Cosmic Queries – Dark Matter, Aliens, End of the Universe

Could it be that another universe’s gravity is bleeding into our universe? Neil deGrasse Tyson and Chuck Nice answer grab bag questions ranging from dark matter to the end of the universe. (Originally Aired February 8, 2021)

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

• 0:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hey Startalkians, Neil here. You're about to listen to an episode specially drawn from our archives to serve your cosmic curiosities. Check it out. Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk. Neil deGrasse Tyson here, your personal astrophysicist. Got with me my co-host Chuck. Nice.

• 0:33Chuck Nice?

  Hey, hey, Neil, what's happening?

• 0:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. I love having you out there Chuck.

• 0:37Chuck Nice?

  I love being here, man.

• 0:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For all my StarTalk needs, you're there.

• 0:40Chuck Nice?

  And beyond.

• 0:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And beyond.

• 0:44Chuck Nice?

  And beyond, my friend.

• 0:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're gonna knock out another Cosmic Queries, but this one, we have to grab the ones that don't fit any categories. So this is just, I think you coined the term Galactic Gumbo.

• 0:56Chuck Nice?

  Ah dude, that's my favorite. We call it Grab Bag, we'll call it a bunch of different things, but my favorite is Galactic Gumbo. You don't know get wrong, get wrong, T. I'm gonna put on there a little cayenne pepper.

• 1:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Spice that up?

• 1:15Chuck Nice?

  Spice it over a little cayenne pepper. Comic cayenne pepper, that's a kinda comic cayenne pepper.

• 1:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we should go to Louisiana, see if we can get Galactic Gumbo on somebody's menu.

• 1:24Chuck Nice?

  Oh wow, that's, oh, that's a great idea.

• 1:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why not? Who's gonna say no to that?

• 1:29Chuck Nice?

  Exactly. Yo, that's a great idea. Oh, nothing would make me more happy than to go into a place.

• 1:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Little bit of everything.

• 1:37Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, Galactic Gumbo.

• 1:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So these are all Patreon questions, and you know, they're getting it good.

• 1:45Chuck Nice?

  It's Ask Anything.

• 1:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, okay.

• 1:48Chuck Nice?

  So like...

• 1:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, and if I don't know, I'll just say, "I don't know, go on to the next question."

• 1:53Chuck Nice?

  That's right. It could be anything that they wanna know from you, you know? So, including, you know, "Why is the sky blue?", but we already did that.

• 2:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We already did that, we got that.

• 2:04Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, we did.

• 2:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you know, the more content we post Chuck.

• 2:07Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In explainer videos and things, the whole Cosmic Queries could just be... Go to this link.

• 2:13Chuck Nice?

  Go to that link.

• 2:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we just kick back.

• 2:16Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we're done explaining everything, then we got it.

• 2:21Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 2:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so give it to, oh, by the way, I have to, I'm compelled that this format inspired a book, a StarTalk book called Cosmic Queries. It's, it's March 2021, so.

• 2:35Chuck Nice?

  And is it actual queries from people?

• 2:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, so what happens is there's some queries that are just so deep and, and they spill out over this format. And someone says, what is the meaning of our existence or why is the universe here? Those are real questions that real people have.

• 2:51Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But they don't lend themselves to our repartee, right?

• 2:54Chuck Nice?

  That's.

• 2:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we collected the deepest questions ever asked and we put them in the Cosmic Queries book.

• 3:00Chuck Nice?

  Ooh.

• 3:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's like, um, how did life get here? What is the universe made of?

• 3:04Chuck Nice?

  Why can't I wear brown shoes with a black tuxedo?

• 3:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or, or can I wear white after Labor Day? Those are the questions.

• 3:12Chuck Nice?

  The burning questions. Right. Cool, man.

• 3:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So start, so start it out. What you got?

• 3:18Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 3:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bring it on.

• 3:19Chuck Nice?

  Let's go with, uh, Amran Koka. Amran, um, or Umrak Koka, but says, Chuck, if you're reading this, please just call me Sarah.

• 3:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 3:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 3:34Chuck Nice?

  Well, there you have it.

• 3:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sarah.

• 3:35Chuck Nice?

  There you go. Thanks, Sarah.

• 3:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thanks for telling me after you make a fool of yourself.

• 3:41Chuck Nice?

  Right, you could have just put that as your name.

• 3:46Chuck Nice?

  All right. Could dark matter be, uh, the effect of another universe's gravity on our own gravity?

• 3:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what I want it to be. I so badly want dark matter to be regular matter in a parallel universe whose gravitational force is spilling into our spacetime.

• 4:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I want that to be true. But none of my colleagues are leaning that way. And they're like deep in it and it's their expertise. And I'm just looking over the fence. What you up to today? Picking it up so I can share it with all you good people. So the, the, the, what's the over, under, the odds on favorite? Is that there's some other kind of particle, family of particles that are not the electron, proton, neutron, the ones we're familiar with, that do not interact with our particles. And if they don't interact in any sort of chemical way, then light will pass through them, you know, they, all you'll feel is their gravity. Mm hmm. And so I, I don't have a problem with that.

• 4:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It, I just, I don't think it's as fun as thinking there could be another universe. Now, I, the only reason why I think this is I spoke with some top folks about field theory. This is a class I never took in, in graduate school and I regret it. But field theory, you study, you know, fields. These are fields that, that generate forces on objects, basically. Okay. It turns out. Not the kind you play on. Not the kind you play on. Okay, all right. These are force fields. Force fields. A concept introduced by, um, who's our guy at the mid century? Mid century, Faraday, Michael Faraday. Right. In the mid 19th century. Because no one imagined describing something you can't see

• 5:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  that has an effect on other things. All right? And so he had to invent this concept, this field concept. Where you draw lines that take the shape of that field. And that's what the iron filings do. For the magnetic field, right. Right? Yeah, before him, it was just, oh, the, the, they're just, that's just what they do. Right. But he. It's magic! So he gave it, so he anchored it in, in physics speak so that we can actually calculate with them and do other things. Sweet. So, so these are fields. So in field theory, you apparently, and I, I can't. Demonstrate this to you. I can only repeat it. Others have told me. That light and all the forces that surround it, electromagnetic forces,

• 6:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  cannot exit your spacetime. They're trapped within it, but gravity can.

• 6:25Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 6:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gravity can spill out of your universe and move between universes. That's what I heard. And I think I got that right.

• 6:34Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 6:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I'd so if that's the case, then a nearby universe in this higher dimensional construct could have gravity spilling into our universe. And there we are mystically touching it, thinking it's a magical invisible thing, when it's just real and it's just something sitting on outside the door.

• 6:53Chuck Nice?

  Wow. So now let me just ask this on top of what she's. You talked about.

• 7:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What Sarah.

• 7:01Chuck Nice?

  What Sarah. Thank you, Sarah.

• 7:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sarah.

• 7:05Chuck Nice?

  Sarah. So you say that some think it would that they might want it to be these particles that we cannot interact with.

• 7:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's not so much that they I think there's good reason to think they could be those particles. And their experiments now designed to try to capture them and see if one in a zillion encounters with our particles, maybe they'll have some. There'll be some exception to that rule that'll render them visible.

• 7:34Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha, because that's my point. It's like what? Why make that postulate in the first place?

• 7:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, what you know, why not just little gremlins, you know? There's an invisible particle. You can't see it.

• 7:48Chuck Nice?

  Right. You know, so all right.

• 7:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no. So you have theories guiding these experiments. And they're suggesting if the dark matter is of this kind, it should interact with this regular particle in this way, this.

• 8:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Rarely, or at least frequently. And so you do this. So we have these huge experiments trying to detect dark matter particles.

• 8:10Chuck Nice?

  Okay, cool.

• 8:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's all that's going on there.

• 8:12Chuck Nice?

  Alright, that's-

• 8:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I'm with Sarah on this. It'd be cool if it were.

• 8:15Chuck Nice?

  Okay, very cool. That is awesome.

• 8:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, if that's the case.

• 8:19Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 8:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Since we have five times as much dark matter in our universe as regular matter. That means there's a shit ton of regular matter in this other universe.

• 8:31Chuck Nice?

  Right, their regular matter, right.

• 8:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, if our dark matter is their regular matter, that universe has at least six, at least six times the mass of our, at least. It turns out to escape your universe and enter another one, the strength of the gravity drops off precipitously, so it has to be even stronger than just a factor of six.

• 8:50Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 8:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's a honking universe, and wouldn't it be weird if one day we learned we're just some small gnat on the, among other gnats, on the back of a much larger, more powerful universe, and we're just a satellite universe to it?

• 9:05Chuck Nice?

  Wow, that's, in a way, very humbling.

• 9:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very humbling.

• 9:09Chuck Nice?

  And in a way, I kinda want us all to get together and just make a very loud sound so that we're not boiled in a pot of

• 9:20Chuck Nice?

  water as the dust speck that we are, so.

• 9:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or to get swatted off the back.

• 9:25Chuck Nice?

  Or to get swat, bang, right. Wow, okay, cool.

• 9:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright.

• 9:30Chuck Nice?

  Okay, here we go, this is-

• 9:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Give me some more.

• 9:32Chuck Nice?

  Also from Patreon, Sarah was a Patreon patron, and for those of you interested, go to patreon.com/startalkradio and support us, and, uh, and then, you know, you can be part of, um, actual private Patreon cosmic queries where Neil answers your questions, uh, almost personally, so there you go.

• 9:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, these would just only be posted behind the, the-

• 9:53Chuck Nice?

  Behind the curtain, behind the curtain, yeah, Patreon curtain. Alright, Fernando Gomes says this. Our-

• 10:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gomes or Gomez?

• 10:02Chuck Nice?

  You know, it's G-O-M-E-S, so maybe it's Gomez, but it's, I, it's just-

• 10:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If it's Freddie Gomes, then fine, but if it's Fernando, give me some-

• 10:11Chuck Nice?

  Okay, alright, let me, I'm sorry. Let me, allow me to recalibrate, here we go. Uh, this is from Fernando Gomes.

• 10:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now starring.

• 10:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So maybe Gomez needs a Z and Gomes is X.

• 10:36Chuck Nice?

  Maybe, I don't know. But anyway, he says, "Our own pocket of the universe is expanding." "Will it exceed the speed of light?" I guess when he's saying expanding, he's also including the acceleration as well. And if so, will that mean, will no more be able to detect anything coming from outside of our universe too?

• 11:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  First of all, that is already the case.

• 11:08Chuck Nice?

  Oh, snap.

• 11:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, and as time moves on, and as you correctly added Chuck with the acceleration of the universe, what will happen is, things that used to be within our horizon, simply expand faster than the light that they're sending us can reach us, and then they basically disappear beyond the horizon. And as the universe continues to expand, things that used to be nearby will now find themselves on this extreme limit of the expansion and then disappear beyond the horizon, such that there will be a day that arrives. By the way, there's a whole section of one of the chapters in the Cosmic Query Book on this.

• 11:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, it's not out yet, it's like March, so don't, don't, don't worry about it yet. Not out yet. So, so I don't even think it's listed yet, so I shouldn't even be talking about the book. So pretend I didn't say anything.

• 12:03Chuck Nice?

  Hey, you're getting a sneak peek, don't worry.

• 12:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, there, there comes a time when the, our galaxy will merge with the Andromeda Galaxy and becoming one, one galaxy twice its size. And it will become only us in our pocket of the universe. And all other galaxies would have receded beyond our horizon. And the night sky, as seen from Earth, would contain only stars and nothing else in the universe.

• 12:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we would have a universe that people thought it was before Hubble discovered other galaxies. There was a time, what is, ask anybody before 1926. They say, "Tell me about the universe." Well, they're just stars. Right. Stars in the night sky and stars just go on like forever. And then we learned all the stars you see are in our one little galaxy. And there are other island universes, if you will, which was a term traceable to Immanuel Kant and others back in the 18th century. Could there be island universes out there? So other galaxies, you can think of them that way. And so everything we know about the history and origin of the universe is because we can see these other galaxies out to the edge of the universe.

• 13:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But in the distant future, when they all reach beyond our horizon, gone is any record of the history of the universe. The Big Bang, the expansion, everything. There'll be no indicators left to tell us. It'll be an entire chapter of the history of the universe ripped from the book. Oh, God. And there you are, any post-apocalyptic civilizations will say, "Yeah, the universe is just the stars in the night sky." And they won't have any way to disprove that. And Chuck, I lose sleep wondering whether we today are in some kind of state of existence

• 14:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  where a chapter had been removed from our attempt to probe our place in the universe. And here we are without that chapter, trying to make sense of it. Oh, that is, oh, that's terrible. Terrible. What a terrible, terrible thought. I have these thoughts and it delays slumber many a night. That's just awful. That's an awful thought. Oh, my God. And so is the distant future thought. That's not good either. Right. Yeah. I got another one. You ready? Suppose you grew up on Venus. You'd be vaporized, but let's ignore that complication. Okay, right. If you grew up on Venus. I got some really good sunscreen. If you, if you, that won't help you from high temperature.

• 14:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is true. That's only you being. Sunscreen ain't stopping you from. Right. That's not 900 degree. It's not a. Yeah. I got an asbestos bathing suit.

• 15:00Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 15:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if civilization arose on Venus.

• 15:05Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 15:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There would be no culture of the night sky. There would be no night sky because it has such a thick cloud cover. No one has ever seen the night sky.

• 15:14Chuck Nice?

  Oh, wow.

• 15:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All you would know is that half a year, because Venus rotates very slowly, half a year, it's just kind of light. And then it gets dark for most of the year. And then it gets, that's all you're gonna know. And so someone would have to figure out how to travel in space, to even know there's such a thing as traveling in space.

• 15:34Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 15:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Build a spaceship and then imagine emerging from those clouds, the cloud tops for the first time. And you see the sun and stars and other planets. Oh, my gosh. So are we buried under some cloak, preventing us from getting an accurate understanding of the world around us?

• 15:53Chuck Nice?

  Wow. That's, that's, that, that's very, very profound and, and thought provoking.

• 16:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that's Fernando.

• 16:03Chuck Nice?

  There you go, Fernando. Look at, look at you, buddy.

• 16:20Speaker 02

  Hi, I'm Ernie Carducci from Columbus, Ohio. I'm here with my son Ernie because we listen to StarTalk every night and support StarTalk on Patreon.

• 16:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 16:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So just for those only listening, I have two works of art from an Inuit artist.

• 16:49Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 16:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it is a bird that has just consumed a, a fish. And one is a black and white version. The other one is a white and black version of the same print. And they flank my. A desk.

• 17:04Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 17:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For these recordings. And they look, they do look a little alien.

• 17:07Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, they do. They look, they look a little alien, but they're cool.

• 17:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. And if you're interested in these, you can find them on, on the, on our postings. Uh, the name of the artist and the, and a little bit of the history of the Inuit culture is there.

• 17:20Chuck Nice?

  Sweet. Very nice.

• 17:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I thank her for giving me permission to show these. Uh, I mean, they're actual, are real art. My wife is from, uh, was raised in Alaska.

• 17:28Chuck Nice?

  That's right, yeah.

• 17:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So she has sort of an awareness and a sensitivity to the whole region and Inuit art and this sort of thing. So.

• 17:34Chuck Nice?

  That's cool.

• 17:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. So just keep going. Give me some questions.

• 17:38Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, let's, let's get back into, uh, let's do another Patreon. Another Patreon from Jet Thomas. What a good name. He's a, he's a, he's a space hero. Uh. Hello Neil and Chuck. If gravitational waves can bend the fabric of spacetime.

• 17:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, by the way, jets don't work in space, just so you know. You need rockets, but go on.

• 17:58Chuck Nice?

  Okay, you're right, because you need an air inflow.

• 18:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You need air.

• 18:02Chuck Nice?

  You need air inflow to, to, to make a jet.

• 18:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just saying.

• 18:05Chuck Nice?

  I, I, I got you. I got you. Listen, I'm not, I, I will, I will take that correction. I know.

• 18:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm gonna be all up in your face about it.

• 18:13Chuck Nice?

  No, I know, I, listen.

• 18:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I won't let stuff go by.

• 18:15Chuck Nice?

  I know who I'm talking around.

• 18:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 18:20Chuck Nice?

  That's why I don't go to the movies with you.

• 18:26Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. Uh, so Jet Thomas says this. If gravitational waves can bend the fabric of spacetime, could it potentially be utilized to communicate with life in other universes? Uh, in principle, could a device use gravitational waves instead of the way we use, uh, radio waves to stream information outside the bounds of our universe? Now, you just said in our previous answer that light is bound to this universe, trapped. So now gravitational waves.

• 19:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so each one of these is an entire window to the universe. I mean, let's think back for a minute. When the telescope was sort of pioneered by Galileo, he's thinking, oh, my gosh, look what I can now see. And I can look at, I can see ships farther in the distance. I can look up at the Milky Way and I see stars where you thought it was just a cloud. And he's imagining that the telescope is the way to see everything your eyes can't. Okay? Right. But then, give me a couple hundred years on that. And then what happens? William Herschel discovers infrared, which is also light, but your eyes can't see it.

• 19:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And in fact, in his original research paper, he called it light unfit for vision. Wow. And so, wait a minute. If all your telescopes are only giving you visible light, but why even call it visible light? It's just light, right? You don't have any other, you don't, there's no reason to qualify that it's visible light if you don't know any of the light that you can't see. The moment we discover light you can't see, you now have to constrain how you call the light your eyes detect. And we call that visible light. Infrared is not visible. Ultraviolet is not visible. Neither are X-rays, gamma rays, radio waves, none of that. Yet it's all light, traveling at the speed of light. So we open up telescopes to these windows to the universe.

• 20:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that's how we discovered the birth of the universe and black holes and, and, and jets. There are all kinds of things in the universe. That's how we discovered them. But now we can go a step beyond that and say, all of these collectively, in a way, is just one kind of window to the universe. The window that uses light. Are there other kinds of windows? And yes, gravitational waves is a kind of window. The neutrinos is a kind of window. There are neutrinos everywhere. We just need special telescopes to detect them. And so, if gravity can escape your universe...

• 21:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If that can happen, then there's no reason why we can't send a signal. I, I, I agree entirely. That's a long answer to just say, yes.

• 21:17Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 21:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, but I got a question that, again, I'm, I'm, I'm an idiot when it comes to field theory. So if the ripple of a gravitational wave, it requires, or its, its effect i- in the space-time continuum is this wave, when it leaves the universe, what is it jiggling? I mean, I don't know what is it, maybe it's just the graviton, the, the quantum particle that corresponds to the gravity wave. In the same way, a photon of light corresponds to the wave of light. Right? These are sort of parallel constructs.

• 21:55Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 21:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We speak of light waves that are carried by photons. Gravity waves carried by gravitons. Maybe the graviton busts out, goes through, comes, enters the other universe, and we don't have to worry about the wave warping the fabric of space and time. So, yeah, I, I don't see why not. But I would need higher expertise to answer that with some precision.

• 22:17Chuck Nice?

  Wow, that, well, God, how much higher expertise can you get?

• 22:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I hope we got people.

• 22:22Chuck Nice?

  Jesus.

• 22:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Brian Greene, Brian Greene would totally.

• 22:24Chuck Nice?

  Oh, yeah, well, yeah, that is, that is his thing.

• 22:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And he's just up the street.

• 22:28Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that's his thing, that's right, yeah. That was a great answer though, man. No, that's, that's fantastic. Yeah, I love it. And the, the windows to the universe, that's an excellent answer.

• 22:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so what it is, it's a window, so the electromagnetic spectrum is a window of windows.

• 22:42Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? And then we have another kind of window over here on the other side of the house.

• 22:47Chuck Nice?

  See, oh, man, I love that, I love that, that's just, God, that's so.

• 22:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you went back in time and said, Galileo, you're practically blind.

• 22:55Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And he'd say, no, I'm not, look what I can see.

• 22:58Chuck Nice?

  He was like, do you not see what I'm looking through?

• 23:02Chuck Nice?

  The hell is wrong with you?

• 23:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's exactly how he would have said it too.

• 23:05Chuck Nice?

  You know that's how he would.

• 23:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dude.

• 23:10Chuck Nice?

  What?

• 23:13Chuck Nice?

  What?

• 23:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He was colloquial, by the way.

• 23:14Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 23:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He hung with the common folk.

• 23:17Chuck Nice?

  Oh, really?

• 23:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, he might have spoken in

• 23:20Chuck Nice?

  You never know.

• 23:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Italian vernacular of the day.

• 23:22Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whatever that would have been.

• 23:23Chuck Nice?

  Yes, the Italian equivalent of "child, please." So, okay, cool.

• 23:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Child, please.

• 23:29Chuck Nice?

  Child, please. Don't you know I am better to telescope? The hell is no problem.

• 23:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Straight from the inner cities of 20th century.

• 23:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Child, please.

• 23:42Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that's hilarious. Okay, here we go. Here we go. I love that the window, the different windows of the universe. Love it. Okay, let's go to Eric Allen. Eric Allen. Hi there. I've been listening for years and I finally have the nerve to ask a question.

• 23:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And who asked this?

• 24:00Chuck Nice?

  Eric Allen.

• 24:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Eric Allen.

• 24:02Chuck Nice?

  Yes, yes. So, thank you for listening, Eric. Here we go. He says, "We know that the force of gravity bleeding into our universe from another universe would drop off at the rate of 1 over r cubed." He says, "Yeah." Okay. Hypothetically, if the other three forces were somehow able to bleed into our universe from another, would they be affected the same way? Now, I don't know if I said his equation correctly.

• 24:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I got it. No, we're good. We good here.

• 24:35Chuck Nice?

  Are we okay?

• 24:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so let me just say what's going on here.

• 24:39Chuck Nice?

  Yes, please.

• 24:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. If I have a water pistol.

• 24:43Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 24:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I shoot it right at your face.

• 24:46Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 24:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then all the water that exited the vessel in the water pistol goes in a stream and it all lands on your nose.

• 24:55Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 24:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay?

• 24:56Chuck Nice?

  If you're a good shot.

• 24:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's no dilution of, as long as the stream is tight and narrow, there's no dilution of it, of what came out of my water gun before it hit your face.

• 25:09Chuck Nice?

  Got you.

• 25:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So now, let me say, I'm now, instead of gonna Doing in a straight line, that's one dimension. I'm gonna spray it horizontally. Oh, okay. Okay, but it's the same amount of water. Same amount of water. Okay, so if I, if now I spray it. Mm-hmm. Then it has, it's quote diluted by the area over which it has to. Right. Um, travel. Correct. Okay, so if that's the case, then it drops off as um. One over R is what, one over the distance. So if you're twice as far away, you're getting half as much as you would have if you were closer. Okay, that's how that dilution would work.

• 25:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's in two dimensions, okay? Now, let's say you're now spr- uh, spraying it in all three dimensions. So that now, now it's like this, this wave, this spherical wave. Right. Emanating from the water gun. Of course, you'll hit yourself in the face. Yeah, cuz it's going in all directions, right. Right, right. So it turns out, if you go in all these directions, then it's being diluted by the area of the surface of that sphere. Okay, gotcha, gotcha. So now it's being delete, and the, the formula for the surface of a sphere is four pi R squared. So it's being diluted by the square of the size of the, the surface. And so this is the famous one over R squared law.

• 26:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. That light experiences, that gravity experiences. Because whatever is the source, it goes out and is filling all of space. And as it moves out, the intensity drops off as the square. If you're leaving your universe, you're going in a direction that is not accessible to anything you have seen or know. Okay. Because you're exiting these dimensions. Correct. And now you're exit, and you're leaving our universe, crossing into another universe. The strength of the gravity will now drop off by the cube of the distance. Gotcha. And that's significant. Right. Okay, so in other words, if I'm, I'm a, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm a foot away from you and there's a certain strength of whatever's the field that I have.

• 27:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now you go two feet away from you, okay? No, if I'm two feet away, and now I go to four feet. I now have one eighth the strength.

• 27:32Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not half the strength.

• 27:34Chuck Nice?

  Not half the strength, right.

• 27:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because it's a factor of two away and you cube that, two times, two times, two is eight.

• 27:38Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I have one eighth the strength. Okay, so, so I don't know any reason to think why other forces wouldn't have this extra dimension of dilution associated with them exiting your universe and coming into the, uh, another universe.

• 27:55Chuck Nice?

  Right. Okay, cool, wow.

• 27:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so you're subject to a higher dimension of dilution.

• 28:00Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 28:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By leaving a universe. And so, yeah, so, so that's why I think I said in an earlier question, it's not only the six times our gravity that it has going on for itself.

• 28:12Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 28:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's got to make up for that extra dilution to leave its universe and come in here. So it's a honking universe.

• 28:18Chuck Nice?

  Wow, okay, cool.

• 28:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If that, if that's how, if, if, if that's what we're feeling, if that's what dark matter actually is, yeah.

• 28:25Chuck Nice?

  Well, I gotta tell you, Eric, after waiting years, you actually came up with a damn good question.

• 28:31Chuck Nice?

  Good for you, buddy. Yeah, we'll see you, yeah, we'll see you in a few years, uh, with another great question.

• 28:41Chuck Nice?

  Right, all right, let's, uh, let's keep it going with, uh, um, oh, I love this. The most happy boy 11 is the handle. Neil, how does it all end?

• 28:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 28:57Chuck Nice?

  And that's it. That's the whole, that's the whole question. How does it all end?

• 29:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The question was asked by, who was it? Littleboy11 or something, what is it?

• 29:29Chuck Nice?

  Uh, yeah, most happy boy 11.

• 29:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Most happy boy 11.

• 29:33Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 29:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, wanted to know, how will it all end?

• 29:36Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 29:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The universe will end not in light, but in dark. Not in fire, but in ice. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

• 29:52Chuck Nice?

  Oh, oh, that's terrible.

• 29:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Poor, poor universe. Beyond that little bit of simple language. Okay. There's an entire section of the Cosmic Queries book that specifically addresses all the scenarios of how we will end. And so I'm gonna be, I'm gonna pull rank here and say, buy the damn book when it comes out. Oh wow, there you go. What I, what I will do, I hate doing that, but it's, a lot of effort went into those chapters. I'm gonna pluck, for me, the scariest ending of them all. Okay, good, I like that. All right. Wait, hold on, hold on. Let me get my flashlight.

• 30:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. Let's get, let's get. Chuck, imagine he's around a campfire.

• 30:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the dark, but he's in a completely lit room. Right, exactly. So, here you go. This expansion of the universe, this acceleration. There's no reason for any of us to think it will ever end. It will keep accelerating in its expansion. Okay. So, as we described earlier, the galaxies, the distant galaxies will expand beyond our horizon. Then the nearby ones will no longer be nearby because they would have been stretched to the edge of the universe. Right. Then, the power of the stretching will overcome the gravitational binding of stars with other stars and stars with their planets.

• 31:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, we would see our galaxy systematically get stripped apart with stars being cast beyond the horizon as it expands. And this will continue. And, so not only will every star get cast asunder to beyond our horizon, such that our sky will contain only one star, and that is the sun. Except the sun won't live that long, but let's pretend it's still there. Then... The stretching of the universe will rip the planets away from the star. So that we will then become alone in our own bubble, within our own horizon in the universe. Then it will keep stretching and it'll begin ripping the Earth apart. And by the way, this is happening at a faster and faster rate.

• 32:09Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 32:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you can calculate when the expansion of the universe rips apart the very particles that comprise matter itself.

• 32:22Chuck Nice?

  Oh, no way!

• 32:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the very, the very, um, the, what's called a Planck length, the very, um, the granularity of the quantum universe itself gets ripped apart. And in fact, this is called the Big Rip.

• 32:38Chuck Nice?

  Oh my, oh, the universe split its pants.

• 32:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Split its pants!

• 32:43Chuck Nice?

  Oh my goodness!

• 32:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I mean, literally, it split everything!

• 32:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 32:50Chuck Nice?

  Wow!

• 32:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It bent over and split its pants. Chuck, I love that description. And that, if the universe goes that way, it'll happen between 10 to the 30 and 10 to the 35 years, around there.

• 33:04Chuck Nice?

  Okay, I'm, well, I'm-

• 33:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's a lot, that's a lot of years in the future.

• 33:07Chuck Nice?

  Well, there you go, happy boy. I hope you lose sleep over that.

• 33:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I ain't happy anymore, no.

• 33:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, there was an episode of Doctor Who where there was a tear in the face, in the space-time fabric, and that tear would show up and you would like see it. And so that was particularly scary for me because I know what, you know, what the theories tell us.

• 33:30Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so the Big Rip freaking me out.

• 33:33Chuck Nice?

  The Big Rip, alright.

• 33:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let it freak you out too, so I'm not the only one.

• 33:36Chuck Nice?

  There you go. Alright.

• 33:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, and that's just one of a dozen scenarios given in that chapter.

• 33:43Chuck Nice?

  Oh, cool. Excellent. And read it to your kids, people.

• 33:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bedtime stories.

• 33:49Chuck Nice?

  Wonderful bedtime story, wonderful. Alright, here, uh, this is Chloe Wagstaff. Chloe Wagstaff says this, uh, "How can artists, in your opinion, contribute to science?"

• 34:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They already are. Oh my gosh. So first of all, historically, before we had cameras, the, especially the naturalists, but also astronomers too, if you saw something, you just drew it. All right, and not all scientists are good at drawing. So you see Galileo sketches, they're not too bad. Right. All right, in his notebook, they're pretty good. Right. Better than I can do, I think. But if you had a real artist, they could totally rock the scene and put what is actually out there on the page. And all the naturalists who were, who were documenting flora and fauna of the world as they traveled the world to record all the manifestations of life on Earth. Every one of those were either artists themselves

• 34:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  or carried in artists in, in the back, you know, in the wagon. So true. With them. And so one of the most famous of these are the Audubon paintings. All right. Well, you know, we hold them up as art, but this is, this is a scientific record of birds. Right. And until photography could do that, or do it well, or capture the color of them, that was the only thing we had. So we owe it a tremendous debt of gratitude to artists, the scientific illustrators of the day. But then when photography came, it sort of relaxed that requirement. And, but there were still some things you had to draw because photography wasn't all that sensitive to light. So if it was really, really dim, you still had to draw it. Early astronomical images were still drawn,

• 35:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  even though photography was available. Well, let's fast forward to today. So, no, we don't, sorry, I don't need you to draw my Hubble photo because we got really good imagery of it. Sorry. However, you know what I need you for? You know what I want you for?

• 35:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Design, graphic design. They're artists, okay? I like.

• 35:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Some things better than others, even if they have the same functionality.

• 35:57Chuck Nice?

  Yep.

• 35:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because some objects are just beautiful to behold, or to touch, or to to it to carry with you. I value that. I think that's, you know, we can have a utilitarian world. But is that the world you want to choose to live in? No, you want the world where that's a beautiful space. That's a beautiful, I'm talking about architecture now. That's a beautiful, um, building, a beautiful room. It's been organized beautifully. What's the feng shui of that room? Those aren't scientists thinking that up. Those are artists.

• 36:28Chuck Nice?

  You just, you just described Apple computers.

• 36:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. I tried not to mention the name because, you know, we're, we're not paid by Apple or any computer company. But.

• 36:38Chuck Nice?

  There's still time.

• 36:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's still time.

• 36:41Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 36:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So in that way, artists, I think, make a beautiful world in which scientists function. But, but otherwise, no, I don't see that happening. There's a big push to get A in STEAM.

• 36:55Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 36:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? Science, technology, engineering and math. Um, you put an A in there and STEM becomes STEAM.

• 37:02Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 37:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And with the urge that if you train scientists to be artists, it can boost their creativity. And I don't know how successful that will be. Yes, you have to be creative as a scientist. But the number of scientists who said, you know, I thought about this new discovery after I looked at this work of art, or after I painted this, that, those numbers are not high. And I know of one case, a guy named Ed Belbruno, who looked at Starry Night by Van Gogh, and it got him thinking about orbits, transfer orbits between Earth and the moon because of the swirls of the paint. So it got him thinking. I think that's great. Doesn't mean he would have never had those thoughts without seeing the painting. I don't know.

• 37:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I do know, however, that science and engineering greatly affect art.

• 37:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, when neon was invented or discovered, you can have neon glowing tubes. Artists were all over it with neon sculptures and things. And so when we make chemical discoveries or discoveries in material science or in computing, the artists are all in it and all over it. There'd be no modern special effects were it not for artists exploiting the computing foundations that were created by basically math geeks 60 years ago. So there is a two-way street, but most of the traffic really goes towards the artists rather than towards the science. But based on my read of the history of this.

• 38:36Chuck Nice?

  Well, there you have it. Artists, you guys, you're not, we don't need you.

• 38:47Chuck Nice?

  Now, you know, that's a joke.

• 38:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me say differently.

• 38:50Chuck Nice?

  Maybe. Go ahead.

• 38:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe if more scientists took art class, then there would be more creativity expressed than they believe possible.

• 39:03Chuck Nice?

  Right on.

• 39:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I want to see that tested, and I think it's worth an experiment.

• 39:06Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I think I want to see scientists take communications classes more than I want to see them take art class. Because that's what we need. We need people to listen to scientists, you know, more than anything.

• 39:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And one last bit of that. I don't want to eat up this whole segment on this. But if you look at Beethoven's Ninth Symphony or even Van Gogh's Starry Night, if they didn't create those, no one ever to be born will ever create them.

• 39:37Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 39:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They are singular expressions of the creativity of those artists.

• 39:42Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 39:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whereas if Einstein had never discovered relativity, somebody else would have, or some combination of people would have, and they would have discovered it in exactly the way he showed it to us. And so the creativity of a scientist is not existing in a free-thinking way. Because ultimately, nature passes judgment on whether what you invented works at all. So the creative process has different landing zones.

• 40:15Chuck Nice?

  Right. Well, that makes sense. That makes sense because science is bound by laws. Whereas creativity.

• 40:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We didn't create, they're out there.

• 40:24Chuck Nice?

  Creativity is about breaking laws.

• 40:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like it. Very nicely put. Exactly.

• 40:30Chuck Nice?

  Cool. All right. Yeah.

• 40:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's go to lightning round. See how many questions we can get in.

• 40:34Chuck Nice?

  Okay, here we go. Um, all right. I don't know if we're going lightning round with this question because it's a great question. This is Ms. Kell 8893. What questions are we not and should be asking about the universe? Damn!

• 40:54Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that's, that's a, I mean, that's really cool.

• 40:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, I got one. You ready?

• 41:00Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 41:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. The question that we should be asking and we're not have not yet manifested because the discoveries necessary for us to occupy the new vista, which enables those questions to then be in sight of our curiosity, have yet to be discovered.

• 41:19Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my God, you thought about this before.

• 41:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Next question.

• 41:23Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my God. Okay, I'm just gonna say, that was a really good answer, man.

• 41:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, next question.

• 41:31Chuck Nice?

  All right, next question. Here we go. Uh, this is, um, um, Vitesh Sina, who says, uh, do you believe in a borderless world? Um, and how could we possibly make that happen?

• 41:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, borderless Earth? No countries?

• 41:48Chuck Nice?

  No countries. Borderless Earth.

• 41:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so I don't mean, when world, I was, I mean, the universe, but Earth. Yeah, I, I think borders are embarrassing. They're just embarrassing. If an alien came down and said, oh, you all human? Yeah, so well, then why is this guard raid here? Why are you, why is there a war? Oh, because even though we're all human, we're finding reasons to kill each other. Uh, but these slight differences that we tried hard to find, found them and invoked them as reasons to mistreat each other, to kill each other, to enslave people, to round them up into concentration camps. And so, uh, yeah, we have to somehow tell that to the aliens. As they look at us befuddledly, like, what the hell is wrong with you? They'll go back, there's no sign of intelligent life on Earth.

• 42:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Um, often a common enemy brings people together. Covid should have been that enemy? Where we'd say, "Let's put down, you know, our differences and fight this because it will attack us all, no matter who we worship, or who we have sex with, or who we... All the other things that creates fights among us. We have a common enemy, people. Let's fight it together." And that didn't even happen.

• 42:59Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 42:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I give it a D+ on that, okay? The only reason I don't give it an F is because some progress was made in the effort to make the...

• 43:09Chuck Nice?

  The vaccines.

• 43:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. So, I don't have hope. I think, deep down, within our DNA, our tribalism will forever prevent that from happening. And I wish I could sound more positive, but based on my read of history, I can't.

• 43:25Chuck Nice?

  Well, a sobering answer, to say the least.

• 43:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think we gotta end there, Chuck.

• 43:31Chuck Nice?

  No, get out of here! All right, wait, wait. One last one, very, very quickly.

• 43:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One last one, okay, go.

• 43:36Chuck Nice?

  Okay. Sarabah Pandav says this. "Has human kind ever seen, in the night sky, a supernova?"

• 43:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Good one. So, first, we discover hundreds of them a year with dedicated telescopes. Dedicated telescopes that go from galaxy to galaxy looking for something that blew up since last night. Okay, a supernova lasts, you know, visibility lasts weeks and into the months. So, we have dedicated experiments just for that purpose. But for the unaided eye?

• 44:09Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 44:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The first exploding star visible since Kepler in the 1600s was in 1987. There was a guy in the observatories in Chile, in the Andes Mountains, who was looking through his telescope, and he sees this bright object in what he's looking at. And he says, "No, there's something wrong with the telescope." So, he says, "Let me just walk..." So, he goes outside the telescope, looks up, and there's a bright object in the sky. Okay? So, this is a case where he's using his eyes to verify the machine, rather than the machine to verify his eyes. And that was discovered, I think, in February in the year 1987. It was the first supernova discovered that year.

• 44:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it is the famous 1987-A. And it is the most studied supernova in the history of the world. And all our telescopes, we have a very good communication system among us. All the telescopes around the world abandoned whatever research projects they were on at the time, slewed in the sky over and found this object. And even when it was below the horizon, the telescopes were waiting for it to rise. So you can get all kinds of data, radio waves, infrared, ultraviolet, visible, everything, every, everything we could throw at it, we did. And there are thousands of research papers on that exploding star.

• 45:31Chuck Nice?

  Awesome.

• 45:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Visible to the naked eye.

• 45:33Chuck Nice?

  Well, there you have it.

• 45:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, Google that, 1987, capital A, it's all there.

• 45:37Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 45:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Beautiful question. Chuck, that's it. We gotta, we gotta wrap.

• 45:41Chuck Nice?

  All right, all right. That was fun.

• 45:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, very good. So, all right, Chuck.

• 45:47Chuck Nice?

  Ah.

• 45:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'll be looking for you.

• 45:48Chuck Nice?

  It's a pleasure to be here.

• 45:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love your Twitter feed, especially when you live tweet live events.

• 45:53Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, yeah. Not much of that going on now, but I'll be, I'll be tweeting the Super Bowl, that's for sure.

• 45:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Super Bowl, I'll be looking for that.

• 45:59Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 46:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because you, you don't, you don't play with the, you don't give, cut anybody slack.

• 46:04Chuck Nice?

  No, they're all jokes. Everybody should be able to take it.

• 46:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. This has been StarTalk. Cosmic Queries, a gumbo, galactic gumbo.

• 46:14Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, home, at home.

• 46:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With spice on this version. So I've been your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, as always. Keep looking up.