Cosmic Queries – Dimensional Waterfall

What happens when two black holes' event horizons overlap? Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-host Chuck Nice answer fan questions about higher dimensions, the north side of the magnet, the internal structure of other planets, and more.

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

• 0:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, another installment of Cosmic Queries.

• 0:02Chuck Nice?

  Yes, and in this one, we figured out what dark matter really is.

• 0:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tune in and find out.

• 0:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 0:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk. Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. We're doing cosmic queries today, and that means Chuck is sitting right next to me.

• 0:35Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 0:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How you doing Chuck?

• 0:36Chuck Nice?

  Hey, what's happening?

• 0:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is this a topic, or is it grab bag?

• 0:39Chuck Nice?

  You know what it is.

• 0:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 0:41Chuck Nice?

  It's galactic gumbo. Da-da-da, right, da-da-da. They're all on TV, won't give no way in here, I'm gonna give them a signal. Put it down there, I'm gonna put them pop, but let them know some guy on pepper.

• 0:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Didn't he die like 20 years ago?

• 0:54Chuck Nice?

  I don't.

• 0:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Paul Prudhomme, is that his name?

• 0:57Chuck Nice?

  I don't know his name.

• 0:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Have you seen him lately?

• 0:59Chuck Nice?

  No, I have not.

• 1:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And my boy was packing some weight back then.

• 1:02Chuck Nice?

  I haven't seen him in 20 years.

• 1:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, we thank him for granting you that accent.

• 1:08Chuck Nice?

  Damn that, that's it, that don't go much see.

• 1:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So this is random, but they're all Patreon members?

• 1:16Chuck Nice?

  Whatever they want.

• 1:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it's only Patreon members?

• 1:18Chuck Nice?

  Correct.

• 1:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I haven't seen any of these questions.

• 1:20Chuck Nice?

  No, you do not get to see them, and I'm supposed to see them, but I'm lazy, so I don't see them either.

• 1:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 1:27Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. This is writer's eye, who says, "Hello, everyone. I hope your day is filled with protons from only friendly stars."

• 1:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh. Well, maybe he meant photons.

• 1:40Chuck Nice?

  Photons, yeah.

• 1:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did he say protons, or did you misread it?

• 1:42Chuck Nice?

  No, it says protons.

• 1:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You didn't misread it?

• 1:45Chuck Nice?

  I did not.

• 1:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because sometimes, you know, you and the reading thing.

• 1:47Chuck Nice?

  I thought maybe.

• 1:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Reading is fundamental.

• 1:49Chuck Nice?

  It is fundamental. No, I thought maybe he was, you know, talking about like a pulsar or something and so.

• 1:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Send the particles out.

• 1:57Chuck Nice?

  Sending particles out.

• 1:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 1:58Chuck Nice?

  But no, uh, he probably did mean photons.

• 2:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 2:01Chuck Nice?

  From Friendly Stars, he says, how far are we away from being able to track gravity waves? I know we can detect them, so tracking them would be the next obvious step, in my humble opinion, that is. If we could track them, eventually we could map the universe edge to edge. Am I correct? In thinking that?

• 2:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hmm, so a couple of things. First, a technicality.

• 2:25Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The kind of waves made by.

• 2:27Chuck Nice?

  Gravity waves, by two colliding black holes.

• 2:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Those are called gravitational waves.

• 2:31Chuck Nice?

  Gravitational waves, right.

• 2:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, gravity waves is something else that acoustical people, is a term people use when they refer to a medium that's rising and falling in response to a.

• 2:44Chuck Nice?

  A pressure.

• 2:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A pressure, uh, impulse that goes through it.

• 2:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So those are gravity waves that they call, so we have to make sure that the, the, the kingdom is, is separated.

• 2:53Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, but the lexicographic.

• 2:57Chuck Nice?

  Nice. The, the lexicographic reference has to be correct.

• 3:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Distinct. So gravitational waves.

• 3:04Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 3:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, we detect them when they wash over us.

• 3:07Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 3:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what Ligo did. That's what earned the Nobel Prize.

• 3:11Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 3:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you know who earned the Nobel Prize? Kip Thorne, who was one of the executive producers on.

• 3:18Chuck Nice?

  Wait a minute, wait a minute. Wait, it's the string theory movie with Matthew McConaughey. It's called.

• 3:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Interstellar.

• 3:24Chuck Nice?

  Interstellar.

• 3:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, good. So in fact, we, we took our crew out to Pasadena, where he lives, went to his home office.

• 3:30Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 3:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And interviewed Kip Thorne.

• 3:31Chuck Nice?

  Very cool.

• 3:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. You can find it on our archives, uh, and he showed us his Nobel Prize.

• 3:36Chuck Nice?

  Oh, wow.

• 3:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was cool.

• 3:38Chuck Nice?

  You just keep that thing, huh?

• 3:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know, right?

• 3:39Chuck Nice?

  You just keep it around?

• 3:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like, what do you, do you wear it on your neck? What do you do? What else can you do with it?

• 3:43Chuck Nice?

  I would take it everywhere.

• 3:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:45Chuck Nice?

  You know what I mean? Excuse me, do you know what time it is? I'm like, oh, excuse me, let me move my Nobel Prize out of the way so I can see my watch. I don't, how did that get there?

• 3:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where did that come from?

• 3:56Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my goodness. Is that my Nobel Prize and where my watch should be? Oh, my goodness.

• 4:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So here's what I learned recently, that. Yes, we can detect certain energy levels of gravitational waves that wash over Earth.

• 4:12Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 4:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there's certain other phenomenon in the universe that do make gravitational waves that those detectors cannot see.

• 4:20Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 4:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Now, there's something I only know a little bit about here, so I just want to put it on the table.

• 4:26Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 4:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. That there's a research program that's going to be put into play that wants to detect the effect of gravitational waves moving across your field of view. So if you have a pulsar, which has very, very precise spinning rates, the most accurate

• 4:52Chuck Nice?

  Set a clock by it.

• 4:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can set a clock by it, okay? If a gravitational wave passes by it.

• 4:59Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a change in the rate.

• 5:02Chuck Nice?

  Right, you'll see the, the rhythm change.

• 5:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The rhythm change just briefly.

• 5:06Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 5:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, the idea is, you monitor all the pulsars, you get their rhythms known.

• 5:13Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then, you see one change. And then you look to see if it

• 5:17Chuck Nice?

  If it coincides with a gravitational wave.

• 5:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, well, that would be the evidence of one. Now you see if it moves to the next one, and then the next one.

• 5:24Chuck Nice?

  Oh, right. And now you would see the consistency across each pulsar.

• 5:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct, and you'd be watching a gravitational wave

• 5:30Chuck Nice?

  Move across the medium of space.

• 5:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 5:32Chuck Nice?

  That's amazing.

• 5:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, yes.

• 5:34Chuck Nice?

  And

• 5:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're not there yet, but that's

• 5:35Chuck Nice?

  Unfortunately, we had to cut that.

• 5:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's where you stopped.

• 5:39Chuck Nice?

  The funding for it's been cut already. We've saved so much money by not even thinking about it. You know it, I know it.

• 5:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me, on that subject, let me remind you how much money NASA gets from the government.

• 5:58Chuck Nice?

  What?

• 5:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is, this is for the space station, space shuttle, Hubble, JWST, James Webb.

• 6:04Chuck Nice?

  Everything that NASA does.

• 6:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everything NASA does. We're going back to the moon.

• 6:07Chuck Nice?

  Including looking back at Earth and weather and everything?

• 6:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, the weather would be NOAA.

• 6:10Chuck Nice?

  That's NOAA, okay.

• 6:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, but there, there's a strong collaboration between them.

• 6:14Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, the two of them are

• 6:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, you know, I, it was like 10 years after NOAA was founded that I caught on that it's like pronounced like Noah, like Noah's Ark.

• 6:23Chuck Nice?

  Like Noah's Ark, yeah.

• 6:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause he was the first weatherman.

• 6:26Chuck Nice?

  Oh my god. Alright, so I didn't, I'm just catching that now.

• 6:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You just caught that now.

• 6:31Chuck Nice?

  Just now, you had to actually spell it out.

• 6:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 6:33Chuck Nice?

  He was the first weatherman. Hey, hey, it's gonna rain. God says it's gonna rain, man. People are like, what are you talking about, Noah? What are you talking about? It hasn't rained, it has never rained here. Never. I'm telling you, man, I'm building a boat. It's gonna rain.

• 6:55Chuck Nice?

  Oh, crazy Noah, there he goes again, you know.

• 6:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, well, he did grow grapes, is my understanding. And might have made some wine. Made a little bit of wine.

• 7:04Chuck Nice?

  The Bible references that he did drink.

• 7:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 7:07Chuck Nice?

  But go ahead.

• 7:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, the Noah.

• 7:10Chuck Nice?

  By the way, if he did drink, I'm just saying, that's rough, just like. I'll tell you right now.

• 7:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's gonna rain.

• 7:17Chuck Nice?

  The Lord has spoken to me.

• 7:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, who's gonna believe that, right?

• 7:21Chuck Nice?

  Told me to get three of every animal. I think it was two. Anyway, go ahead, let's move on.

• 7:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, of course, it's spelled N-O-A-H, and then N-O-A-A. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. So, yeah, Noah makes those. So, just to remind people.

• 7:40Chuck Nice?

  How much money?

• 7:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, of your tax dollar.

• 7:43Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is four tenths of one cent.

• 7:46Chuck Nice?

  So, it's not even a full penny?

• 7:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so you can say, I wanna save money there.

• 7:50Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But then, what total impact is that gonna have, given all the rest of the spending that's going on?

• 7:56Chuck Nice?

  Right, it's not a very efficient means of cost cutting.

• 8:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so, if you have a Department of Efficiency, it could be more efficient about where it's being efficient.

• 8:06Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:09Chuck Nice?

  I think we need to be efficient with the Department of Efficiency.

• 8:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly, okay, alright, next one.

• 8:13Chuck Nice?

  Here we go, let's move on to Maurice Van Der Linden. This is Maurice Van Der Linden, he says, hey Neil, hey Chuck, I've been wondering about something Janet Levin said once in your episodes, that it might be possible that if you look far enough into the cosmos, your line of sight can loop around and the universe can end up at your position just along the timeline. Doesn't this imply that if true? The universe is a perfect 4D sphere. You would see your past location, in your case, a young solar system, from every angle, so it would appear smeared out across the cosmic horizon. Love the show, con regards, Maurice from Harleem in the Netherlands.

• 8:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh Harlem.

• 8:59Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 8:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes Harlem. Uh, it's where we got our name Harlem.

• 9:02Chuck Nice?

  Harlem here in New York.

• 9:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, back when the Dutch were running.

• 9:05Chuck Nice?

  They owned it all.

• 9:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They owned it all. They put in all the canals, because they, we have Canal Street.

• 9:09Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 9:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, and that's, that's what they do.

• 9:12Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely.

• 9:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Even back then.

• 9:14Chuck Nice?

  Oh, nothing but canals.

• 9:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, I, I don't know if I can answer it in the precision that's sought here.

• 9:22Chuck Nice?

  That he's talking about, right.

• 9:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I can tell you that we do live in an open universe, which means we're expanding out forever.

• 9:29Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there is no sightline that will come back to where we are.

• 9:32Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It goes out.

• 9:33Chuck Nice?

  Because the sightline is continually moving.

• 9:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct, and, and out away from us.

• 9:37Chuck Nice?

  Away from us, so there's no way that you could move back, because it's always going.

• 9:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In a closed universe,

• 9:41Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 9:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We, the universe will re-collapse, so that a, a sightline, in principle, will ultimately come back. And the way to think about that is just the surface of a sphere.

• 9:52Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We'll call it a balloon, a perfect spherical balloon. We're all crawling around on the surface of that balloon, and if you send out a beam of light, it will go away from you, but then come around, come back and hit you in the back of the head.

• 10:07Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? But that would be later.

• 10:11Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? And as the balloon begins to shrink back, because it's, well, wouldn't have to shrink, it just has to be closed, but if it's closed, it will shrink. Hmm.

• 10:23Chuck Nice?

  Don't look at me, I'm not an astrophysicist.

• 10:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, the cosmic microwave background.

• 10:31Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We have done some experiments to test for this.

• 10:34Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 10:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, the microwave background is in every direction.

• 10:37Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if you look this way, and you get an exact, so I know exactly the patterning that's happening there.

• 10:44Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 10:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then you just...

• 10:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Look that way.

• 10:49Chuck Nice?

  Turn around.

• 10:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. Is that exact pattern?

• 10:51Chuck Nice?

  Same pattern.

• 10:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because if that's the thing, then that means they are the same place.

• 10:55Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That means that was a line that went around and met on the other side.

• 11:00Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 11:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, we haven't found that.

• 11:02Chuck Nice?

  We haven't?

• 11:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 11:04Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 11:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But we've looked.

• 11:05Chuck Nice?

  We've looked.

• 11:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's my point. We've looked very carefully for statistically significant repeated patterns.

• 11:10Chuck Nice?

  Got you.

• 11:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All throughout the cosmic microwave.

• 11:12Chuck Nice?

  Got you. Okay.

• 11:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 11:13Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 11:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's the best I can answer that.

• 11:15Chuck Nice?

  No, that's a great answer.

• 11:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jana might have come in with some more teeth in that answer.

• 11:19Chuck Nice?

  Well, yeah, well, leave it to Jana.

• 11:30Speaker 02

  I'm Jasmine Wilson, and I support StarTalk on Patreon. This is StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 11:44Chuck Nice?

  All right, this is Igor Vihaneck.

• 11:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Igor, this is not Young Frankenstein.

• 11:50Chuck Nice?

  Okay, Igor.

• 11:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think in Young Frankenstein, he's Igor.

• 11:55Chuck Nice?

  He's Igor, but he's also Marty Feldman, who has big, giant bug eyes. So I think they were...

• 12:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Igor.

• 12:02Chuck Nice?

  Anyway, he says, "Hello, gentlemen..."

• 12:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And is he Dr. Frankenstein?

• 12:06Chuck Nice?

  Dr. Frankenstein.

• 12:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I thought I E is an E and E I is an I. Yeah, Einstein.

• 12:12Chuck Nice?

  Oh, Einstein.

• 12:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I E is an E. You didn't know that? You never heard that?

• 12:17Chuck Nice?

  Listen, I can barely get I before E except after C.

• 12:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And except in Neil.

• 12:21Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And except in science, and except in Keith. Yeah, so I think they got rid of that rule.

• 12:27Chuck Nice?

  And I spell all those words wrong.

• 12:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think they got...

• 12:30Chuck Nice?

  I'm not even lying.

• 12:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They got... I would... Yeah. I'm an exception to that rule, and so is a whole lot of...

• 12:34Chuck Nice?

  A whole lot of other things.

• 12:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A load of other words.

• 12:36Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. He says, "Hey, gentlemen, my name is Igor from Zagreb, Croatia. I'm a first-time caller."

• 12:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like what he did there, that's good.

• 12:47Chuck Nice?

  Excellent. He says, "I've always wondered if there are higher dimensions. Could the expansion of the universe be caused by spacetime falling into another dimension? Like if our 3D space was a waterfall, falling into a higher dimension, and we simply perceive it as expanding in all directions? What would it mean for dark energy? Thank you."

• 13:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Man.

• 13:12Chuck Nice?

  Interesting. First of all, let me just tell you, Igor, I do not know what kind of weed you are smoking in Croatia.

• 13:22Chuck Nice?

  But that is, please.

• 13:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Send some here.

• 13:24Chuck Nice?

  Yes, send us some of that Croatian weed over here.

• 13:30Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead. What a weird concept of our spacetime.

• 13:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So here's the thing.

• 13:36Chuck Nice?

  Falling into another dimension.

• 13:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. There's no evidence that one dimension is susceptible to another dimension in that way.

• 13:46Chuck Nice?

  Correct.

• 13:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, for example, let's take the surface of a table.

• 13:49Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 13:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How many dimensions is that?

• 13:51Chuck Nice?

  That's two.

• 13:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Two. It just has a length and a width, no depth. And then I have another surface of a table. So I can make that table infinite, right? Now I can have another table that's separated from it that's also infinite.

• 14:05Chuck Nice?

  And they're just running parallel.

• 14:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're just running parallel, and they're not, there's no, no one.

• 14:08Chuck Nice?

  There's no inter-rap.

• 14:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's in a third dimension, and there's no, I can embed a two-dimensional surface in three dimensions, and it'll just sit there as two dimensions.

• 14:17Chuck Nice?

  As two dimensions, inside of a three-dimensional medium.

• 14:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It does, it's not calling to you, okay? But here is something that's related.

• 14:27Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 14:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Again, it's not exactly answering the question, but it addresses the question.

• 14:31Chuck Nice?

  Alright, that's good.

• 14:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? In our world, we have quantum physics, where a lot of mysterious things happen. It's not mathematically mysterious, it's just intellectually mysterious. Particles pop in and out of existence, matter and energy are equivalent.

• 14:46Chuck Nice?

  Particles behaving the same way over a long period.

• 14:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Entangled, you know, there's weirdness that's going on. We can describe it mathematically, though. Is that weirdness completely normal in a higher dimension? Let's just ask for that. So what would be an example? Uh, let's go back to our 2D world, okay? And we're there, we're walking around, or slithering around, 2D people get around.

• 15:12Chuck Nice?

  We're line drawing.

• 15:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, we are only our perimeters to each other. Right, right. Suppose we're looking around and we see a dot.

• 15:20Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 15:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It just came out of nowhere.

• 15:22Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 15:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's like particles popping into existence. It's a dot. Where'd that come from? I don't know.

• 15:27Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 15:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then we keep watching, we study it, we're scientists. We study it. And the dot becomes a circle. And the circle grows. And we say, and we're studying, we're making measurements. Then it grows to like a maximum point. And then it starts shrinking back. And it gets smaller and smaller. Then it's a dot. Then it disappears.

• 15:49Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 15:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We be coming up with all kinds of theories, right?

• 15:52Chuck Nice?

  Aliens. Because we live in rural America. Where the rural part of the paper.

• 16:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  City people.

• 16:01Chuck Nice?

  We're in the rural part of the paper. Where the two dimensional, where the dot. Hey, I was out in the middle of the night. Dot showed up. Got bigger and bigger. Okay, go ahead.

• 16:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we can't explain that. We don't understand it.

• 16:17Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And is it like the studying the elephant, but you don't see the whole elephant?

• 16:23Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, okay.

• 16:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You get seven different descriptions. The trunk, the tusk.

• 16:27Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The leg, the toenails.

• 16:29Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The tail.

• 16:30Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The side. None of those comport. Until you take a step back and say, you're all describing the same creature. Okay? And that's the full understanding that no one gets at first. Do you know what I just described?

• 16:44Chuck Nice?

  A hole?

• 16:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No. I described a sphere.

• 16:50Chuck Nice?

  Passing through the paper.

• 16:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The paper.

• 16:52Chuck Nice?

  Because at one point, it's just a dot. Because it's a single point of the sphere that's touching the two dimensional plane.

• 16:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 16:59Chuck Nice?

  But as you continue to move the sphere through, then what you have is more points in the 360 degree sphere that keep fanning out, but only in two dimensions. So they make a hole that keeps getting bigger and bigger.

• 17:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They make a circle.

• 17:11Chuck Nice?

  A circle. And then.

• 17:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And how big does the circle get?

• 17:14Chuck Nice?

  Whatever the size of the diameter. And then you come back and then you down one point again.

• 17:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And here we are mysteriously inventing forces and phenomenon. And it's just a normal.

• 17:25Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 17:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's just a normal sphere.

• 17:27Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 17:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the higher dimension of this example, which is three dimensions.

• 17:31Chuck Nice?

  But to us.

• 17:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To two dimensional.

• 17:33Chuck Nice?

  In rope, in rural paper stand.

• 17:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Paper stand.

• 17:36Chuck Nice?

  In rural paper stand. That was a serious phenomenon.

• 17:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was a serious one, and they're reporting that to the government.

• 17:44Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 17:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And people are trying to capture the next one.

• 17:46Chuck Nice?

  Oh, wow, that's great.

• 17:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, if higher dimensions pass through or otherwise interact.

• 17:53Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 17:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It can be very mysterious.

• 17:55Chuck Nice?

  It could be, right. Wow. Dude, what a great question.

• 17:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so, and so he was trying to account for the dark energy. I don't know what could be happening in a higher dimension to manifest in our dimensionality as dark energy.

• 18:07Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 18:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Could, that could be a thing.

• 18:08Chuck Nice?

  Right, it could be.

• 18:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 18:09Chuck Nice?

  All right, this is Nat Woods, who says, "G'day, Professor Tyson and Lord Nice. Adelaide here from Australia." That was the best I could do, guys.

• 18:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's pretty good.

• 18:19Chuck Nice?

  I tried.

• 18:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's, that's good. Not as good as your French accent.

• 18:22Chuck Nice?

  No, but I tried.

• 18:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or your gumbo accent.

• 18:25Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. He said, "I was wondering if we can, if we can't ever truly touch anything, could the space between particles be dark matter pulling the particles together, or dark energy repulsing the particles?" Well, there's another thing pulls particles, but anyway. I enjoy every podcast.

• 18:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Don't editorialize on a man's question.

• 18:45Chuck Nice?

  I was thinking out loud. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, and I'm sorry, Nat. I enjoy every podcast, and I remain inspired by you guys every day. Please keep up the good work. Anyway.

• 18:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent. Okay.

• 18:54Chuck Nice?

  You answer.

• 18:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are you choosing those because people say nice things about you in each one?

• 18:57Chuck Nice?

  I have no idea. Well, I've never seen you.

• 19:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 19:00Chuck Nice?

  I should not say that. No, I would never do that.

• 19:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's paid to read them in advance.

• 19:06Chuck Nice?

  And no, I see.

• 19:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let the record show.

• 19:08Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 19:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so now, so I forgot the question.

• 19:12Chuck Nice?

  So, he's basically saying, like, if we can never touch anything, truly, then could it be dark matter in between the touching that's pushing or pulling?

• 19:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. So, it turns out, dark matter

• 19:26Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  does not interact with itself as potently as regular matter does.

• 19:34Chuck Nice?

  Interesting.

• 19:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, when regular matter gets together.

• 19:37Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 19:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's molecules grab on.

• 19:40Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 19:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It makes solid objects.

• 19:41Chuck Nice?

  All kinds of things.

• 19:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Liquid, gas, it would, it'll, it'll make, okay? You, so we have regular matter planets.

• 19:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 19:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We have rocks, because that's what regular matter does.

• 19:52Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Using the electromagnetic force, in case you were wondering. All right. Dark matter, what we call dark matter, which is really dark gravity. Does not respond to the electromagnetic force.

• 20:03Chuck Nice?

  At all.

• 20:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At all.

• 20:04Chuck Nice?

  Doesn't interact.

• 20:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Doesn't interact.

• 20:05Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 20:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it doesn't interact with us that way.

• 20:08Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 20:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nor does it interact with itself that way. It does interact gravitationally, though. So you can have pockets of dark matter out there. But nowhere is it so dense that you have solid objects.

• 20:22Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 20:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As far as we can tell, there's no solid dark matter out there.

• 20:26Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 20:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, if it was, if it did exist, it would just pass through you because it doesn't interact.

• 20:30Chuck Nice?

  It doesn't interact anyway.

• 20:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With any force that's holding you together.

• 20:33Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 20:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's got another instruction set.

• 20:35Chuck Nice?

  Let it slip right through my hands.

• 20:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So particles, we already have accounted for their behavior with the forces that are known.

• 20:44Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 20:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's nothing mysterious there. Now, he might have known that we don't actually touch things because it was an episode of Cosmos where we did that.

• 20:52Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 20:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where as you bring two things together, you feel like you're touching, but what's happening is the electromagnetic forces are repelling each other. And you're responding to the forces, thinking that it's a solid thing, but it's not.

• 21:05Chuck Nice?

  And that is why you have four-year-olds all over the world and the backup card's going, "I'm not touching you. I'm not touching you. I'm not touching you."

• 21:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 21:17Chuck Nice?

  "I'm not touching you." All right, here we go.

• 21:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Next up.

• 21:19Chuck Nice?

  This is Stetson, and Stetson says, hello.

• 21:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is like Madonna.

• 21:23Chuck Nice?

  That, yes.

• 21:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is just Stetson's chair. He's Stetson.

• 21:27Chuck Nice?

  He's just Stetson. He says, "Hello, Dr. Tyson and Lord Nice. Stetson here from the US, but currently living in Japan." Hmm. Oh, well, yes, konnichiwa. He says, "The study of planets, including ours, is quite fascinating. The internal structure of our planet is generally agreed upon, but how would we be able to understand the internal structure of other planets, even those nearby?"

• 21:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Great question. Great question. So we make educated guesses, and then we test the guess.

• 22:05Chuck Nice?

  Ooh, we making this up.

• 22:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, that's not what I said.

• 22:08Chuck Nice?

  We just making it up as we go along. Oh, my God.

• 22:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is.

• 22:14Chuck Nice?

  Breaking news. Breaking news.

• 22:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, let's take. Go ahead. Let's take Mercury. Okay, Mercury. For example, okay. Mercury is tiny. Right, very small. Small. And closest to the sun, right? Oh, yes, the closest planet. Okay. In fact, our moon might even be bigger than Mercury. What? Yeah, okay. I have to check that, but it's, it's. It's small. It's small. Okay. Okay. But it's a full up legit planet. Okay. Well, what's going on? Well, we can measure its mass.

• 22:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Its mass is way higher than it could possibly be if Mercury was composed only of rock. Like the moon. The moon is made of rock. Mm hmm. Through and through. Mm hmm. Mercury, it has much more mass. So we go to the periodic table of elements and we say, here's the birth ingredients of the solar system. Wow. We know that because that's what the sun is made of. That's what Jupiter is. Jupiter didn't give up any mass that it was born with. So you look at the composition on Jupiter, it matches that of the sun. Okay, anybody else who's different, you, you've been horse trading your ingredients along the way. All right. Jupiter was trying to be the sun. It's true, yeah.

• 23:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what Jupiter was trying, Jupiter was just like, I'm gonna get one day. In fact, Jupiter is the only planet that radiates more energy than it receives from the sun. Oh, I didn't know that. That's how, that's how wannabe it was. That's how wannabe sun it was. Yeah, it still does, it's already, all right. That's a great factoid, go ahead. So I go to the periodic table and I say of all these elements, some are very rare. Mm hmm. Some are not, basically not really in the solar system, so I'm gonna ignore those. And which are common, and, and so nickel, iron, these are pretty common. Mm hmm. In the universe. So maybe I get the mass of Mercury fitting into that volume by throwing in something heavier than rock. Because we know it's rock on the surface because we see the cratering, looks just like the surface of the moon.

• 24:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. So, but deep inside, what could be there? Now, we know when it formed, heavy stuff goes to the middle. Mm hmm. Because it's, it's, it's the fluid thing, it's molten. Right. If you're molten and you're heavy, you're gonna sink. Right. You're gonna sink, okay. So, we ask ourselves, how much iron has to be there? To give us that That kinda mass. To get that mass at that size, which is basically the density. Right. So the average density, we construct the average density of the object pulling from the periodic table of elements we know are in the universe. So we find out it has a huge core of iron. That's dope. It's dope. That is, that is dope, okay? I'm try- god damn it, that is science right there, buddy. Oh, it, it, it works the other way too. Really? We've discovered asteroids, okay?

• 25:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we know they're rocky, but we look at the density and it's like, these are way less dense than rock. Rock, right. Less dense. Right. What's going on? Oh, that's so cool. What's going on? Cause you see the, the volume of it and it's a fuzzy image, you know, we're not looking, these are not missions that go there. It's not like we got binoculars.

• 25:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Harold!

• 25:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Look at this asteroid! Where'd you get Harold from? I don't know, anyway, go ahead. I know Harold and the purple crayon, cause he went, Howard went into the sky with his purple crayon. There you go. So, I liked Harold. I, it's a great, great, yeah, everybody does. So, how do you have rock that has less mass than rock? It ain't rock. Well, well, it's gotta be made out of stuff that we know about. Right. So, that was the first idea that maybe some asteroids are piles of rubble. Nice. So that there's So they're, they're coalesced, but they're not stuck together. Stuck together. Wow. So when we look at the total mass and the total size, the volume, some of that volume is taken up by nothing. Right.

• 26:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Confounding our, our deduction for what its density is. Like a floating ball of pebbles. Pebbles. There'd be so much space in between each pebble that that floating ball would never have the density of a rock. Overall density is lower than rock. So that matters because we wanna deflect an asteroid. You can't just go up to it and push on it if it's a rubble pop, cause that, tho- Now you got a bunch of little rocks coming your way. Cause you're Bruce Willis, you messed up bad. So, you get to push off a chunk of it and the rest doesn't, it's not attached. Exactly. It was not attached, you didn't have any effect on it. Right. So, so this density estimates, these density estimates are a major part of what folks in the solar system do. Super cool, man. So, Mercury's small, it's the, it's the smallest planet. Right. A title formerly held by

• 26:53Chuck Nice?

  Pluto.

• 26:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Poor Pluto. Why you gotta sigh like that?

• 26:57Chuck Nice?

  You know.

• 26:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You in my office, there's no sympathy for Pluto in my office.

• 27:00Chuck Nice?

  I know, but you're like, you know, you're like Kendrick and Drake. I mean, you won, you won. Why you gotta beat the guy up?

• 27:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 27:10Chuck Nice?

  But go ahead.

• 27:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so Mercury and the moon are about the same size. Mercury might be a little bigger. However, Mercury has four times the mass of our moon.

• 27:20Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 27:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Same size, four times the mass.

• 27:23Chuck Nice?

  Four times the mass.

• 27:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We know it's rocky on the surface because they both have equal looking features on the surface. So what's going on?

• 27:29Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We know the moon has hardly any iron.

• 27:32Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because it was side swiped off of Earth's crust from the, the...

• 27:36Chuck Nice?

  It's crusty, baby.

• 27:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's crusty.

• 27:38Chuck Nice?

  That's the moon. The moon is crusty.

• 27:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, we think iron rests deeply with, and largely within the center of Mercury. Boosting its total mass relative to other normal objects. So that's how, that's how we roll when we make the calculations.

• 27:55Chuck Nice?

  Very cool. All right, let's, let's...

• 27:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Got time for a few more, I think?

• 27:59Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, yeah, we got some time. Let's rock and roll here. This is Wesley.

• 28:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're getting through these questions.

• 28:02Chuck Nice?

  We are getting through it.

• 28:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We are actually getting it. This is like the most we've done.

• 28:06Chuck Nice?

  And I, I hope people are

• 28:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 28:08Chuck Nice?

  recognizing that we're getting to you as quickly as we can. Hello, Dr. Tyson Lord Nice. I'm Wes from Davenport, Iowa, and I for one want to say I appreciate your programming and expertise it acquires more than you know. No, it requires exactly what we know. We're doing it. Anyway.

• 28:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's an expression, more than you know.

• 28:26Chuck Nice?

  It really is an expression. I, I know, and we appreciate it. Uh, my question is...

• 28:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, I used to wrestle.

• 28:31Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 28:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Iowa knows wrestlers.

• 28:33Chuck Nice?

  Iowa?

• 28:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Iowa.

• 28:34Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that's because, you know, when you grow up wrestling cows.

• 28:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that what that is?

• 28:39Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, getting in the ring.

• 28:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that where they kick my ass every time?

• 28:41Chuck Nice?

  Getting in the circle don't mean nothing.

• 28:44Chuck Nice?

  I will, yeah.

• 28:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're hauling calves.

• 28:45Chuck Nice?

  You holding, hauling calves.

• 28:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Paul, where do I put the calves? Put it over there.

• 28:48Chuck Nice?

  Where do I put this? Isn't that shooting over there, dummy? Yeah. Anyway.

• 28:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Long tradition, long proud tradition.

• 28:58Chuck Nice?

  Of wrestlers, yeah, very cool. He says, uh, my question is regarding black holes and what happens when they collide. With recent theory enhancements from great minds, is there now mathematical equations that work to model this expected action and reaction? Can we mathematically reproduce the collision of black holes with absolute consistency?

• 29:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, and because we have the mathematics of it, it's the math that predicted the black hole to begin with.

• 29:26Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 29:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we already had the math.

• 29:28Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 29:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not like here's this object, oh my gosh, how do I describe it? Einstein's general theory of relativity.

• 29:34Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 29:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Predicted black holes, even though he was anti-black hole, did you know this?

• 29:37Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, well, he was a racist.

• 29:41Chuck Nice?

  They all were back then.

• 29:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, he actually wasn't.

• 29:44Chuck Nice?

  No, he wasn't.

• 29:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, if you read his, uh, ideas and opinions, it's a book.

• 29:47Chuck Nice?

  Right, it was Hubble who was the racist.

• 29:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, Hubble had issues.

• 29:51Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, he has some issues.

• 29:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hubble had issues. When Marion Anderson, after she was denied singing opportunity, she's an opera singer in, in Constitution Hall.

• 30:01Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 30:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Washington DC. Cause that was run by the daughters of the Confederacy, okay? That's when Roosevelt said, you can sing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

• 30:10Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 30:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, Einstein is active around then, this is like the 1930s, and I think it was the 30s. Uh, Roosevelt was president regardless.

• 30:18Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 30:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it would, yeah, it would have been the 30s, we weren't at war yet. And, uh, she visited Princeton and visited Einstein on the Princeton campus.

• 30:29Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 30:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, he was receiving of people who were otherwise, uh, well-known but had issues with dealing with, you know.

• 30:36Chuck Nice?

  Society.

• 30:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Society, societal issues.

• 30:39Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 30:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so he was a very forward-thinking person.

• 30:41Chuck Nice?

  Very cool, well.

• 30:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 30:42Chuck Nice?

  I mean, it's great to see that being how he was so brilliant.

• 30:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but also, I mean, as a Jew escaping the rise of Nazi Germany.

• 30:51Chuck Nice?

  He had some motivation.

• 30:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, he had, and, and some empathetic.

• 30:54Chuck Nice?

  Empathetic, yeah, behaviors, because, yeah, that makes sense.

• 30:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 30:58Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, and he predicted gravity waves, I mean gravitational waves, which means that the math was already there.

• 31:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Math is already there, right, right. And so, so math was in place, and then we say that must be, but he, he did not believe that matter would do, would be so. He didn't think the universe would be that mean to matter.

• 31:20Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 31:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 31:21Chuck Nice?

  Interesting.

• 31:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. The matter is closing in on itself.

• 31:24Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 31:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it collapses with nothing to stop it.

• 31:26Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 31:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Down to a singularity.

• 31:28Chuck Nice?

  Yes, it doesn't make any sense.

• 31:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Doesn't make any sense, so he said it must be, it can't be.

• 31:31Chuck Nice?

  Right, it can't be.

• 31:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then we have up there and finding black holes.

• 31:34Chuck Nice?

  Look at that.

• 31:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We got them.

• 31:35Chuck Nice?

  That's so crazy.

• 31:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so, yes, it can be completely described. And what's interesting about it is, the two black holes enter each other's event horizon. That's where it gets fun.

• 31:44Chuck Nice?

  Oh, really?

• 31:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 31:46Chuck Nice?

  What if there isn't a dominant black hole? What if they are both mirror identities? What happens then?

• 31:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, you, cuz you...

• 32:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're imagining in most scenarios, one black hole is like dominant.

• 32:04Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, one black hole is just like, you know, you in my part of space now.

• 32:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I'm hungry.

• 32:09Chuck Nice?

  Right. So...

• 32:13Chuck Nice?

  I got news for you. We're gonna be one black hole, but it's gonna be me.

• 32:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did you one time imitate a black hole eating a... No, you had some voice, what was that?

• 32:26Chuck Nice?

  No, what did I do?

• 32:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was something.

• 32:29Chuck Nice?

  Oh, no, because I was saying, black holes are just like, hey, hey, hey.

• 32:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is exactly what they would sound like.

• 32:40Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 32:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If they spoke English, and if sound could move through space, that's what they'd be saying.

• 32:46Chuck Nice?

  Another black hole, a tasty snack.

• 32:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So...

• 32:56Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, but that's my, my concept is that one of them would be dominant, always.

• 33:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But the math doesn't, doesn't care. Math doesn't, what is bigger, smaller, equal?

• 33:04Chuck Nice?

  Doesn't make a difference.

• 33:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here's the thing, when they merge, you have a new black hole.

• 33:08Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is exactly the mass of the two of them summed together.

• 33:12Chuck Nice?

  Oh, and that's all that counts.

• 33:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's all that counts, and then you have a bigger black hole.

• 33:15Chuck Nice?

  You think we new, but we're not new.

• 33:39Chuck Nice?

  This is Jared Higbee. He says, "Greetings, Dr. Tyson and Lord Chucky Baby." This is Jared Higbee from Alamo, Nevada. Is the north and south sides of a magnet actually different in any way? Outside of the attraction and repelling effects? How would you determine which side of a magnet is which? Interesting. So you don't have anything to go on because you can't turn them and attract, or turn them and repel. You have to determine which one is north and which one is south.

• 34:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is completely arbitrary.

• 34:25Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 34:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 34:27Chuck Nice?

  Do tell.

• 34:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I will. What I mean by arbitrary, it's that we all decide what to agree on, and then that's the answer. It's not a fundamental thing in the universe that tells, "This is north."

• 34:45Chuck Nice?

  I got you.

• 34:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's no whispering secret force operating on this. So, by definition, now, think this, remember, like poles will do what?

• 34:56Chuck Nice?

  They repel.

• 34:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Repel, and opposite poles attract.

• 34:59Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 34:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, by definition, if you have, let's say, a bar magnet, because it'll work better.

• 35:04Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, it's easier.

• 35:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you hold it with a string in the middle, and it'll turn. The part that points north on Earth is the north pole of the magnet.

• 35:13Chuck Nice?

  And that's it.

• 35:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You just have to do that once, and then it'll set all the other magnets straight.

• 35:17Chuck Nice?

  And every other magnet is just like, "That's it!" It's been decided, guys.

• 35:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right.

• 35:23Chuck Nice?

  There's no need to make a choice.

• 35:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's been decided for us.

• 35:26Chuck Nice?

  It's been decided for us.

• 35:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By that one, okay, so now, what that means is, if the north pole of your magnet is pointing to the north pole of the Earth,

• 35:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  where is the Earth's south magnetic pole?

• 35:40Chuck Nice?

  Wait a minute, if the, wait, the north pole of the magnet?

• 35:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 35:44Chuck Nice?

  Is pointed towards the north pole of the Earth?

• 35:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What attracted it?

• 35:48Chuck Nice?

  The south magnet?

• 35:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 35:52Chuck Nice?

  I gotta go.

• 35:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, come back Chuck, I need you.

• 36:00Chuck Nice?

  That's insane. The North Pole is the South Pole.

• 36:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 36:04Chuck Nice?

  Oh my god.

• 36:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is effing ridiculous. Yeah. Oh geez. You didn't know that? No, man, that's. Have you thought about that? No. How we, we calling it our North Pole and North magnets point to it. Now you're pointing North Pole to a North Pole and it repels. Exactly. Something's go, something's, oh, something's going on there. Wow, that's crazy. Yes, Earth's South magnetic pole is the North Pole. Yes.

• 36:30Chuck Nice?

  That's insane.

• 36:34Chuck Nice?

  I don't know what to believe anymore. I can't believe anything anymore.

• 36:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so now, so now, why, we had someone ask from, from down under. You can ask, what makes that the North Pole of the Earth at all? Right. Was that arbitrary? That arbitrary as well. Okay. Yeah, cuz from where we're sitting. Well, the folks in the South Pole, they, they might have another opinion on the matter. Exactly. Okay. Exactly. That's another one. Crikey. That's another one that's decided by decree. Arbitrary consensus. Okay, and you know how we get it? You ask, which way is the Earth spinning? Okay. Okay, curl your hand, take your right hand. Curl your fingers in the direction Earth is spinning. Now point your thumb up, that's the North Pole.

• 37:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, looks at that, so that's it. That's it. But suppose most people were left-handed then? There's no left-hand rule, it's only a right-hand rule. Okay, see, and now there's your problem. Plus, most people are not left-handed. That's my point. We're discriminating against left-handed people. See, if left people dominated. If we were all dominantly left-handed, we would probably done it the other way. Oh, so then the North Pole would have been in the South. Yeah, if they did the left-hand rule. Yeah, okay. Yeah, you do that for any rotating object. Right. That's how you can say that the planet Uranus is tipped 98 degrees from the vertical. Okay. How's that possible if you just have another axis that's up there? Right. Because the right-hand rule. It's the spin. Takes it down, down below. That's so cool, man. Yeah. That's very cool.

• 38:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's, you can have a planet that's 180 degrees flipped.

• 38:14Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 38:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why don't you just say, "Well, just call that north." No, because the rotation goes north. Yeah.

• 38:19Chuck Nice?

  Woo, that's so cool, man. All right, here we go.

• 38:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think we've got time for one more question.

• 38:24Chuck Nice?

  One more.

• 38:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or two, if I answer each in half the time. I did the math.

• 38:27Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go.

• 38:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go.

• 38:29Chuck Nice?

  Here we go. This is Hugo Dart. He says, "Hello, Dr. Tyson, Lord Nice. This is Hugo Dart from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil."

• 38:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Brazil.

• 38:37Chuck Nice?

  He says, "With my seven-year-old daughter Olivia, who is a big fan of your show. Here's my question. If you had to bet on one breakthrough in astrophysics happening in the next 50 years, what would that one breakthrough be?"

• 38:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It would be, we would know for sure whether there was life elsewhere in the solar system, not on Earth.

• 39:00Chuck Nice?

  Cool.

• 39:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Either in the oceans of Europa or in the soils of Mars.

• 39:04Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 39:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With where we think water has gone.

• 39:07Chuck Nice?

  Where we think water has gone.

• 39:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We will know for sure whether there is or there is not.

• 39:10Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 39:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if there's not, that's important information.

• 39:12Chuck Nice?

  Very much so.

• 39:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if there is, that's even more important. I think we'll know that probably in the next 30 years, based on missions that are scheduled. Another question.

• 39:19Chuck Nice?

  So, okay, here we go. This is Logan Sinet, who says, "Hello, Dr. Tyson, Lord Nice."

• 39:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Logan's a cool name.

• 39:25Chuck Nice?

  Logan is a cool name.

• 39:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is badass.

• 39:26Chuck Nice?

  He says, "This is Logan from Phoenix, Arizona here. Have you mentioned that the best telescope discoveries are unexpected discoveries? So I was wondering if the JWST has made any interesting unexpected discoveries thus far? And if so, which one interests you most?"

• 39:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When I was coming up,

• 39:45Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 39:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  there was the record for what's the farthest object in the universe.

• 39:50Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 39:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's measured by redshift. So, and with the letter Z. And there's a mathematical form for that. But the bigger is the Z, the bigger is the, the farther away the object is.

• 40:01Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 40:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In my day, the farthest objects were Z of five.

• 40:04Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 40:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, when I was growing, coming up in ranks.

• 40:07Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 40:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We might have hit six when we built the Rose Center 25 years ago.

• 40:11Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 40:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The farther away it is, the closer back in time it's getting.

• 40:15Chuck Nice?

  To the beginning of the...

• 40:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct.

• 40:17Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 40:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But not only that, start from the beginning of the universe. You couldn't make anything until the universe cooled down.

• 40:23Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 40:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right? To the point where matter forms. Like atoms form. Now we have atoms. Now the atoms can coalesce and make stars. Before they make stars, the universe is still expanding. We call that the Dark Ages. Hasn't made stars yet.

• 40:39Chuck Nice?

  Oh, wow.

• 40:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? We called it the Dark Ages.

• 40:43Chuck Nice?

  Interesting.

• 40:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. JWST looks around. Found galaxies in the dark ages. Redshift 14.

• 40:51Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 40:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  14.

• 40:54Chuck Nice?

  That's crazy.

• 40:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My head is exploding.

• 40:56Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 40:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So first. What, a galaxy at redshift 14? Holy shit, okay, A. B. That's in the dark ages when it ain't supposed to be.

• 41:05Chuck Nice?

  When it's not supposed to be there. So now we have an incongruency time-wise.

• 41:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, or we don't understand how galaxies.

• 41:11Chuck Nice?

  We just don't understand how galaxies form.

• 41:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct.

• 41:13Chuck Nice?

  Or we had a totally cool dark galaxy. Hey, baby. It's me, your dark galaxy. You can call me the chocolate galaxy if you want.

• 41:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's all the time we have.

• 41:30Chuck Nice?

  Yes, that was great.

• 41:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We got a lot in there.

• 41:33Chuck Nice?

  Man, we got so many questions in.

• 41:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 41:35Chuck Nice?

  So shut up. No, I'm joking.

• 41:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This has been StarTalk Cosmic Queries Edition. Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, as always, keep looking up.