking the ass.

• 26:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because nothing breaks. A rock is still going to be a rock, but if a rock were sitting on Earth, it's no longer attached to Earth. Because a rock is held together, not by gravity, but by electromagnetic forces. And you have this fetish about your pen. So your pen would survive a crossing of the Roche lobe intact.

• 27:00Paul Mecurio?

  Hang on. I love you, friend. Oh, I love you. Fetish is a little strong. I mean, really. But so is it sort of like pulling bread apart and at some point you're pulling it apart to the point where it becomes disconnected from itself and then that's where it exceeds the Roche limit at that point?

• 27:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If the stretchy part of the bread is what we're thinking of as gravity, then there's a point where your force exceeds the gravity and the bread just pulls apart.

• 27:28Paul Mecurio?

  So like the Roche limit is like the ultimate relationship boundary, like where you're getting closer and closer. It doesn't mean anything because you just want to turn your relationship into confetti.

• 27:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, up until that point, you're both independent, strong entities. Within the Roche lobe, you get torn apart. You get, no, I use a different word. You get disassembled. Everything you once were is now in pieces.

• 27:55Paul Mecurio?

  So it's like you're in a bar, things start to happen, there's a guy, you get a little close, Roche limit's like, let's take it outside, I'm gonna dismember you.

• 28:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Only if you're talking to his woman does that happen.

• 28:05Paul Mecurio?

  Exactly.

• 28:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It doesn't just happen.

• 28:06Paul Mecurio?

  No, I'm in my Speedo in the bar, and she's checking me out. I'm not asking for trouble, then the Roche limit kicks in and we have to go outside. So, so the Roche limit sort of exceeds gravity's power or strength and then it's...

• 28:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly, and so it's a very natural place where that would happen. But anything that's held together electromagnetically is intact. Rocks, boulders, no problem. Your pancap, you, and the electromagnetic force is forty orders of magnitude, forty powers of ten stronger than gravity.

• 28:42Paul Mecurio?

  Therefore, Roche limit has no...

• 28:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Effect on something that's held together by electromagnetic forces, like rocks.

• 28:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But if you're a rubble pile, that's all held together by gravity and you come near the Roche lobe, it'll totally disassemble it.

• 28:57Paul Mecurio?

  The rocks themselves within the rubble will stay.

• 28:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Will stay.

• 28:59Paul Mecurio?

  But they'll break apart, so another two rocks here, they're together then...

• 29:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We don't know whether some asteroids are just rubble piles or whether they're solid, which matters if we're gonna deflect them en route to hitting us.

• 29:12Paul Mecurio?

  Oh.

• 29:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause you're gonna push it out of the way.

• 29:14Paul Mecurio?

  You're gonna need like twenty Ben Affleck's.

• 29:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's that? Ben Affleck? Is that the right?

• 29:18Paul Mecurio?

  He was part of that.

• 29:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Was he?

• 29:19Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah. He goes on the thing with...

• 29:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But he's, it was, it was Bruce Willis. It was Bruce Willis.

• 29:25Paul Mecurio?

  And Bruce Willis is the old salty guy and then Ben's like loose, but then Ben's as a B in the guy.

• 29:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then Liv Tyler, she helped out too.

• 29:31Paul Mecurio?

  Oh my god.

• 29:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You need something to come back to.

• 29:33Paul Mecurio?

  Yes.

• 29:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly. I don't know if you know, but we recently did an explainer on the Roche limit.

• 29:40Paul Mecurio?

  Oh, perfect.

• 29:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So anyone who was confused by what I just said, or by what you said.

• 29:48Paul Mecurio?

  Well, the reason this question got asked after your explainer is the buzz on social media is your explainer was eh, it was, it was, it was rosh limit bad.

• 29:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you just catch it in our archives. I think we do well on our explainers.

• 30:02Paul Mecurio?

  You do well on everything. Are you kidding? When you care. Bev, happy galactic gumbo to you, Dr. Dyson. If you could delete one overused sci-fi movie trope, what would it be? Thank you for keeping the educational eternal flame strong. Bev, a one syllable name from Alabama.

• 30:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've given up on this, so I'm going to mention it, but not that I think it'll ever happen. They should stop, you should stop hearing explosions in space. It would be completely silent.

• 30:30Paul Mecurio?

  Because?

• 30:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's no air in space to propagate the sound, from wherever it is to where you are. Completely silent. So it makes for much less drama if they're just...

• 30:42Paul Mecurio?

  Okay, that's all good and technical. Can I have one now?

• 30:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, what's yours?

• 30:45Paul Mecurio?

  Can we delete the speech where they save humanity? Have you met humanity? It's annoying. We don't need to save it.

• 30:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, how about the one where the astronaut is like, are they lost in space? Or they're going to save somebody or not save somebody? And there's always the video of the kid that was just born and they're touching the video screen back on Earth. You know, really? Come on, can we move on from that, please? You know, and anybody who has like a nine-month-old kid, keep him on Earth? You don't send him into space.

• 31:14Paul Mecurio?

  No, and he doesn't need to be on a video at nine. He's gonna be doing that the rest of his life. How about the fact that when they show up, the aliens, they immediately speak perfect English? Okay? Meanwhile, you can't understand the guy from Glasgow, Scotland right now, alright? And suddenly, right now, seriously, like you've got an octopus alien.

• 31:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, the aliens studied.

• 31:35Paul Mecurio?

  Well, no, it doesn't wash for me.

• 31:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're smart. They can learn. They're smart.

• 31:40Paul Mecurio?

  Why are we always assuming that we're dumb and they're smart? That's another trope.

• 31:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because they arrived here. And we cheer on people who ascend 100 kilometers above Earth's surface, which is the equivalent of two dimes above... Schoolroom globe, they go up and come back and we celebrate them as astronauts. We have an alien coming from across the galaxy.

• 32:09Paul Mecurio?

  How do you know they just, it took them a long time to figure it out? Why do we give them credit?

• 32:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just saying, they come across the galaxy. I'm thinking they're smarter than us. I'm thinking they have higher technology. I'm thinking they could read a dictionary and be fluent right after they read it.

• 32:24Paul Mecurio?

  But you, but they could read the dictionary and just say, this is a really stupid race and it's not worth it.

• 32:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They could do that too. In fact, they likely will.

• 32:34Paul Mecurio?

  Exactly. So those are your tropes? You have any others that come to mind?

• 32:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so those with the touching the screen of the newborn infant from your spouse at home. And, and the.

• 32:46Paul Mecurio?

  What about some where there's floating in space? Where the astronauts are floating in space?

• 32:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's fine, that's fine, that's fine.

• 32:51Paul Mecurio?

  But then they're remote, but go ahead.

• 32:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there's another one. They have these sort of laser weapons. Okay.

• 32:58Paul Mecurio?

  And again, they're making noise. Chum, chum, chum.

• 33:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that's why I said I'm giving up. I let them make the chum, chum, chum. So you see.

• 33:05Paul Mecurio?

  Turn off my noise.

• 33:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you see the laser going from the ship to the target. No, the laser is headed to the target. If you can see the laser, that means it's sending light sideways to you.

• 33:20Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 33:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It means there's something there reflecting the light. It would be like the kid went like this with the chalkboard erasers. Okay, now do the lasers so we can see the laser beam. That's not how.

• 33:32Paul Mecurio?

  Wait, the laser beam has an endpoint that it hits the object.

• 33:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you'll see it explode on the other side.

• 33:37Paul Mecurio?

  But you're not seeing the beam.

• 33:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't, you won't see the beam at all.

• 33:39Paul Mecurio?

  Because it's light.

• 33:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's light and unless you can reflect it out of the beam to your eyes.

• 33:45Paul Mecurio?

  How do you know that there's not something happening in space in time that is doing that? You don't understand yet.

• 33:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You have to be in the middle of a big gas cloud to make that happen. And then you'd have particles reflecting into you.

• 33:56Paul Mecurio?

  That's sort of the chalk in the thing.

• 33:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that's, that's the equivalent of the chalk.

• 34:00Paul Mecurio?

  All right, I don't think we need to save humanity, that's all I know. Kurt Guy, "Hey Neil and Paul. Paul, on your show Permission to Speak, you've spent years pulling the extraordinary out of ordinary people. From a cosmic perspective, Neil always says we're all made of stardust. After hearing so many different life stories, what's the atomic common thread you've found that proves we're all part of the same human constellation?"

• 34:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love that. And so that reminds me that your stage show is not just you on stage. A fundamental part is you interacting with the audience.

• 34:37Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah, just born out of my stand-up and liking to talk to audiences and getting these amazing stories.

• 34:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So have people caught on and now they leave the front rows empty?

• 34:44Paul Mecurio?

  Yes, it's like going to a Gallagher show where he's smashing fruit.

• 34:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gallagher for those who are over 50.

• 34:50Paul Mecurio?

  My job is to open people up. You act like you're young, you're 78. You have a swollen prostate. I know, I talked to your doctor.

• 35:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Leave my prostate out of this. So what you do only works if, because you've never met these people before.

• 35:06Paul Mecurio?

  Although I do get asked if it's pre-planned, if they've been scripted.

• 35:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I get you, I know, you're talented. You don't need that, I get that. So you read the audience by whatever metrics, and you know what thread will work through them so that you have a meaningful exchange of content and humor.

• 35:27Paul Mecurio?

  Yes.

• 35:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, is this because you know human nature so well? Because I have my counterpart to that, just as an educator, but I want to hear, because the comedian is way closer than the educator is.

• 35:38Paul Mecurio?

  I think that people want to be heard, and I think people want to be heard in a context where they feel safe. I define "safe" as like not worrying about political correctness in what you can say, and also that they're not going to be made fun of.

• 35:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would mean emotionally safe, not physically safe.

• 35:52Paul Mecurio?

  And then, although they are, there are, we do this over an alligator pit, so there's a physical safety issue.

• 35:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And lava, too.

• 35:59Paul Mecurio?

  Of course, hello. For me, what I've been told, and I can't speak to this, I do have this natural curiosity. I'm not just asking the questions as part of an act. So, and when you get to that second, third, and fourth question, you get these amazing stories. And I think the reason that it works is because there's something that I call, we all have beautiful imperfection. And what I say in my show is

• 36:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like that.

• 36:23Paul Mecurio?

  We're imperfect and we should embrace that. You know, in other words, we want to think that life comes in nice neat boxes and everything's black and white, but life would be boring. But in the imperfection, that's what's interesting. That's where you get crazy stories, funny stories, how for stories, because we're all making imperfect decisions all the time, but that's okay. And I think what happens is a connection happens with people in the audience that night because they're sitting there going consciously or subconsciously, oh, this guy's as imperfect as I am and I feel pretty good about that.

• 36:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe we should redefine those imperfections as perfections, if they're fundamental to what it is to be alive.

• 37:04Paul Mecurio?

  Oh, wow. That's a lot deeper than I thought of it, but, and so...

• 37:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it's the, it's the, it's in the same vein of that. If everyone is special, then no one is special.

• 37:14Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 37:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's the same kind of...

• 37:16Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah.

• 37:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If everyone has imperfections, then that's what the perfection is.

• 37:20Paul Mecurio?

  Right, but Kurt asked about common thread, and I think the common thread is that people want to be connected, especially now, things are divisive and they seem to only be getting worse, but it's not a political show, but I think people want to be connected and they get connected through these stories. And I think the other thing that happens is, I think it gets us out of our silos to be aware that there are other people out there different from us in a way that's good to know. You don't have to agree with it, like it, or understand it.

• 37:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But you have to know in advance that they're gonna like that. They're not gonna get up and walk out of the show.

• 37:49Paul Mecurio?

  They do.

• 37:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 37:50Paul Mecurio?

  I mean, I've had, I've had stories where you're like, oh my God. I mean, I've had two heroin addicts on stage, one recovering and one didn't want to recover.

• 37:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You bring them up on stage?

• 37:59Paul Mecurio?

  Oh yeah, they come on stage.

• 38:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 38:00Paul Mecurio?

  I bring them up in groups, like six, four, six people at a time, and then we just start.

• 38:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's brave. I've seen you do that at the beginning of Colbert.

• 38:06Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah.

• 38:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 38:07Paul Mecurio?

  And then what ends up happening...

• 38:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're warming up the audience.

• 38:09Paul Mecurio?

  Yes, and what ends up happening is, it really turns into like we're hanging out in somebody's big basement, having drinks and telling stories for people who have never met before, because then people from the audience will start to yell out questions, which is fine with me.

• 38:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 38:21Paul Mecurio?

  And then the beautiful thing for me is... They don't leave right after the show's over. They come over to somebody and they'll say, oh, you're from Portland. I'm from Portland. And they'll start to connect with each other.

• 38:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They learn that about them.

• 38:31Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah. And they were drawn in by the conversation. So I think it's the common thread of sort of, we're all imperfect and we're all figuring it out.

• 38:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we need to send you to the Middle East.

• 38:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bring peace to the world.

• 38:43Paul Mecurio?

  Oh, yes. Okay. I'm the one. You know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna go on my speedo. That'll make people throw up.

• 38:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They'll stop all action.

• 38:50Paul Mecurio?

  Exactly. Nobody can fight because they're all throwing up. But thank you for asking that question. It gives me a chance to explain the show a little bit.

• 38:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 38:59Paul Mecurio?

  It's pretty awesome.

• 39:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So my version of that, I don't know if I got asked it as well.

• 39:03Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah, I think it's for both.

• 39:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. I rely on an assumption that everyone is fundamentally curious at some level. And if they forgot how to be curious, there are embers that just need to be fanned that can then reignite in their adulthood, embers that were there as children. And there's nothing more satisfying to an educator than to watch an adult have a resurfaced feeling of wonder about the world that kids have every day. Because every day in a kid's life is new.

• 39:38Paul Mecurio?

  So here's what you do. We talked about emotional safety in my show. What you do is what I'll call intellectual safety. Like, I never feel stupid and I don't think anybody does.

• 39:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really, I've been trying to make you feel stupid. I've been failing at that. Let me go back and try again.

• 39:54Paul Mecurio?

  You really suck at that. No, you give intellectual safety and enthusiasm. And those two things together, you can draw people in emotionally with enthusiasm and not being pedantic and talking down to them. And you never make somebody feel...

• 40:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They don't fear displaying their ignorance.

• 40:13Paul Mecurio?

  Exactly.

• 40:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, okay.

• 40:14Paul Mecurio?

  And so when, look, I mean, we've all...

• 40:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I will attack you. I will attack you if you don't know that you're ignorant and are coming out...

• 40:23Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 40:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Out of the gates strong.

• 40:25Paul Mecurio?

  Right, exactly.

• 40:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because then you're in this place where...

• 40:28Paul Mecurio?

  Listen, you...

• 40:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know enough to think you're right.

• 40:31Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 40:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you don't know enough to know you're wrong. And then you're aggressive. I don't, you know...

• 40:35Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah. Everybody watching, everybody listening, and you and I have had a moment where you go, I don't want to ask that question. I'm gonna feel, it's gonna sound stupid.

• 40:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would be you and me. You and I.

• 40:45Paul Mecurio?

  Okay, you see, this is why people don't socialize with you. This is why you're alone a lot. Sitting there pulling bread apart, doing the Roche limit thing.

• 40:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just saying.

• 40:55Paul Mecurio?

  So, I think that that's a common thing, especially when you're younger. It's like, "I want to ask this question," and I feel stupid to ask it. Then you ask it, and the person goes, "It's great you asked that, because five other people had the same question." You never create an environment where you feel like you could ask a stupid question, and you have enthusiasm. So you give what I'll call intellectual safety in that way.

• 41:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you for thinking about it that way.

• 41:17Paul Mecurio?

  And I think it's really important.

• 41:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 41:19Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah.

• 41:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, good.

• 41:20Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah.

• 41:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Done with our mutual appreciation society.

• 41:23Paul Mecurio?

  This is great. I'm still not hanging out with you after this.

• 41:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Time for a couple more questions.

• 41:27Paul Mecurio?

  Sure, absolutely.

• 41:42Speaker 02

  I'm Ali Khan Hemraj, and I support StarTalk on Patreon. This is StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 42:00Paul Mecurio?

  Hi, Dr. Tyson. If space itself is expanding faster than light, what's really stopping us from ever outrunning the universe? And is the limit physics, or just our current understanding of it? Alan Ray are here, an Indian turning in from Vilnius, Lithuania.

• 42:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay. So, if I understand that question, if space is expanding, and the fastest you can travel in the space is the speed of light, and space is expanding faster than the speed of light...

• 42:32Paul Mecurio?

  Which is seven miles per...

• 42:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, that's the escape velocity from Earth.

• 42:35Paul Mecurio?

  Go ahead, okay.

• 42:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. The speed of light, 186,282 miles per second. If the space is expanding faster than light, and within space, the fastest you can move is the speed of light, you're not outrunning the universe.

• 42:48Paul Mecurio?

  Is it ever possible?

• 42:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No. You're not outrunning the universe. That's not happening.

• 42:54Paul Mecurio?

  And is it, is it, do we know that? Or do we just think that there's science out there that we don't understand?

• 42:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're not outrunning the uni- if the universe recolapsed and is not then stretching at faster than the speed of light, then yeah, you can get wherever you want.

• 43:07Paul Mecurio?

  It could be beat at the speed of light.

• 43:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Every place you see, you can get there.

• 43:09Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 43:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At the speed of light or less. But right now, we're, live in a universe where there's a distance at which is receding from us faster than the speed of light. And it's not a problem because that's Einstein's general theory of relativity, which places no speed limits.

• 43:25Paul Mecurio?

  What is causing it to recede at faster than the speed of light? Do we know?

• 43:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The two things. The original energy of expansion was greater than the escape velocity of the universe itself. That's another way to think about that. That's what will expand forever. But we also found dark energy, which is this negative pressure that's forcing the expansion to accelerate. And so that puts it out of reach.

• 43:50Paul Mecurio?

  Negative pressure? I thought you were talking about your personality. Okay. Um, all right, we're gonna do another one.

• 43:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you're not outrunning the universe? So just chill out on that one.

• 43:57Paul Mecurio?

  We wanna, we wanna get a couple more in here as we finish. Diego Calderon, hello, Dr. Tyson. I'm Diego Calderon from the world's longest and narrowest country, home to some of the world's most advanced telescopes. I'm a new Patreon member and someone deeply curious about the universe. Our telescopes can detect parts of reality we are completely blind to, radio waves, infrared, X-rays, and gamma rays. But they always translate them into forms our senses can understand. If humans could develop one extra sense to better discover the universe, what sense would you choose? Greetings from?

• 44:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chile!

• 44:35Paul Mecurio?

  There you go.

• 44:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if he's Chilean, then it's not Calderon, it's Calderon.

• 44:42Paul Mecurio?

  Oh.

• 44:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Diego Calderon.

• 44:43Paul Mecurio?

  Hmm, I feel like you're hitting on me right now. Oh, we met at Tango?

• 44:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Andes mountain range, it goes practically the full length of Chile. And so, all the great telescopes in South America landed in Chile for that reason. There's also very good atmospheric stability because the mountains are right on the ocean shore. And so, the way the air comes in and interacts with the mountain range, it creates a very stable observing environment.

• 45:11Paul Mecurio?

  Because the range is so tall.

• 45:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's hauled relative to that, and the air is cool off the ocean. So, it all combines, the same advantages they get in Hawaii, in the big observatories there.

• 45:21Paul Mecurio?

  We should go on a vacation there together, to the Andes.

• 45:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You and me?

• 45:24Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah, you know, bring the wives. I don't know if they're gonna wanna come.

• 45:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Leave your speed out.

• 45:31Paul Mecurio?

  So, yeah, if humans could develop one extra sense.

• 45:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know what it'd be?

• 45:34Paul Mecurio?

  Better discover what we need.

• 45:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I know what it'd be. You ready? Common sense.

• 45:39Paul Mecurio?

  Yes, come here, give me that right there. Mine was, know what you're talking about.

• 45:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, common sense. We don't need, I mean, I feel a little privileged here as a scientist because scientists have dozens of senses. Just like Diego commented. We can see infrared, ultraviolet, X-rays, gamma rays, radio waves, without our physiology enabling that. Because we have detectors. That's what science is, is how to probe the world beyond the capacity of our physiology to accomplish that. So, because I can do it with my, with my, with my tools, I'm not thinking that I'm deficient.

• 46:22Paul Mecurio?

  Right, but he's talking about not through tools, but just a natural.

• 46:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know, I'm just saying, I don't feel the deficiency that he's asking.

• 46:30Paul Mecurio?

  Right.

• 46:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because I have.

• 46:32Paul Mecurio?

  Yes, science is a yes.

• 46:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if there's, I think, common sense is something humans lack.

• 46:40Paul Mecurio?

  Common sense.

• 46:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which means it's not common.

• 46:42Paul Mecurio?

  I just pick the ability to detect, you know, when someone actually, actually knows what they're talking about, or is just a bag of hot air. How about that sense?

• 46:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's, that's science literacy. Which empowers you to know when someone else is full of shit.

• 46:56Paul Mecurio?

  I don't need a sense of dark matter. I need a sense that tells me where the hell my phone is, so I don't tear my house apart, like I'm a rabid dinosaur looking for some meat. I don't know. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm getting angry now. I don't make sense when I get angry.

• 47:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you lose your phone in your own home?

• 47:11Paul Mecurio?

  Yes, you haven't done that?

• 47:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Says, anybody over?

• 47:15Paul Mecurio?

  No, here we go. Here we go. So, common sense is actually a good one.

• 47:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, cuz I'm content with the senses that my methods and tools of science

• 47:23Paul Mecurio?

  But this gets back to-

• 47:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  otherwise bring to me.

• 47:25Paul Mecurio?

  This is really back to what we were talking about before, when we talked about intellectual uh, safety, it's sort of the person you don't like, and I agree, is the one that will just come in, you know, well, in a china shop, like I know everything, and doesn't wanna hear anything.

• 47:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and I don't mind someone doing that if they actually knew everything. But generally, when you do know everything, you're not that aggressive.

• 47:41Paul Mecurio?

  No, exactly.

• 47:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, cuz you're comfortable in your knowledge.

• 47:43Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah, you're not overcompensating.

• 47:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're not overcompensating.

• 47:45Paul Mecurio?

  That's the way you do. I mean, wait, what? Uh, uh, well, that was a great question.

• 47:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, really good.

• 47:50Paul Mecurio?

  Um, I think-

• 47:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Couple more, time for a couple more. Yeah, slip another one in there.

• 47:53Paul Mecurio?

  Alright, here we go. Hello, Dr. Tyson. In popular fiction, we experience time travel from one perspective. Either a single person traveling through time, or multiple people traveling to a specific time in a single event. We rarely, if ever, hear of multiple people traveling from multiple perspectives. How would the universe handle these separate events? Thanks from Austintown, Ohio, Bob W.

• 48:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The universe can't handle the truth.

• 48:20Paul Mecurio?

  Well, it's conflicting cause and effect, right?

• 48:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If, if one person goes to one place, and that's what the story is about, fine. But you can make another story about somebody going somewhere else, and let there be a hundred stories about people going throughout. So, maybe the question is, if someone is about to disrupt a timeline of events-

• 48:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It gets highly complicated if somebody else is in a different part of that timeline with similar capacity to influence the timeline of events.

• 48:49Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah.

• 48:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then you, then it gets very chaotic.

• 48:52Paul Mecurio?

  But wait, the universe would have to either force all of those perspectives into one consistent story, split them into separate realities, or prevent the situation entirely.

• 49:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It would just become one story. Wouldn't have to force anything.

• 49:06Paul Mecurio?

  Okay, so then if time travel were possible, would multiple travelers from different points in time necessarily converge into contradictions?

• 49:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They would wreak havoc on the timeline we have come to know and love. They would turn it into a new timeline that had them as part of that timeline to begin with.

• 49:25Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah, but that's not science fiction. That's like the universe opening up too many tabs and everything crashing.

• 49:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a, it's a, a universe with too many tabs. I like that.

• 49:34Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah?

• 49:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a perfect analogy.

• 49:36Paul Mecurio?

  Because I did my thesis in Chile over that. It's so weird. When were you there? It seems, it seems contradictory to me.

• 49:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I'm just, I think the issue is, how much of a maelstrom would unfold if more than one person were meddling, were meddling in the timeline simultaneously?

• 49:53Paul Mecurio?

  Can multiple conflicting paths be all true at the same time? Or no?

• 49:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not in the same universe. No.

• 49:59Paul Mecurio?

  Okay, but you could, they can be through time travel.

• 50:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But we have to ask what does conflict mean, right? So you can't have a universe where Hitler rises to power and in the same universe Hitler doesn't rise to power. Pick one. And so this is why people are thinking that timeline splits, you actually split universes. This allows them to-

• 50:17Paul Mecurio?

  So contradictory things can exist in two different universes?

• 50:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the only way to get out of that.

• 50:22Paul Mecurio?

  Conundrum.

• 50:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's conundrum. Right.

• 50:24Paul Mecurio?

  Got it.

• 50:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and there are plenty of people who want to think that way about universes. The timeline splits into two universes. So-

• 50:31Paul Mecurio?

  I would time travel with you.

• 50:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You would?

• 50:33Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah. If you didn't talk.

• 50:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As long as you leave your speedos behind, we can go ahead.

• 50:38Paul Mecurio?

  There you go. I think we did a nice job here. We got through a lot of questions.

• 50:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One quick one, and I'll answer it quick.

• 50:44Paul Mecurio?

  A quick one, okay, let me find it. Patrick here, Dr. Tyson Patrick, just another science nerd from southeast Texas. What if spacetime behaves like a super solid, meaning it has both fluid-like flow and crystal-like structure, could black holes actually be long-lived topological defects in that medium rather than singularities? And if so, instead of destroying information, might they encode it in stable patterns or scars in spacetime itself, potentially releasing it later as structured gravitational wave echoes or even retro casual signals? This is a really basic question, and I wish this guy would be a little smarter. Wow, that's a great question.

• 51:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That question is so trivial, I'll let you take it.

• 51:33Paul Mecurio?

  Well, you know, I'm a big fan of crystal light. It's like a lemonade, but it doesn't have all the calories. Is that what we're talking about here?

• 51:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, I'd like the notion that something we think of as just empty space is reinterpreted as a medium within which you can embed information. I'd like where he's going there. And we know how you make a black hole. So, if you can make a black hole in this medium, then the black hole itself is not some blemish that's there. When we look at crystals, there are imperfections within crystals that make for some interesting properties. Some of those imperfections give them certain color hues, because the light doesn't go through smoothly.

• 52:19Paul Mecurio?

  Structure.

• 52:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, and so, but a black hole is a very natural phenomenon, so I can't think of it as an imperfection. I refuse to think of it as an imperfection. But if a black hole has the power to send out ripples into that medium that contain echoes of what happened inside, and that then somehow gets embedded in that medium, that's a cool idea. The question is what, so here's what you do. When you have an idea, however outlandish, you ask, "How would we test it?"

• 52:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is there some light echo left by a black hole in the middle of empty space that we should be looking for? Is there some scar or record within the fabric of space and time that would betray the existence of these black holes or other imperfections? And you'd have to pose the question in a way that our telescopes can answer. Otherwise, it's just fun science fiction.

• 53:16Paul Mecurio?

  Well, what about the supposition? What if spacetime behaves like a super solid, meaning that it's both fluid-like flow and crystal-like structure? Do we believe there is a-

• 53:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that's the what if. And then if it is, then it would somehow capture these echoes in its substance, if it is a thing, right? And it's probably not all it would capture. There'd be some other phenomena.

• 53:40Paul Mecurio?

  When we say echo in this context, we mean sort of what happened, the after-effects of a black hole being created.

• 53:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, just a black hole being a black hole. Does it vibrate? Does it trigger some pulse? Is there a gravitational wave that has information embedded within it? So, yeah, I don't have a problem thinking that way. But if you're gonna do that, you wanna come up with predictions.

• 54:04Paul Mecurio?

  And do we have that ability to come up with predictions?

• 54:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it would be his job.

• 54:09Paul Mecurio?

  Wow, okay.

• 54:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you don't wanna think up that question, I'm leaving it to him to come up with-

• 54:16Paul Mecurio?

  When did you semi-retire from science?

• 54:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm tired.

• 54:22Paul Mecurio?

  I'm damn tired. That's another trope in every movie. I'm tired, I can't do this anymore. I'm too damn old for this. Well, that was a great question, and I think we've wrapped up. We've got a-

• 54:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, we're good. Probably didn't get to them all?

• 54:35Paul Mecurio?

  No, we did not.

• 54:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, maybe next time.

• 54:37Paul Mecurio?

  Yes.

• 54:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Paul!

• 54:38Paul Mecurio?

  Great to see you.

• 54:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We'll find you. So, what are your next cities?

• 54:41Paul Mecurio?

  It's on my website, PaulMcCurio.com. And I'm right there. You can't miss me, homepage in my speedo.

• 54:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And after, and after May 21st, if you need your lawn mowed?

• 54:51Paul Mecurio?

  I'm the guy. Who wants mayonnaise on their sandwich? I'm the guy. I can do any of that.

• 54:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The last Colbert Show.

• 54:59Paul Mecurio?

  Colbert Show, and, yeah. Kinda weird and strange, but it is what it is.

• 55:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Weird and strange. All right, dude. Thanks for coming on.

• 55:07Paul Mecurio?

  Yeah, great to see you.

• 55:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, this has been StarTalk Cosmic Queries. Grab Bag. Fan favorite. Neil deGrasse Tyson here, as always, bidding you to keep looking up.