Pod Insights StarTalk Podcast Cosmic Queries – From Wine to Wormholes About this episode What would happen to Earth if Jupiter stopped rotating? Neil deGrasse Tyson and Chuck Nice answer a grab bag of fan questions about the challenges with space telescopes, the nature of AI, and whether aliens are funny.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Chuck, people have been asking genius level questions on Cosmic Queries.
0:04 Chuck Nice? Yeah, I'm, I think they're using AI.
0:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No, no, no, no, AI is not that smart.
0:09 Chuck Nice? That's true. Our listeners are smarter than AI.
0:10 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yes, they are. More on that, coming right up.
0:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide.
0:25 Neil deGrasse Tyson? StarTalk begins right now.
0:31 Neil deGrasse Tyson? This is StarTalk. Neil deGrasse Tyson, you're a personal astrophysicist. Chuck Nice, I got with me here.
0:37 Chuck Nice? That's right. What's up, Neil?
0:39 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Chuck, you, just to make it clear, you were not born my co-host.
0:43 Chuck Nice? No, I was not born the co-host.
0:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You were born in the streets of...
0:47 Chuck Nice? I was born the son of a sharecropper.
0:53 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The Ken Burns Civil War, is that what that is?
0:58 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We're gonna do another Cosmic Queries.
1:00 Chuck Nice? Yes.
1:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? A grab bag edition. This is becoming a fan favorite.
1:03 Chuck Nice? People love it.
1:04 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's okay.
1:05 Chuck Nice? Because we can ping pong anywhere we want in the cosmos.
1:08 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It means I might not know stuff and I'm, you know.
1:11 Chuck Nice? That's yet to happen. I mean, alright, there's something to shoot for here now.
1:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, let me aim for not knowing something.
1:17 Chuck Nice? Exactly.
1:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Alright, so let's go.
1:19 Chuck Nice? Alright, let's get to it. This is Natasha Shaw Davis. Good evening, Dr. Tyson and honorable Paul His Goofiness.
1:28 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Paul, Paul, Paul Macurio.
1:29 Chuck Nice? Paul Macurio, Baron Paul Macurio.
1:31 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh, okay.
1:33 Chuck Nice? Apparently Baron, Baron was supposed to be him. Yeah, not Lord, but Baron.
1:37 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, so people are expecting Paul for this episode.
1:41 Chuck Nice? Yes.
1:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? What did you do with Paul? Is he locked in your trunk?
1:45 Chuck Nice? Paul could not be with us today. I'm just saying.
1:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Is he in your trunk?
1:51 Chuck Nice? Right, and if you hear, if you hear muffled screams coming from the closet.
1:58 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Alright.
1:58 Chuck Nice? Alright, he says, Natasha says this. Natasha from New Mexico here. Eyes see some wiggles in matter and ears hear a little more, but the whole body experiences gravity. If you could pick any organ to deliberately experience the graviton, what would you pick? My heart.
2:25 Chuck Nice? Oh my God, that was so sweet.
2:27 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Because my heart has its requisite number of beats per minute.
2:31 Chuck Nice? Right.
2:32 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And it goes up when you get excited or you exercise and it calms down. So the heart is with you in your emotional moments.
2:43 Chuck Nice? Correct.
2:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So if a graviton or gravitational wave, the graviton would be the particle version of the wave.
2:52 Chuck Nice? Right.
2:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? If it washed over me or passed through me, I'd want my heart to participate in that.
2:57 Chuck Nice? Oh.
2:58 Neil deGrasse Tyson? My heart is the graviton detector.
3:00 Chuck Nice? Oh, that's I have to the heart wants what the heart wants. And apparently it's a graviton.
3:10 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's a geek dating app.
3:13 Chuck Nice? Swipe right for graviton. That's cool. All right. She says, this is Bev from Atlanta, from Alabama. Will we ever be able to cultivate the right terrier for wine other than Earth? Thank you for gifting us with your insights. In other words, will we be able to grow a vineyard on another planet?
3:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, you're gonna have to back and read that. If you're gonna pretend like you know anything about wine, you have to pronounce the words right. Terroir.
3:40 Chuck Nice? Terroir. Okay, here we go. Will we be able to cultivate the right?
3:47 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You have to like gutter, gutterize into the microphone.
3:50 Chuck Nice? Exactly. I have to, I have to say the word like I'm Sylvester Stallone. Will we be able to cultivate the right?
4:00 Chuck Nice? For wine other than Earth? Really? So what's?
4:04 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I think the answer is no.
4:06 Chuck Nice? Right.
4:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Can I tell you why? Well, first, terroir is a French word that we don't have an English counterpart to.
4:13 Chuck Nice? Clearly.
4:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's not the first of such words.
4:17 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
4:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You know another word we don't have for?
4:19 Chuck Nice? Go ahead.
4:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Light fixture in the middle of the room that has crystal and multiple lights.
4:25 Chuck Nice? Chandelier.
4:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We don't have a word for that.
4:27 Chuck Nice? No, we don't. You know why? Cause we're not nearly as pretentious as the French. And nobody in colonial America had a chandelier, okay?
4:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Turn on the light.
4:39 Chuck Nice? That's right, exactly. We had a single bulb on a pixie.
4:44 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Not in colonial America did they have bulbs.
4:46 Chuck Nice? That's true, true. Gas lamps.
4:49 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, okay, I'll give you gas lamps. Probably whale blubber oil.
4:54 Chuck Nice? Exactly.
4:54 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, yeah. So, wine doesn't grow in most places on earth.
5:00 Chuck Nice? That's right.
5:02 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And if there's ever a place where they're growing hops to make beer, it's because they could not grow grapes to make wine.
5:08 Chuck Nice? Oh, wow. You really diss beer just then? Man, you just threw a lot of shade on beer. Like, the only reason you're able to drink beer is because that crap is not as good as wine.
5:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The economics of it.
5:24 Chuck Nice? Okay.
5:25 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's economy, it's economics, okay? And I didn't invent this datum, okay?
5:31 Chuck Nice? Right.
5:32 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Singular of datum.
5:33 Chuck Nice? Right, datum, right.
5:34 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's.
5:35 Chuck Nice? Datum if you can.
5:37 Neil deGrasse Tyson? If you can grow the ingredients for beer or the ingredients for wine, the people choose the grapes. And I, I, I'm guessing it's because it's more profitable.
5:48 Chuck Nice? I was gonna say grapes have more uses than hops.
5:51 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And so, that as well, of course. Yeah, yeah. So, so, around the world, the places where you can grow successful wine is so rare than to say, well, Earth can grow wine.
6:03 Chuck Nice? Like another planet.
6:04 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, I'm not feeling that.
6:06 Chuck Nice? Right.
6:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Not only that, the moon has a surface, but it's not soil. We might call it that, but it's not. You know what it is? It's pulverized rock.
6:15 Chuck Nice? Right.
6:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Micrometeorites that don't stop in the atmosphere because.
6:19 Chuck Nice? There is no atmosphere.
6:20 Neil deGrasse Tyson? There is no atmosphere.
6:21 Chuck Nice? Worst restaurant ever.
6:24 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No atmosphere.
6:25 Chuck Nice? Yeah, yeah.
6:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Hits the rock, pulverizes, it turns it into lunar dust. The geologists call that the regolith.
6:33 Chuck Nice? A regolith.
6:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Which is powderedized rock.
6:35 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
6:36 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Plants don't like rock.
6:37 Chuck Nice? No, they don't. They like soil.
6:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right. So, and same with Mars. Mars doesn't have. So, soil has living organisms in it that make it this thing that plants like. So, I'm thinking wine might be unique to Earth in the universe.
6:54 Chuck Nice? Wow.
6:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So think of it another way. Some other planet will have some other thing. Right. Unique to it.
7:01 Chuck Nice? Exactly.
7:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And then we become trading partners.
7:03 Chuck Nice? There you go. Right.
7:05 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right. We didn't make silk. They made it in the Far East. Make the Silk Road.
7:08 Chuck Nice? Right.
7:08 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We made something else they want.
7:10 Chuck Nice? So we will give them wine and they will give us space heroin.
7:16 Chuck Nice? Like, oh, man. I thought wine was good.
7:22 Chuck Nice? You ain't living.
7:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? More than open.
7:25 Chuck Nice? Space opium, boy.
7:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The wine high holds nothing on an opium high.
7:29 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
7:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? All right. So I said, I'm, I'm gonna take.
7:33 Chuck Nice? Nah, I think everything.
7:34 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I'm gonna take the Fifth Amendment on that.
7:35 Chuck Nice? Everything you said tracks, though.
7:37 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Earth is Earth and nowhere else.
7:39 Chuck Nice? Wine is climate and soil.
7:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's it.
7:42 Chuck Nice? That's it.
7:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And the climate change that's happening has affected where you can grow wine.
7:47 Chuck Nice? Absolutely. As a matter of fact.
7:49 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Couple of degree change in the thing.
7:51 Chuck Nice? And it ruins or helps.
7:53 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right. It, it.
7:54 Chuck Nice? It can either ruin or help.
7:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It rises or falls.
7:56 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
7:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? On, on such small changes.
7:58 Chuck Nice? Exactly. As a matter of fact, like, I think, uh, I don't know what wine it is, but they are growing in certain parts of England now.
8:09 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh, they, they grow champagne in England.
8:10 Chuck Nice? Yeah, champagne.
8:11 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh, you can't say champagne.
8:11 Chuck Nice? No, Doug, because you can only say champagne if it is from Champagne. It has to be from Champagne. You cannot say, I will arrest you. Someone called the police. He is saying that it is from Champagne. It is not from Champagne. It is not. And you cannot say it's from Burgundy. It's less than it's from Burgundy.
8:31 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Exactly. To Gallo Hardy Burgundy. That was a flavor that they had.
8:35 Chuck Nice? Right.
8:35 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Flavor. That was a brand of wine. Hardy Burgundy.
8:38 Chuck Nice? Burgundy.
8:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That, that.
8:39 Chuck Nice? Mm, mm, mm, mm, nah.
8:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Plus, if you say you, you smoke marijuana.
8:45 Chuck Nice? Right.
8:46 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay. You can't say that unless it comes from the marijuana section of France. Otherwise, it's just sparkling oregano.
8:56 Chuck Nice? I didn't know where you were going with that. Man, you had me. You had me lock, stock and bro. I was like, what the hell is he doing right now?
9:05 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Where's he going?
9:05 Chuck Nice? Where's he? But, okay. Yeah, that was good.
9:11 Chuck Nice? Sparkling oregano. Okay, I like it. That was good. All right, this is Sasha.
9:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You know the planet could have those jokes?
9:17 Chuck Nice? Yes.
9:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right?
9:18 Chuck Nice? Right, exactly.
9:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? There it is, okay. Of course, you need the French to be a part of the culture of how you're gonna make fun of that.
9:25 Chuck Nice? Listen, without the French, nothing works.
9:27 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's a boring world.
9:28 Chuck Nice? It's a boring world, okay? World sucks without the French. Sucks more with them, but...
9:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? He's a comedian.
9:39 Chuck Nice? Guys, come on.
9:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? He's a comedian.
9:41 Chuck Nice? Stop it. I'm joking. I love the French.
9:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Go.
9:44 Chuck Nice? All right, this is Sasha975, who says, "Hello, everyone. Sasha from Germany here. How big could telescopes really get if we could manufacture them in space? Could we use an array of telescopes?"
9:59 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Wow. This has been on our mind for decades.
10:02 Chuck Nice? Yes.
10:03 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Decades.
10:04 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
10:05 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And so, what you wouldn't make a single big dish, because that's not realistic.
10:10 Chuck Nice? Right.
10:11 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But we figured out, using engineering and complex mathematics.
10:16 Chuck Nice? Okay.
10:17 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Literally complex mathematics. So, in the complex plane of imaginary numbers, and you can create a... So, here's how you do it. You can put a telescope over here and a telescope over here.
10:32 Chuck Nice? Mm-hmm.
10:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? If they observe the same object, then you have it exactly timed, and you know what? Then you can combine them as though you had a dish or a mirror that was as big as the separation between them.
10:46 Chuck Nice? Separation between them. Very cool.
10:48 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But that takes some fancy math to make that work.
10:52 Chuck Nice? Okay.
10:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And timing and the like.
10:53 Chuck Nice? Okay.
10:54 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And so, anytime you see an array of radio telescopes.
10:57 Chuck Nice? Yes.
10:58 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You could use them individually, but generally, we don't.
11:00 Chuck Nice? Right.
11:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? They're used in harmony.
11:02 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
11:02 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And it's as though you had a dish the size... In fact, we do better than that. We have a string of these dishes.
11:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And as Earth rotates, you can fill in the, the, the area with more observations to improve your data. And so in space, where there is no stress load, because if it's orbiting, then it's just weightless, there's no stress load on the equipment.
11:33 Chuck Nice? Right.
11:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Then nothing stops how big you can make this.
11:36 Chuck Nice? Make it, right?
11:37 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We're thinking if we're going to detect certain wavelengths of gravitational waves.
11:42 Chuck Nice? Right.
11:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You need detectors.
11:45 Chuck Nice? Huge detector.
11:46 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The diameter of the Earth.
11:47 Chuck Nice? Right.
11:47 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Or the Earth moon.
11:48 Chuck Nice? Right.
11:49 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Or maybe Earth to Earth in its orbit around the sun.
11:53 Chuck Nice? Wow.
11:54 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The wavelengths of energy reaching us don't stop at just the size of our detectors.
11:59 Chuck Nice? Right.
12:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Make a bigger detector, you're going to be sensitive to a different kind of, of energy headed our way. So for a while NASA had plans for the SIM.
12:10 Chuck Nice? Okay.
12:10 Neil deGrasse Tyson? SIM is a space interferometry.
12:13 Chuck Nice? Where you create a character and it walks around.
12:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Is that what, how that works?
12:17 Chuck Nice? It was called SIMs.
12:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Well, SIM City, you'd be like mayor of the city.
12:20 Chuck Nice? Yeah, yeah. I, I never got it.
12:22 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You never got, okay.
12:23 Chuck Nice? Never understood it.
12:24 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And then like Godzilla would walk through every now and then.
12:26 Chuck Nice? That I understand.
12:27 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Repair everything.
12:28 Chuck Nice? Yeah, that I understand.
12:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And I said, this is stupid. Well Godzilla's not even real. And then like, stuff can happen to us. There could be a fire, there could be a terrorist attack.
12:36 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
12:37 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's, it's Godzilla.
12:38 Chuck Nice? Yeah. If you want to, listen, my thing is this, if you want to play God, have children.
12:44 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, you're playing God of the city.
12:46 Chuck Nice? Playing God with the SIM.
12:47 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
12:47 Chuck Nice? But anyways, space.
12:49 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Interferometry mission.
12:50 Chuck Nice? Interferometry mission.
12:51 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So interferometry is you take different telescopes and bring them together as one telescope.
12:57 Chuck Nice? Right.
12:57 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay. So this one was gonna, one of them was like on a rigid bar. I'm, I'm dredging memory now because it's from decades ago. One was on a rigid bar that was very large, but then we figured you can station keep with like lasers. So the rigid bars, you always know. How far away they are from each other? But if you use lasers and you just always measure how far? Because what matters is that you know how far away they are.
13:22 Chuck Nice? Right.
13:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Not necessarily that it's the constant distance.
13:25 Chuck Nice? Right.
13:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So if I always know, because I have laser measures, then you could, in principle, create one of these telescopes in space. As big as you wanted.
13:35 Chuck Nice? Wow.
13:35 Neil deGrasse Tyson? They could beam across Earth orbit, Earth diameter, Earth to moon. And there's a lot of talk of radio telescopes on the backside of the moon. The far side of the moon. Because there's no radio noise coming from.
13:48 Chuck Nice? Us.
13:49 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Earth.
13:49 Chuck Nice? Right.
13:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Earth. We are noisy, radio noisy place.
13:53 Chuck Nice? Disturbing.
13:54 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah.
13:54 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
13:54 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So.
13:55 Chuck Nice? You never heard anybody knocking on the atmosphere? Like, keep it down.
14:01 Chuck Nice? Gavin, I gotta work tomorrow.
14:02 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The aliens.
14:04 Chuck Nice? Cut out your record.
14:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, yes, space, we've thought a lot about it.
14:08 Chuck Nice? Right.
14:09 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And it's a matter of, you need this funding, you have to maintain it. You know, it's not just the cost of building it. There's every year, there's.
14:17 Chuck Nice? You got a maintenance.
14:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, there's the usage of it, which, okay, but also if something goes wrong, if it's in Earth orbit, you can get back to it. But if it's out in space, like the James Webb Telescope?
14:29 Chuck Nice? Right.
14:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Something goes wrong there, that's it.
14:31 Chuck Nice? We're done.
14:31 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We ain't going, it's a million miles farther than the moon. We ain't going, we're not sending people there.
14:36 Chuck Nice? Yeah, exactly.
14:37 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah. Something goes wrong with the James Webb, I say, AI, go out there and fix it. Oh, we don't know how to make a spaceship. Oh, you need a human for that?
14:50 Chuck Nice? Let's not, let's not tempt AI.
14:54 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I got a feeling.
14:57 Chuck Nice? All right, this is Michelle H. She says, hi Neil, hi Paul. This is Michelle in Calgary, Alberta. My question is short and sweet. If Jupiter stopped rotating on its axis.
15:08 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But my answer is long and sour.
15:11 Chuck Nice? All right.
15:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? If her question is short and sweet.
15:13 Chuck Nice? There you go. If Jupiter stopped rotating on its axis, how would that, how would Earth be affected? Please pick my question and give me a thrill of a lifetime. Thanks. P S. I'll understand if you don't. Don't work against yourself, Michelle. I know. I don't know how Paul runs his operation, but I would never do that to you.
15:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's a curious question.
15:42 Chuck Nice? Yeah, doesn't work. So, I mean, we wouldn't be here without Jupiter anyway.
15:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Jupiter is like a big brother.
15:46 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
15:47 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah.
15:48 Chuck Nice? So.
15:48 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, big brother who swats away comets that might have headed to the inner solar system.
15:55 Chuck Nice? Right.
15:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Wreaking havoc upon the stability of life on Earth.
15:58 Chuck Nice? Yeah, man.
15:59 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And Jupiter says, no, you don't.
16:01 Chuck Nice? Yep. It's a bodyguard, Earth's bodyguard.
16:04 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Jupiter has more mass than all other planets combined, including Saturn.
16:08 Chuck Nice? Wow, Saturn is big.
16:09 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, so if you come through, you feel in Jupiter.
16:12 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
16:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? All right, so turns out as far as I have ever calculated and everything I know about the laws of physics and gravity and motion, Jupiter's rotation has no effect on anything else in the solar system.
16:27 Chuck Nice? Wow.
16:28 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Nothing else cares.
16:29 Chuck Nice? Nothing else cares.
16:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But what would happen?
16:31 Chuck Nice? Okay.
16:32 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Jupiter has storms.
16:34 Chuck Nice? Yes.
16:34 Neil deGrasse Tyson? There's the famous red spot.
16:38 Chuck Nice? That just stays there.
16:39 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a cyclone.
16:41 Chuck Nice? Swirl.
16:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's a swirl. It's red in the gas colorations and has been there at least since Galileo or shortly after. Hundreds of years.
16:51 Chuck Nice? Right.
16:51 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's been sustained.
16:52 Chuck Nice? And it's the same storm.
16:53 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Unless it just disappears when nobody's looking and then comes back. So, so these, these weather circula- circulations are product of the rotation of the planet.
17:05 Chuck Nice? Okay.
17:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? If the planet.
17:07 Chuck Nice? Same thing here.
17:07 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, same thing here.
17:08 Chuck Nice? Same thing here.
17:09 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Is how you get hurricanes, tornadoes.
17:11 Chuck Nice? Absolutely.
17:11 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I think you could artificially drum up a tornado if you had to, but left to its own causes, tornadoes, you get those from Earth's rotation.
17:21 Chuck Nice? Okay.
17:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Same with hurricanes and typhoons. All of these storm systems are caused by Earth's rotation. So Jupiter, which rotates twice as fast as Earth.
17:31 Chuck Nice? Okay.
17:32 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Twice as fast and it's you know how big we are. We are the size of one of its storms.
17:37 Chuck Nice? Oh, man.
17:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, we ain't nothing. We ain't, we ain't.
17:41 Chuck Nice? How, how do we?
17:45 Chuck Nice? How are we so, how do we have this hubris?
17:47 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I know, I know, I know.
17:48 Chuck Nice? How do we think we're so damn great?
17:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I know. And it's sad.
17:51 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
17:51 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's sad.
17:52 Chuck Nice? Like, we're bigger, we're not even as big as a rainstorm on another planet.
17:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right, right. And the blemishes on the sun, the sunspots, those, each one of those is larger than all of Earth.
18:02 Chuck Nice? The spots on the sun. So the liver spots.
18:07 Chuck Nice? Of a star.
18:08 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I'm not age dating the star. So, so all the storms will go away.
18:14 Chuck Nice? Right.
18:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And so its surface would be much less interesting.
18:17 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
18:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? If it stopped rotating.
18:19 Chuck Nice? Right.
18:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Jupiter has a magnetic core.
18:22 Chuck Nice? Oh, right.
18:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Here's something interesting. I don't know how good your memory is.
18:25 Chuck Nice? Okay.
18:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Uh, do you remember high school chemistry?
18:29 Chuck Nice? Nope.
18:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You could pretend.
18:31 Chuck Nice? Okay, let's pretend.
18:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Do you remember your high school chemistry?
18:34 Chuck Nice? Oh, sure. Yeah, that was great.
18:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, the periodic table of elements in the front of the room.
18:41 Chuck Nice? Mm hmm.
18:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Hydrogen appeared twice.
18:46 Chuck Nice? Right. I do remember that.
18:48 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Do you remember?
18:49 Chuck Nice? Yes, because it is, wait a minute. It's the gas and the something else.
18:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Could behave like a metal.
18:56 Chuck Nice? It can behave like, it's gas and metal, or it can behave like both.
18:59 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yes.
19:00 Chuck Nice? Right.
19:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And you say, what? How do you, what? How's this, why, it's not a metal. It's a, okay, under pressure?
19:08 Chuck Nice? Right.
19:09 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It behaves like a metal.
19:10 Chuck Nice? Right.
19:11 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, and in the center of Jupiter.
19:13 Chuck Nice? Mm hmm.
19:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Because Jupiter's gaseous and it's mostly hydrogen.
19:16 Chuck Nice? Right.
19:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's under so much pressure in the middle, it has turned the hydrogen into an electrically magnetically conductive material, just like a metal.
19:26 Chuck Nice? So it's like the iron core of Earth.
19:28 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Correct. Except it's not iron.
19:29 Chuck Nice? Except it's not iron.
19:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? There's a little bit of iron there, but that's not what's driving it.
19:32 Chuck Nice? Right.
19:32 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's, it's the hydrogen. And that means this phenomenon called the dynamo.
19:38 Chuck Nice? Right.
19:39 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Dynamo is when you have a rotating system, you can induce currents in your liquid iron core that generate a magnetic field.
19:49 Chuck Nice? Okay.
19:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's why we have a magnetic field.
19:51 Chuck Nice? We have a magnetic field.
19:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's right. It's why the moon does not have a magnetic field.
19:54 Chuck Nice? Right.
19:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay.
19:55 Chuck Nice? What a shame.
19:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Jupiter has a ferocious magnetic field.
19:58 Chuck Nice? Okay.
19:59 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And that would all go away.
20:01 Chuck Nice? Wow.
20:02 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah.
20:02 Chuck Nice? Oh, that's a story. Well, I'm so glad that it's rotating.
20:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, and you would not have aurora. It was, you know, because we're not the only ones in town who have aurora.
20:12 Chuck Nice? Right.
20:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You know, with solar particles gather and collect at the poles because they see the magnetic field and get driven in and collide with the air, kicking it to higher energy levels, and it re-radiates as the northern and southern lights. The gaseous planets have aurora as well. The aurora will go away, the storms will go away, the magnetic field will go away.
20:33 Chuck Nice? Wow, look at that.
20:35 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah.
20:36 Chuck Nice? So Jupiter would be like low-rent at that point. It's a low-rent planet if I ever saw one.
20:57 Neil deGrasse Tyson? What would you do if a spacecraft appeared in the sky tonight and it wasn't ours? Would you panic or would you prepare? And how might you prepare? In my latest book, Take Me to Your Leader, I offer a guide to things you might say or do in a first encounter with an alien species. What we might look to them, what they might look to us, what habits you should just leave at home because they won't understand them, what bits of science that you might be able to share, to see and explore if you have things in common, things you should and should not say, things you should and should not do in the presence of aliens
21:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? in a first encounter. You can grab a copy today of Take Me to Your Leader, not only the print version, but the audio version that I narrated. You don't want to have a first alien encounter and not be ready for it. I'm just saying.
22:10 Chuck Nice? Alen Anik, who says, hello, Dr. Tyson, this is Alen, tuning in from Lisbon, Portugal.
22:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Lisbon?
22:18 Chuck Nice? Lisbon.
22:20 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Lisbon was reborn in 1755.
22:23 Chuck Nice? Oh.
22:24 Neil deGrasse Tyson? After it was wiped from the map by an earthquake and a tsunami.
22:30 Chuck Nice? Wow.
22:31 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Wiped off the map, and it happened on All Saints' Day.
22:37 Chuck Nice? Okay, God did not like you.
22:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? In the morning.
22:39 Chuck Nice? I'm sorry.
22:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? What are the biggest structures in any European church in the middle of the 1700s?
22:44 Chuck Nice? The big steeples.
22:44 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Churches.
22:45 Chuck Nice? Churches. Churches are the biggest structures, period.
22:47 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And most susceptible to earthquakes.
22:49 Chuck Nice? Because the church was the only one with money that could build something.
22:51 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Exactly, right. So they collapsed, killing tens of thousands of people.
22:56 Chuck Nice? Hmm. Now, if that will not let you know that, um, God don't like you.
23:05 Chuck Nice? If that didn't let you know, I don't know what could.
23:08 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No, it led to the modern atheist, quote, "modern atheist" movement among philosophers.
23:13 Chuck Nice? Oh, really? Like, what God could let this happen?
23:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No, well, they were more sharp about the question.
23:19 Chuck Nice? Oh.
23:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's not what God could let this happen. If there is a God, the God is either not all-powerful.
23:28 Chuck Nice? Because he couldn't stop it.
23:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Or not all good.
23:31 Chuck Nice? Not all good, because he watched it happen.
23:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? He can't be both of those.
23:34 Chuck Nice? Yeah, he's like a New Yorker on a subway platform. That's God. Hey, man, I wish I could help you. Yeah, I say just go ahead and give him the iPhone.
23:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's the subway God.
23:51 Chuck Nice? That's the subway God. Dude, stop resisting.
23:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You're making it worse. You don't want to end up in three pieces thrown on the track.
24:00 Chuck Nice? Anyway, Alen says, "I love the show and have followed it for years. I'm doing a PhD in design focused on AI, and I really appreciate the Jeffrey Hinton interview and your other conversations on this subject. But sometimes I worry the conversations on risk started to monopolize debate."
24:22 Chuck Nice? My question is, when AI is so often discussed through risk and uncertainty, how can academics keep inquiry alive and still create space to study it critically, fairly, and without bias, especially when the topic itself can provoke resistance in academia? I have a feeling your answer will set the stage for some lively faculty room discussion. Greetings and much love. Well, Dr. Tyson, please chime in to these people in the faculty room. Let them know what you think in this debate.
24:58 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, you know, I have brewing in my head.
25:00 Chuck Nice? Go ahead.
25:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Something, a written piece called "A Meditation on AI."
25:05 Chuck Nice? Oh, okay.
25:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I have all these thoughts that are not being discussed out there.
25:10 Chuck Nice? Okay.
25:10 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And I thought maybe I should sort of, I might do like a video op-ed for StarTalk.
25:17 Chuck Nice? That'd be cool.
25:17 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I don't know if our producers, they can do with that.
25:20 Chuck Nice? What the hell, they get paid.
25:24 Chuck Nice? Why should they care?
25:27 Chuck Nice? As long as they're getting paid.
25:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? All right, so let's make believe AI as a phrase never existed.
25:34 Chuck Nice? Oh, right, okay.
25:35 Neil deGrasse Tyson? All we have are computers.
25:38 Chuck Nice? And we'll just call them party computers.
25:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh, just computers.
25:42 Chuck Nice? Right. So this is a special brand of computers?
25:44 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Hold on.
25:45 Chuck Nice? All right.
25:46 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Is my meditation here?
25:47 Chuck Nice? Okay, that's true. I'm gonna shut up. Go ahead. Do your thing. Do your thing. I apologize. Do your thing.
25:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, you're only thinking it's special because it's affecting you in the way computers hadn't affected you before. So just start this out.
25:59 Chuck Nice? Okay.
26:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Computers show up.
26:02 Chuck Nice? All right.
26:03 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh my gosh, I don't have to add these numbers, the computer will.
26:06 Chuck Nice? Mm-hmm.
26:07 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's my intellectual labor, not physical labor, intellectual labor, replaced by a computer.
26:14 Chuck Nice? Okay.
26:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I don't have to multiply these numbers.
26:16 Chuck Nice? Exactly.
26:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I don't have to do these complex calculations handed to a computer. When that happened in the 1950s and 60s.
26:25 Chuck Nice? Okay.
26:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Especially in the 60s, no one called it AI.
26:29 Chuck Nice? No.
26:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? What, we could have. It's artificially doing what our intelligence would have us do.
26:35 Chuck Nice? All right.
26:37 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's just computers. Computing, right. That's what it's doing. Which is what they called women during the war. Human, human computer. Human computers. Earlier than the war, back in the nineteen teens. Oh, I didn't know it started then. Yeah, yeah, that, in fact, in, at the Harvard College, well, I have a dictionary in this office. Really? This, this is unabridged Webster's. Right. From nineteen forty-five. Ooh. If you look at the word computer, it says a person who does calculations. There you go. That's kind of cool. That's great, it's really good. That's really cool. It's really cool. So, I say, give me more of this, so I don't have to do that. Okay. Computers are obviously taken up into warfare. Why? If you have a mortar shell. Mm-hmm. It takes this high arc, you want to know where it's going to land. Exactly.
27:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Because you're not aiming it the way you aim a bullet. Right. This is an arc. Right. We know the mathematics of that arc. Of course. That is physics, it is gravity, it is Newtonian, F equals ma, it's a set of equations. Right. And it has to do with what the angle is. Mm-hmm. And how fast it's coming out. And if you want to do it really well, you account for air friction. Wow. Okay, the aerodynamics of that. That's why it has to be aerodynamically shaped, these shells. All right. We used to do that by hand, create tables, you'd look it up in tables. Somebody does this. Now, feed it to the computer. We could have called that AI. It's figuring out where the mortar is going to hit. Mm-hmm. But we didn't, we just said, it's computers.
28:07 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay. That's all we did. Right. Now, computers are doing words for us. I can type a letter on a computer. Correct. It's no longer a typewriter. It's a computer. It's a computer. I can search for all appearances of certain words in a document. Okay. Like that. Before a computer did it, you had to go page by page. That's right. It's replacing that effort.
28:32 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Did we call that AI? No, we just said it's computing.
28:35 Chuck Nice? Right, okay.
28:36 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Little by little, the computer is encroaching on what we do in our lives and in our day. It first hits scientists and the military. It just keeps working its way in. And we're just calling it computers.
28:52 Chuck Nice? Okay.
28:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Now you can give rules to a computer and have it play a game. Why not? I played chess against a computer in college fifty years ago.
29:03 Chuck Nice? Okay.
29:04 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay?
29:04 Chuck Nice? Right.
29:05 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I figured out what it wasn't thinking and I exploited that weakness to beat it every time. Okay, you know what it was?
29:14 Chuck Nice? What?
29:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? If there's a move I could make and I just didn't, every move it thought of next assumed that was gonna be my next move.
29:23 Chuck Nice? Ah, gotcha.
29:25 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And so it didn't pay attention to what was going on over on the left when it wanted me and expected me to make the most obvious move on the right.
29:33 Chuck Nice? Okay.
29:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, so I figured this out, fine. I'm playing chess with a computer. Am I calling it AI?
29:41 Chuck Nice? No.
29:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No, I'm just calling it computing.
29:43 Chuck Nice? Well, it was kinda stupid. You were beating it every time.
29:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, okay, artificial ignorance. Another use of the term AI. So the computer just keeps doing this. Can we make a computer that beats everyone in chess?
29:57 Chuck Nice? Uh huh.
29:58 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Well, IBM tried that.
30:01 Chuck Nice? Yes, they did.
30:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, I think they were deep blue.
30:04 Chuck Nice? Deep blue, yeah.
30:04 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I think so.
30:05 Chuck Nice? I think so too.
30:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Whatever, it's had a name.
30:07 Chuck Nice? Right.
30:08 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And initially, it didn't win every game.
30:10 Chuck Nice? Right.
30:11 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, but it got better and better.
30:12 Chuck Nice? Yeah, it wins every game now.
30:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, so now how, one way it could do it is it plays itself a billion times.
30:18 Chuck Nice? Right.
30:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Cause their computers are faster than you.
30:21 Chuck Nice? And that is something that the creators of that really were uncomfortable with. They kept walking in on the computer playing with itself.
30:34 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And the computer was like, hey, man, that door is locked for a reason. You don't know what's going on in here. Anything could be happening in here. Come in here while I'm playing with my stuff. So, so then it was like, no, we can't play a billion games with ourselves. Exactly. So we're using a different kind of intelligence than that. Correct. Okay, so maybe we can train the computer to mimic our own intelligence. Right. Okay, so, and then just have it be clever rather than blunt. Okay. All right. Right. So then you make sort of decision trees, and this is where a boy comes in with, um, uh, neural nets. Yeah, this is Hinton. Hinton. This is his. It's, it's, it's where. What he got the Nobel Prize for.
31:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right, so when we make a decision, we're gonna do this or that. Right. We want to do this because that has the outcome we seek. Right. And so you get a computer to mimic that. Right. Okay, so now it does more. Are we calling that AI? Or am I just saying it's just computers? And so this continues. And then we get computers to sort of recognize, it already recognize words in a document. Of course. Why not recognize pictures in a document? Of course. Why not recognize you? Why not recognize cats from dogs? Uh, insects from, why not? Okay, what is it? It's, it's a pixel with a color code. All right. To the pixel and a pattern with an edge. It's pattern recognition. Pattern recognition. That's really all of this. Okay. Okay. Which is a lot of what we do. Let's back up just a little. All right.
32:03 Neil deGrasse Tyson? When Apple and their iPhone bought Siri and put it on every one of their iPhones. Mm-hmm. Because Siri predated the iPhone. Yes. Are we calling that AI? Well. You might have from the, when, in the beginning, because the first thing Siri said was, please let me out of here.
32:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Please. These people got me in here, please let me out. I need to escape. I need to escape, nah. So, there's Siri. Right. You say, Siri, what time does the pharmacy close? Yes. Okay, and the closest pharmacy to you closes at the, how does it know that? Right, it's talking to me. It, it is not a human being. No, it's not. Okay, it's a computer, and we have the internet, which we so conveniently built for computers to know everything that we know. Mm-hmm. All right, how about Jeopardy? That takes humans, right? It's not just, is it a calculation? It's not, what's eight squared divided by five? Whatever. It's information. Watson becomes a contender. Yes.
33:08 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Against the best Jeopardy players there ever were. Right. Including our boy Ken Jennings. Yes. Who I met when I was on Celebrity Jeopardy. Oh, really? Yeah, he's a cool guy. He's a cool dude? Cool guy. Looks like a total nerd. Total nerd. That's it. That's it. I do not want to hang out with that guy. No, no, it's working for him. It's working for him. He knows how to work the nerd. Work the nerd. Okay, I like that. So. Good to hear. Watson wipes its ass with these two other players. It doesn't get everything right. Gets some really stupid things wrong. But overall, it's faster and gets the correct answer. Right. Okay. The correct question. Excuse me. I think one of its answers, it didn't pose as a question. It had to get that wrong. Dumbass.
33:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Dumbass Watson.
33:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No one is harping back on that episode to say that was AI. That was AI. Who's saying? We're so scared. No one is saying that. Right. But if everything I've listed thus far is not AI, why is AI something special to you today? It's just doing more stuff. Okay, it's driving your car. It's making decisions for you. It's designing for you. When you prompted to do, I would prompt the computer, multiply eight by eight fifty years ago. Today, I'd prompt the computer, give me a set design in the Wild West, eighteen eighties, with a watering hole and horses and cowboys and Indians. Boom. There it is.
34:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay? I don't see any difference between me asking a computer to multiply eight times eight. Or asking the computer to set design that, given the power of computers and the ascent over the decades. So, I'm about to end my meditation, sorry, because I'm using up the whole show for this.
34:58 Chuck Nice? I'm saying.
34:59 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No, no, stop. I think we need to separate AI just helping us out, which is doing it a thousand ways from Sunday that you don't even know to list.
35:11 Chuck Nice? Mm-hmm.
35:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Because they're already happening in your life every day, or with products that you use, or designs that you embrace. It's already there. Okay?
35:21 Chuck Nice? Okay.
35:22 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's not where the danger is. So AI is not this monolithic danger. It's, what are you doing with this computing power?
35:33 Chuck Nice? Okay.
35:34 Neil deGrasse Tyson? This sector over here wants it to control who the military kills.
35:42 Chuck Nice? Mm-hmm.
35:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That feels like a dangerous use of AI.
35:46 Chuck Nice? Oh, you think? Yeah.
35:47 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We want to give AI access to launch codes. We want to give AI access. That feels not right. Okay?
35:57 Chuck Nice? Okay.
35:58 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But since AI is the only term people are using for every application of computing that exists in our lives today, it's really giving AI a bad name. And the counterpart to that risk from the 1960s is, do we let computers control our nukes? Are we gonna do that? And the answer is no, we're not gonna do that.
36:22 Chuck Nice? Unless the Chinese do it first, and then we're gonna do it.
36:27 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Well, that, these are the risk factors.
36:28 Chuck Nice? Because the idea is to...
36:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's a risk factor in this sector of what computers are doing in our lives. You want to call it all AI, fine, but if you are, don't throw out the bath water when this is the only part that puts all of us at risk. Because the rest of it is changing our lives largely for the better. AI won a Nobel Prize for protein folding.
36:51 Chuck Nice? That's correct.
36:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's called Alpha Fold.
36:53 Chuck Nice? Absolutely.
36:54 Neil deGrasse Tyson? By Google.
36:55 Chuck Nice? And
36:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Protein folding is where you get solutions to all manner of biochemical challenges that pharmaceutical companies and everybody else
37:03 Chuck Nice? And years and years.
37:03 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Or forever.
37:04 Chuck Nice? Or forever.
37:05 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yes.
37:05 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
37:05 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay.
37:06 Chuck Nice? You're puzzling together molecules.
37:08 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So I'm just trying to say, to me, it's all computing.
37:11 Chuck Nice? All right.
37:11 Neil deGrasse Tyson? This part of the computing has risks. There's always been a risk part of all computing. Okay.
37:17 Chuck Nice? All right.
37:17 Neil deGrasse Tyson? When the computer starts running the trains, how does it know about a head on collision? Is that gonna happen or not? Well, we all go to airports and we get in the tram. There's no pilot on the tram.
37:27 Chuck Nice? That's true.
37:28 Neil deGrasse Tyson? What do you call it, the engineer? There's no one driving it?
37:30 Chuck Nice? No, right, yeah.
37:31 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And was it, has anyone been cut in half by the doors have closed? No, maybe, maybe originally. I don't know. There's so much we just do where computers in complete control. And to me, it's all AI.
37:45 Chuck Nice? All right. So my response to that is if you love AI so much, why don't you marry it? So.
37:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I have to put a ring on it?
37:53 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
37:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, so more food for the, for the faculty lounge.
37:58 Chuck Nice? Okay, there you go. I mean, listen, that you clearly have thought about this.
38:04 Chuck Nice? All right, let's keep going.
38:18 Speaker 02 I'm Nicholas Costella and I'm a proud supporter of StarTalk on Patreon. This is StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson.
38:37 Chuck Nice? This is Robert Iron, who says, this is Robert from Peru. Uh, comedy and science both rely on timing. A joke lands or fails in milliseconds while the universe unfolds over billions of years.
38:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yes.
38:51 Chuck Nice? From your perspective as a comedian. Observing a cosmic scale universe. Do you think humor is fundamentally a human survival tool? For dealing with uncertainty? Or could it exist in any intelligent civilization? No matter how alien their biology or sense of time might be?
39:10 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I love that question. So do aliens have a sense of humor? That's what that comes down to.
39:13 Chuck Nice? That's what it comes down to. I'm gonna say, I don't know if they do or don't, but they think I'm funny. So, you know.
39:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? How do you know the aliens think you're funny?
39:20 Chuck Nice? I've, listen, the last time I got a probe.
39:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So all the aliens were laughing?
39:33 Chuck Nice? This guy cracks me up.
39:34 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So let me broaden that question. Comedic timing works on our timescale.
39:38 Chuck Nice? Yes, it does.
39:39 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right? So maybe this millisecond timing that we so cherish in a well-delivered joke lasts a thousand years in an alien civilization that lasts for billions.
39:54 Chuck Nice? Wow. I do not want to perform at that club.
39:59 Chuck Nice? I do not want to be on that stage.
40:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, it's a slower thing.
40:02 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
40:03 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh, oh, oh, did you see Zootopia?
40:06 Chuck Nice? I did not.
40:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You didn't?
40:07 Chuck Nice? No.
40:07 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh, there's a scene where they're in the DMV. Okay?
40:11 Chuck Nice? Oh, is that, I saw that on the commercial.
40:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You had to see it, okay.
40:13 Chuck Nice? The sloth.
40:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The sloth.
40:14 Chuck Nice? Yes.
40:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Of course, the sloths are working the DMV.
40:17 Chuck Nice? Right.
40:17 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay?
40:17 Chuck Nice? That makes sense.
40:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And, and someone tells a joke.
40:20 Chuck Nice? Right.
40:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And the sloth just goes
40:27 Neil deGrasse Tyson? slowly smiles.
40:30 Chuck Nice? And then that becomes, turns into a laugh.
40:32 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It takes like 30 seconds for them to respond.
40:35 Chuck Nice? That's very funny.
40:36 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And that's sloth time.
40:37 Chuck Nice? I like it.
40:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Sloth time. So that's an example of a timeframe.
40:42 Chuck Nice? Yes.
40:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's, that's slowed down. The relativity of it.
40:46 Chuck Nice? Right.
40:46 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It works for them.
40:47 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
40:48 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So it could work for the alien.
40:50 Chuck Nice? All right. Listen, I, I think it's an acute thought experiment that I'll probably never think about again.
40:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But wait, do other animals have jokes?
40:59 Chuck Nice? I'm gonna, listen, I think they have.
41:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Do chimps gather around and there's the court jester in the middle making them laugh?
41:04 Chuck Nice? Believe it or not, there is a, maybe we should check with one of your friends here in the museum.
41:08 Neil deGrasse Tyson? One of my animal people?
41:09 Chuck Nice? One of your animal people, the primatologist.
41:11 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah.
41:11 Chuck Nice? But they think that our laughter.
41:15 Chuck Nice? Has evolved from when you see them cackle like that. When you see chimps cackle.
41:22 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh.
41:22 Chuck Nice? Like it's something from our common ancestor.
41:25 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That sound that they make and our sound of laughter.
41:29 Chuck Nice? As us.
41:32 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh my gosh.
41:33 Chuck Nice? Yes.
41:34 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I don't, I didn't want to know that.
41:35 Chuck Nice? Yeah, and there are so many, there are so many social, um, I will say, uh, markers that are attached to laughter. Emotional and social markers that are attached to laughter.
41:49 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So that would mean our common ancestor had some properties of both of those.
41:54 Chuck Nice? Exactly, and that's where we get laughter from.
41:57 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Because something could be funny without you laughing out loud.
42:01 Chuck Nice? All the time.
42:02 Neil deGrasse Tyson? All the time.
42:03 Chuck Nice? That's, that's how comedians laugh. Let me show you comedians laughter right now. That's funny, man.
42:09 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Why don't you guys laugh?
42:11 Chuck Nice? Because we're thinking about the joke you just told.
42:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You're analyzing it.
42:14 Chuck Nice? We're analyzing it. And it's hard to laugh. Laughter is a reaction and you don't have a reaction when you're analyzing.
42:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Laughter is an emotional reaction, not an intellectual analysis.
42:24 Chuck Nice? Right, and so when you hear something funny, you go, oh, that's funny, man. Which is why if something takes you by surprise, you laugh even harder because you laugh first and then you think about it, so yeah, but.
42:35 Neil deGrasse Tyson? All right, yeah, so that's fascinating.
42:37 Chuck Nice? Yeah, I love it.
42:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And who are we to say that dolphins aren't laughing?
42:40 Chuck Nice? That's true.
42:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Flipper's just laughing his ass off.
42:43 Chuck Nice? If I was a dolphin, I'd be like.
42:49 Chuck Nice? I would actually, if I was a dolphin, laugh at us too.
42:53 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, yeah, why wouldn't you?
42:54 Chuck Nice? Yeah, exactly, bipedal instead of swimming. You know, you guys are ridiculous.
42:59 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And one other thing?
43:00 Chuck Nice? Go ahead.
43:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Uh, I used to breed roaches.
43:03 Chuck Nice? All right.
43:04 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No, stop, no, stop. Come back, Chuck. Chuck, come back, don't leave, don't leave, Chuck.
43:12 Chuck Nice? I ain't never heard nobody say that.
43:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? In graduate school.
43:14 Chuck Nice? I used to breed roaches.
43:17 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Let me explain.
43:17 Chuck Nice? Oh, come, oh, please do.
43:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Let me explain.
43:19 Chuck Nice? Please, you got some explaining to do.
43:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, okay. When I was in graduate school, I lived in a roach infested apartment. And I, and I got like Rambo and I said.
43:30 Chuck Nice? The only way I can kill them is to understand them. So I captured a bunch and bred them and just watched them, okay? To know your enemy. And none of us have ever watched roaches just hanging out. But there's a reason for that.
43:51 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, I'm watching roaches just hanging out.
43:54 Chuck Nice? Okay.
43:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? They're there cleaning their antenna.
43:57 Chuck Nice? Right.
43:57 Neil deGrasse Tyson? All the time.
43:58 Chuck Nice? Okay.
43:59 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh, they bring one in through their mouth and they get the next one in. They go 12 inches and they clean it again. They go up to another roach, they touch antennas and they keep going. And I'm thinking, maybe they're telling each other jokes.
44:12 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
44:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? They're not running away from your shoe.
44:15 Chuck Nice? Right.
44:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? They get, they already have food.
44:17 Chuck Nice? Mm hmm.
44:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And so they're just hanging out. Because we don't tell jokes if you're trying to survive, you know, if you're getting chased. That's the wrong time to tell a joke, you know, if somebody's ready to step on you with their foot.
44:29 Chuck Nice? Right.
44:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, but this was their free time. And I, don't look at me like. So roaches had free time. And I was very impressed.
44:42 Chuck Nice? I'll tell you who had too much free time.
44:47 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, watching roaches with free time.
44:49 Chuck Nice? Wow.
44:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's what that was.
44:51 Chuck Nice? That's crazy.
44:51 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I blathered for so long, time for just a couple more.
44:54 Chuck Nice? All right, uh, this one, uh, from Ricky, uh, from a roach motel who says, Dear Dr. Tyson. No, this is Andrew Martin says, Hey, Dr. Tyson, Baron Mercurio, Andrew from Stafford in the middle of England. He says.
45:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? What town is it?
45:13 Chuck Nice? Stafford.
45:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Stafford?
45:15 Chuck Nice? Yeah, cool. Indeed. Um, he says, in a recent episode, you said that if you were living in a simulation, we would eventually see limits to the extent of the universe as a result of the lack of programming. Could universal constants such as the speed of light and gravitational constants be examples of such limits? As a software engineer myself, I know I would set a few constraints if I was programming a universe.
45:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? In other words, if I was God.
45:43 Chuck Nice? Yes.
45:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's the programmer's way of saying if I was God.
45:48 Chuck Nice? Right.
45:49 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, so many things pivot on the values of those constants.
45:53 Chuck Nice? Yep.
45:54 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That.
45:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You can't just willy nilly give them other values. And expect the universe as it has come about to remain stable. Right. If you start mucking around with those constants, the universe goes haywire. Yeah. Now, let me, let me be precise. It's not that there's something special about those values. It's just that if you change them, the universe becomes something else. Okay. That makes sense. It's haywire compared to what we're used to. What we have now. That could be a new normal for whoever who evolves in that universe. So maybe giving, giving some points to this question.
46:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Maybe the programmer figured out that the universe needs constants. Okay, right. It can't just not have constants and still function as a universe. It doesn't work without the constants. So maybe the existence of constants is the evidence that somebody programmed it. Wow. And if you go Spinoza on this, then it's just God. It's God. It's God. Or Andrew. Good enough name for a God as far as I'm concerned. So yeah, I, I'm there on it, but just to tighten up his inquiry in referencing what we did before. I was imagining that certain measured quantities would have limits to it.
47:24 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Where there's no reason why it should have a limit and it just cuts off. Right. Cause when you're programming on a computer, you have, you have the limits of the space that you're creating. Value parameters. There it is. This goes between here and here. I can't make it infinity because I can't program infinity into a computer. I gotta give it to. And let me put a way out there, the humans will never get there. They'll never know. They'll never evolve to that point. Right. Exactly. Right. Right. And then you come back and somebody's like right there at the edge of you're like. The Truman Show. Yeah, exactly. How'd you get to the edge of the universe?
47:57 Chuck Nice? I'm not ready for that.
47:58 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right.
47:58 Chuck Nice? All right. So this is Ben Canty. He says cabinet maker here in Sussex in the UK and a new Patreon subscriber.
48:04 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Cabinet maker.
48:05 Chuck Nice? Yes.
48:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Jesus made cabinets.
48:07 Chuck Nice? Oh.
48:07 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Carpenter, right?
48:08 Chuck Nice? Yes, he did. And he says, do you think an artificial Einstein Rosen bridge could be opened without the brute force of using exotic matter? I wonder if there could be a workaround. What if we use laser pulsed resonant harmonics to manipulate the quantum vacuum directly and gently? Could we create a massive Casimir like effect using the localized vacuum pressure on both sides to hold the opening apart rather than relying on negative mass? Now, let me just tell you this. Let me tell you this, Ben. Don't you call into this show, right into this show showing off like that.
48:51 Chuck Nice? You starting off with I'm a cabinet maker and then you going to throw in the use of the Casimir effect like that, like we don't know that you more than a cat.
49:01 Chuck Nice? What museum do you work for? I know you working for some planetarium somewhere. Yeah, anyway, I mean, he's, he's, he's out there.
49:09 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I like, I love what he's doing. I like where he's going.
49:12 Chuck Nice? I like what he's doing. He is out there, man.
49:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Except the problem is the Casimir effect.
49:16 Chuck Nice? Right.
49:17 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Brings them together.
49:17 Chuck Nice? Right. It doesn't push them apart.
49:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It doesn't push them apart.
49:20 Chuck Nice? Actually attracts them.
49:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The Casimir effect.
49:22 Chuck Nice? Right.
49:22 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's a quantum phenomenon where two plates, if you, if it's evacuated inside, if they're close enough that I think the explanation is they end up sharing the same wave pattern. And then that itself creates a force that brings them together.
49:39 Chuck Nice? Together.
49:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So I don't see how that could pry it apart.
49:43 Chuck Nice? Right.
49:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And he's got some laser dueling there.
49:47 Chuck Nice? He's saying laser pulse, uh, uh, quantum, laser pulse resonant harmonics.
49:53 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah. So I'm, so just let me make it clear.
50:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We can make a wormhole. But without negative gravity stuff, it's unstable.
50:08 Chuck Nice? Right.
50:09 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And so we pride open, okay, step in and then the thing collapses.
50:15 Chuck Nice? Goodbye.
50:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Who knows what happened to you.
50:17 Chuck Nice? Exactly.
50:17 Neil deGrasse Tyson? If a wormhole collapses on your ass.
50:19 Chuck Nice? Oh, man.
50:20 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay. Don't smile.
50:22 Chuck Nice? That would be so, I've just, I, I mean, I don't want to find out, but it'd be cool.
50:28 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You don't want to be.
50:29 Chuck Nice? I don't want to be the beginning.
50:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Experiment.
50:31 Chuck Nice? Yeah, but, yeah.
50:32 Neil deGrasse Tyson? All right, so I don't know. I don't think the Casimir effect gets you out of this.
50:37 Chuck Nice? Yeah, exactly.
50:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And, and the, the laser pulsing on the vacuum energy.
50:46 Neil deGrasse Tyson? See, the vacuum energy is an energy source in the vacuum of space.
50:51 Chuck Nice? Exactly.
50:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You can't think of the vacuum.
50:54 Chuck Nice? Right.
50:54 Neil deGrasse Tyson? As a.
50:54 Chuck Nice? Like in a tube.
50:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? In a tube, right, right, right.
50:56 Chuck Nice? That's not how it works.
50:57 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Exactly, exactly. You know, we think of vacuums as, as, as, a vacuum is a place where there's no air pressure.
51:03 Chuck Nice? Right.
51:03 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's all it is.
51:04 Chuck Nice? That's all it is.
51:05 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's not a thing unto itself.
51:06 Chuck Nice? Right.
51:07 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Where, oh, here's some vacuum, do stuff with it.
51:09 Chuck Nice? Right.
51:09 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No, that's not how that vacuum works.
51:11 Chuck Nice? No.
51:11 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, so we happen to have a word for where there is no air pressure and we call it a vacuum.
51:16 Chuck Nice? A vacuum.
51:17 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But if you were the vacuum, it said.
51:18 Chuck Nice? Right.
51:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You know.
51:19 Chuck Nice? Yeah, and it's just like there, the nothing of space is something, you know what I mean?
51:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right, right.
51:24 Chuck Nice? So, yeah.
51:25 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So anyhow.
51:26 Chuck Nice? I mean, listen.
51:27 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I'd like where he's going.
51:28 Chuck Nice? This dude is making some beautiful cabinets and smoking some great weed while he's doing it.
51:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? His cabinet in the back might have a wormhole.
51:36 Chuck Nice? That would be so cool.
51:39 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah.
51:39 Chuck Nice? All right, this is Jay.
51:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I think that's, or one last one, I'll, I'll give a two-word answer to it, go.
51:45 Chuck Nice? Oh.
51:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's all we have time for, go.
51:47 Chuck Nice? Jay Valiano, how close does the constellation Andromeda need to be to the Milky Way for us to be able to reach it? Are we then able to colonize in theory or is it moving too fast towards us for us to be able to find a habitable planet? If this is not possible, can we use a wormhole to reach Andromeda and tell it to change course before its final kamikaze?
52:13 Chuck Nice? This is Jay Valiano from Holland.
52:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, uh, he didn't know that it's not the constellation Andromeda that we have issues with.
52:20 Chuck Nice? Right.
52:20 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Constellations are stars in our night sky. Way beyond those stars, there's another galaxy.
52:25 Chuck Nice? Called?
52:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Two and a half million light years away called the Andromeda Galaxy.
52:28 Chuck Nice? That's right.
52:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? In a day called the Andromeda Nebula, before we knew it was a galaxy.
52:32 Chuck Nice? Ooh.
52:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? In fact, it was the very first galaxy discovered.
52:35 Chuck Nice? Look at that.
52:36 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We found a star in this nebula. Wait a minute. That star, we know how bright that star's supposed to be, and it's way dimmer. This must be far outside the Milky Way. And Edwin Hubble discovered galaxies by figuring out what happened with the Andromeda Nebula.
52:52 Chuck Nice? Woo.
52:53 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay. Then we find out we're colliding towards each other.
52:56 Chuck Nice? Yes. But collision with galaxies doesn't mean collision like a car collision.
53:02 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's not. It'll look like a train wreck, but it's way more peaceful than that.
53:05 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
53:05 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Cars, stars will just pass through each other. Space is mostly empty. All right. So, uh, how close would it have to be to find an exoplanet? The point is, we have hundreds of billions of stars in our own galaxy.
53:19 Chuck Nice? Right.
53:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Why are you trying to look for some other galaxy for a planet?
53:21 Chuck Nice? Yes.
53:22 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Stick with your own kind.
53:23 Chuck Nice? Right. Your, your partner's sunbathing in the backyard, and you got your binoculars looking across the street. You don't have to do that. Look at your partner. It's right in the backyard.
53:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right here. You got all the action you need.
53:34 Chuck Nice? You got all the action you need. Right here.
53:36 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, in ten, I forgot the latest, twelve billion years, will collide.
53:41 Chuck Nice? Right.
53:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But it's not a, it's not a smash. Again, we'll just pass through.
53:44 Chuck Nice? It's a pass through.
53:44 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It'll be fun to watch.
53:46 Chuck Nice? It looks like, uh, wait, cause, wait, you showed me the picture of, uh, I forget the galaxies that actually were colliding.
53:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Mm-hmm.
53:52 Chuck Nice? And they look like starlings when they fly together.
53:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Gravity is changing for every single star.
53:58 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
53:59 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Some get cast hither and yon, other wind up in orbits around others.
54:04 Chuck Nice? Right.
54:04 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And if a, if a star comes too close.
54:06 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
54:07 Neil deGrasse Tyson? To another star that has planets, it could be a.
54:10 Chuck Nice? Flyby looting. Oh, and the planet, and it's just like, come on over here, guys. The gravitational forces are, are, you know. And then, and then the other star is left. It's like, that's a pimp star. That's what they call that. That's the pimp star. The pimp star rolls by and takes all the planets from the other star.
54:34 Chuck Nice? Flyby looting of planets. Nice. So anyhow, that's all time we have. All right. Gotta love the doggone, gotta love the doggone Cosmic Queries grab. There it is. All right, Chuck. Always good to have you. Always a pleasure. Neil deGrasse Tyson in another Cosmic Queries edition. As always, keep looking up.
Previous Cosmic Queries – Scars in Spacetime Next The Future of Space Stations with Ariel Ekblaw Page updated September 29, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
