Cosmic Queries – In a Zeptosecond

Can nuclear fusion become the ultimate renewable energy source? Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-host Chuck Nice answer fan questions about transporters, the smallest unit of time, expansion, and other ideas that push the boundaries of our understanding of the universe.

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

• 0:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Chuck, we had a banterist.

• 0:03Chuck Nice?

  Lot of fun.

• 0:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ban- is that a word, banterist?

• 0:05Chuck Nice?

  Banterist, a banter-filled.

• 0:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Filled with banter.

• 0:08Chuck Nice?

  Banter-filled show.

• 0:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think we answered one and a half questions.

• 0:12Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. You gotta watch this show, cause guess what? Uh, half of it is not gonna make it.

• 0:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Half the show's not gonna make it.

• 0:19Chuck Nice?

  Half the show's not gonna make it.

• 0:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, yeah, we went too long.

• 0:22Chuck Nice?

  Oh, who cares?

• 0:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, there were some fun questions.

• 0:24Chuck Nice?

  Lot of fun questions.

• 0:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, we had a question from Texas, from Berlin.

• 0:27Chuck Nice?

  Yep.

• 0:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From the Netherlands.

• 0:28Chuck Nice?

  From the Netherlands.

• 0:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 0:29Chuck Nice?

  It was all over the place. It was great. And very good questions, too.

• 0:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and people learned why we call you Lord Nice.

• 0:35Chuck Nice?

  Yes, that we learned that, and we also learned why transporters will not be necessary. Star Trek got it wrong!

• 0:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I, well, it's the future. I can't say they got it wrong in past tense, but I can suggest that maybe we might have a better idea than what they came up with there.

• 0:54Chuck Nice?

  Take that, Gene Roddenberry.

• 0:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, coming up, StarTalk.

• 1:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 1:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk. Neil deGrasse Tyson here, your personal astrophysicist. Co-host Chuck Nice.

• 1:19Chuck Nice?

  Hey, what's up, Neil?

• 1:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Baby, alright. You got your sunglasses on your shirt.

• 1:24Chuck Nice?

  Oh, I didn't, I didn't even realize that.

• 1:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Was that just a thing?

• 1:27Chuck Nice?

  That was, you know what, that was because when I came in the building, I was wearing sunglasses. And when I walked in, I was like, these security people are gonna think you're a douche. Take these sunglasses off right now. Like, do not walk through security with these sunglasses. And they're mirrored sunglasses on top of that, you know what I mean?

• 1:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  1985.

• 1:45Chuck Nice?

  I walk in just, "What we have here... ...failure..."

• 1:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To communicate, alright. We got a grab bag cosmic queries today. And you've been preloaded?

• 1:57Chuck Nice?

  Yes, yes.

• 1:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Again, I've never seen any of these questions.

• 1:59Chuck Nice?

  Neither have I.

• 2:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they come from our fanbase.

• 2:05Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 2:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Specifically.

• 2:06Chuck Nice?

  Patreon.

• 2:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The highest echelon of our fanbase.

• 2:08Chuck Nice?

  Patreon.

• 2:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Those who give us money.

• 2:10Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 2:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. So what's the category? Oh, no, it's just no category.

• 2:14Chuck Nice?

  No category.

• 2:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 2:15Chuck Nice?

  This is the, what we used to call Galactic Gumbo.

• 2:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gumbo, okay.

• 2:19Chuck Nice?

  Which is so cool.

• 2:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And once again, we're here in my office at the Hayden Planetarium.

• 2:23Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 2:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Museum of Natural History.

• 2:25Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely.

• 2:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah. This is all, everything you see in here, well, you only see this side, but there's like other views here.

• 2:31Chuck Nice?

  It looks like the smartest hoarder in the world lives here. That's honestly what it looks like. Like some kind of genius hoarder just moved in and has a love affair with the cosmos. It's crazy. It's like all kinds of stuff. Mostly, a lot of, a lot of great books, though, like, you know what I mean? It's all around.

• 2:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 2:51Chuck Nice?

  And then, of course, you know, your icons, we, you know, we see it.

• 2:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 2:56Chuck Nice?

  Your boy Newton.

• 2:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I got a bust of Isaac Newton behind the, behind the view of the camera right now.

• 3:01Chuck Nice?

  Yes, you can't see it. There's a big creepy Newton head.

• 3:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not creepy.

• 3:04Chuck Nice?

  That is a creepy looking.

• 3:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My boy's got his locks.

• 3:07Chuck Nice?

  He, he's beautiful head of hair.

• 3:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 3:09Chuck Nice?

  Okay, but why, why are his eyes closed? He's just like.

• 3:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, they look like, they look like death mask eyes.

• 3:15Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, he's like, I hope they don't find out I'm gay.

• 3:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Realize he had no girlfriends his entire life.

• 3:25Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 3:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But he also had no boyfriends.

• 3:27Chuck Nice?

  Oh, wow.

• 3:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As far as people could tell.

• 3:28Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 3:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's claimed by the gay community in some books that I've read.

• 3:32Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 3:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But he never procreated.

• 3:34Chuck Nice?

  He never, you know.

• 3:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's, it's easier to think, today, we might just call him asexual.

• 3:37Chuck Nice?

  Asexual.

• 3:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think that's just a simple.

• 3:38Chuck Nice?

  And that's probably what he was.

• 3:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. All right, go.

• 3:41Chuck Nice?

  This is John A. He says hello from Texas.

• 3:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Texas.

• 3:45Chuck Nice?

  I was wondering if particle fusion.

• 3:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why you giving it, you don't know if he has an accent.

• 3:50Chuck Nice?

  He said hello from Texas.

• 3:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 3:55Chuck Nice?

  Particle fusion could be used as renewable energy source as seen in Spider-Man 2. And if so, can it be done effectively? Love the show you guys.

• 4:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, thank you. So let me, let me say this two ways. So you can extract energy from the nucleus of an atom in two ways.

• 4:14Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 4:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Take a big atom, split it. And the mass of the two products is less than what you started with. Where did the mass go? It became.

• 4:23Chuck Nice?

  Energy.

• 4:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Equals mc squared.

• 4:25Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 4:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The E and the M, they're on opposite sides of an equation. If you get rid of the M, you get E on the other side.

• 4:31Chuck Nice?

  And that is fission?

• 4:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fission.

• 4:33Chuck Nice?

  That's fission.

• 4:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fission. Big atom.

• 4:35Chuck Nice?

  Big atom.

• 4:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Into little atom. Now you come from the other side.

• 4:37Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 4:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Take little atoms and you bring them together. Make bigger atoms.

• 4:40Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 4:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Then the atom you ended up with has less mass than the two atoms you started with.

• 4:47Chuck Nice?

  Same in reverse.

• 4:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In, okay, so now we got some mass that becomes energy.

• 4:52Chuck Nice?

  That's very cool.

• 4:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's fusion.

• 4:53Chuck Nice?

  That's cool.

• 4:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fusion. Okay. So we know how to begin and sustain and contain fission.

• 5:01Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. A lot of research went into that to make the bomb.

• 5:05Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. That would be uncontrolled fission.

• 5:09Chuck Nice?

  Uncontrolled fission.

• 5:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you're not controlling it, it explodes. And that's where you get the bomb, the Oppenheimer and the A-bomb and all of this. And there are two kinds of A-bombs. One used plutonium, the other used uranium.

• 5:20Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 5:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Those are huge atoms. All right. You come from the other side, you start with hydrogen, the lightest atom. You fuse it, you make helium. That's what the sun is doing every moment of every second of every day, 24/7. Okay. So that takes very high temperatures and the temperatures are so high, like what are you gonna put it in?

• 5:41Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 5:43Chuck Nice?

  Um, I'm gonna go with millions of.

• 5:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hyrax. It's millions of degrees.

• 5:48Chuck Nice?

  Millions of degrees.

• 5:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everything you put it in will vaporize.

• 5:51Chuck Nice?

  Before you even has a chance to do it.

• 5:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is one of the challenges of this exercise. And so. Maybe you can contain it in a magnetic bottle. Ooh. Yeah. Yo, that's super cool because now you're using a magnetic force. Force to contain it. That's. No, it's brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. It's brilliant. I'm on board. Let's do this.

• 6:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why did we think about that before? What are we waiting for? What are we waiting for? So there are different styles of this exercise. The Tokamak, it's a machine. Okay. That creates a toroidal volume where you would then have your plasma, very high temperature gas, ionized gas, and in there you'd get the fusion. So the problem is. Wow, that's. No, no. By the way, we've made fusion bombs. Right. So we have uncontrolled nuclear fusion. Right. They're called bombs. Yes. The sun is in full control of its nuclear fusion because at the center of the star and the pressure surrounding it from all the rest of the star keeps it in check. Right. Okay. Otherwise, the whole star would go, go. Yeah, yeah. Official term. Kablooey. Kablooey.

• 7:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love it. There's no uncertainty about the meaning of that word. You can't, can't mess that up. Kablooey. So some of the challenges are, how do we control it? Right. Once you get it started. Okay. And that's, we've not been able to do that effectively, really. But recently, months ago, in the United States, and I think it was at Lawrence Livermore Labs. Okay. They managed to get more energy out. Than they put in. Than they put in to make this whole thing happen. Well, that sounds to me like the nascent stages of fusion reactors. Yes, it is. What, but they would, all the information about this wasn't fully reported on. Uh oh.

• 7:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, I mean, it's just the experiment, the energy that goes in the experiment versus came out, it was net positive. Okay. However. What it took to set up the experiment.

• 7:55Chuck Nice?

  Right, okay, right.

• 7:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The whole kit and the caboodle to get to that volume in which you had the fusion is itself a whole expenditure of energy and technology.

• 8:08Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 8:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so it's a first step to show you that it's possible. And what you have to do is make everything else efficient that's around it. On the hope and expectation that one day you.

• 8:17Chuck Nice?

  Like the electric car, like the electric car, once you have it and you're driving it, yeah, it's doing great in terms of if you take renewable fuel and use that to put the electricity in the car. What you're doing is you have your net zero.

• 8:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Net zero.

• 8:31Chuck Nice?

  But the fact is, if you made more pollution, making the car.

• 8:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Making the car that makes no pollution.

• 8:36Chuck Nice?

  That makes no pollution.

• 8:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it was an important test of concept. It made headlines.

• 8:42Chuck Nice?

  Right, right.

• 8:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I was interviewed heavily about it, if I remember, on CNN and this sort of thing. So I was very happy about that because it, there's no shortage of hydrogen in the universe. It's the number one atom.

• 8:54Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, right.

• 8:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 8:55Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 8:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did I tell you I was listening to a radio play one time? There were aliens that were coming to Earth to suck up our water supply.

• 9:02Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because they thrive on hydrogen.

• 9:05Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they knew that water is H2O.

• 9:07Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  H2O.

• 9:08Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. And I'm listening to this. They came across the galaxy to consume our water supply.

• 9:14Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To get hydrogen. When.

• 9:16Chuck Nice?

  Only the most plentiful thing.

• 9:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ninety-eight percent of all atoms in the universe are hydrogen. These are some stupid aliens.

• 9:22Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so I was very disappointed in that story.

• 9:26Chuck Nice?

  And you get the good hydrogen now on Earth.

• 9:30Chuck Nice?

  Come to Earth, the best hydrogen there is.

• 9:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So anyhow, so there's no shortage of hydrogen.

• 9:36Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so if we could perfect this process, then it's unlimited energy for practically zero cost for the rest of the world and all of civilization.

• 9:45Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 9:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's not dependent if the sun is shining, or if the wind is blowing, or if the tide is moving, or what oil well you dug.

• 9:52Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or it's not dependent on any of that.

• 9:53Chuck Nice?

  Any of that?

• 9:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 9:54Chuck Nice?

  Wow, sounds like a wonderful dream.

• 9:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, listen, we're, it sounds like we're on our way. That's right, but people will still have some, a spook factor about nuclear power. Yeah. There's still, if you told them how many people died mining coal. Oh, my God. To supply their, their energy that we've been using for the past century and a half. Right. Yeah, it's, it's hundreds of thousands of people. Oh, without a doubt. Right. Not to mention how messed up their skin is just because of it. Terrible. Or their lungs. Or their lungs, God. I had a geeky childhood. Okay. So I always wanted to know what was the longest word in the biggest dictionary. Okay. And at the time, my access to dictionaries included the Random House unabridged dictionary. It's the best.

• 10:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I didn't know about the OED, but the Oxford English Dictionary, but the Random House was nice and big. Yes. Found the biggest word. Yeah. Okay. Mm-hmm. It's pneumonorultra-microscopic silicovocanocaniosis. God bless you.

• 10:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So sorry, I'm so sorry that happened to you. That is sensibly abbreviated to black lung. Wow, is that what that is? That's what that is. Black lung. So pneumono. Right. Ultra-microscopic. Okay. Silicover. Uh-huh. So that's like the. Tiny little silicates. Right. Inside the pneumonob lungs. Yeah, right, right, a canocaniosis. So it's, you know, the, the medical folks stapled together all the, all the syllables. Right. So that's coal and it's coal dust and people died from this. Oh, yeah. So I'm not here to say fewer will die with this, that's not the right way to approach this. Just, just demonstrate the safety. Right. Of these nuclear plants and maybe people will come, come around. Pneumonal stuff.

• 11:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Better known as.

• 11:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just coughing us.

• 11:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know if it's still the biggest word. Right. In that dictionary. Plus, I don't know what the biggest word is in the Oxford English Dictionary. Okay. That's a whole other thing. A whole nother, but anyhow, why do we even go, oh, because the safety factor is going to matter to people if they want to sort of vote this through. But we first have to make it efficient and scalable. So that you can then have one in every city or wherever.

• 12:08Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, so it, so John, it's not happening anytime soon.

• 12:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And by the way, it has no byproducts such as what you get.

• 12:15Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With fission. Fission has all these.

• 12:17Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that's called nuclear waste, is what we call it. Nuclear waste. We gotta put it someplace and it sticks around for 150, 200 years.

• 12:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or more.

• 12:24Chuck Nice?

  Or more.

• 12:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right.

• 12:35Speaker 02

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

• 12:50Chuck Nice?

  All right, this is Charlie Servone, who says, "Hello, Dr. Tyson. Lord nice. Charlie from Hudson, Ohio here. This may be elementary, my dear doctor, but I've heard it said when discussing the accelerated expansion of the universe and the Hubble constant, that the further away objects are in the universe, the more redshifted they are and therefore receding away from us faster. Wouldn't it stand to reason then that objects closer to us in time and space are receding more slowly? And that the expansion is slowing over time? Can you please help me understand how this works? Thank you for expanding all of our horizons."

• 13:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, I see what he did there.

• 13:33Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, did you see that? Yeah, that was nice.

• 13:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very good.

• 13:35Chuck Nice?

  Very good, Charlie. Where on do you, Charlie?

• 13:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very classy. So, the first half was correct.

• 13:42Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 13:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, as an object is farther away.

• 13:44Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 13:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The way the expansion profile of the universe works is that those objects that are farther are receding faster from us.

• 13:52Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 13:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? Those objects that are nearby are receding more slowly.

• 13:55Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 13:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. As the universe expands, these things will all go faster. And so to think or suggest that it's nearby objects.

• 14:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are receding more slowly, so therefore aren't we, what did he imply?

• 14:11Chuck Nice?

  So what he's saying is that we understand the reason that the objects closer to us in time and space are receding more slowly and that the expansion is slowing.

• 14:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay, so over time.

• 14:22Chuck Nice?

  Over time.

• 14:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Over time, because you gotta throw a time factor in there. If you waited a billion years, those objects would be farther away from us and moving faster.

• 14:29Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 14:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, no, nothing slowing down.

• 14:31Chuck Nice?

  Nothing, right.

• 14:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, at all.

• 14:33Chuck Nice?

  As a matter of fact, it's speeding up, right?

• 14:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Speeding up.

• 14:35Chuck Nice?

  Speeding up, that's the, that's the real problem.

• 14:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the real problem.

• 14:39Chuck Nice?

  That's the real problem.

• 14:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 14:39Chuck Nice?

  It's actually.

• 14:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, I don't want to value judge nature. I'm not gonna call it a problem.

• 14:44Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 14:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just gonna call it an observation.

• 14:45Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 14:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 14:46Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 14:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Universe is expanding without limit such that the universe will end not with a bang, but with a whimper.

• 14:57Chuck Nice?

  Whoa, that's terrible.

• 14:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And not in fire, but in ice.

• 15:01Chuck Nice?

  And you call that not a problem?

• 15:05Chuck Nice?

  What the heck is a problem then? That's not a problem.

• 15:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 15:10Chuck Nice?

  No, all right, so there you have it. I hope that satisfies you, Charlie. But thanks for the good question and the great little wordplay. So this is Danny Kaye. He says, hello Commander Tyson and Sergeant Nice. No, don't do that, Danny.

• 15:25Chuck Nice?

  It's Dr. Tyson and Lord Nice. Don't be giving us.

• 15:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe he doesn't know why they call you Lord.

• 15:29Chuck Nice?

  Is that?

• 15:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So he's just, he's thinking of people just giving you titles.

• 15:31Chuck Nice?

  Giving you titles.

• 15:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 15:32Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, all right, yeah, no.

• 15:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So maybe he's a new subscriber to the series. He doesn't have the backstory.

• 15:38Chuck Nice?

  He doesn't have the backstory of Lord Nice. All right, let me give it to you, Danny, real quick.

• 15:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 15:42Chuck Nice?

  Don't do that.

• 15:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, that's not the backstory. Is that not the backstory?

• 15:50Chuck Nice?

  No, I'm joking, Danny, I'm joking. The, what, what happened? Who was she?

• 15:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We, we had.

• 15:55Chuck Nice?

  She was a four-star general or three-star general.

• 15:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Major general, so that's a, is three-star.

• 15:58Chuck Nice?

  She's a three-star general.

• 15:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We had a major general.

• 16:00Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On, interviewing her about, was it climate change or something?

• 16:03Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, it was climate change.

• 16:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or something, all right. And we had Charles Lu.

• 16:06Chuck Nice?

  Charles Lu.

• 16:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Was on. Charles did some world wordplay with Gilbert and Sullivan.

• 16:11Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. And he said, "You are the very model of a modern major general."

• 16:18Chuck Nice?

  Major general, because she's a major general.

• 16:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We were doing Q and A, and people said Dr. Tyson and Chuck, right? And you said, you got all pissy about it, and you said, "Oh, I can't."

• 16:30Chuck Nice?

  I don't have a title. Right, everybody got a title but me.

• 16:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the major general said, "We will forevermore call you Lord Nice."

• 16:38Chuck Nice?

  That's what it was.

• 16:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's stuck ever since.

• 16:40Chuck Nice?

  That's what it is, and it's stuck ever since, that's right. So the major general gave me that, Danny.

• 16:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and it's an earlier episode of StarTalk.

• 16:45Chuck Nice?

  Well, here we go. "I salute thee," he says, "Danny Kringdango, hailing from the flatlands of the Netherlands. A question I have, seeing as to so many sightings and other archaeological discoveries are being made underwater. Would this sudden rise in water volume be a result of those ice thingies melting due to global warming? Or could it be due to the Earth's position and distance from the sun and the moon? So, when we have underwater archaeological finds, where there were civilizations, and they're now covered in water,

• 17:29Chuck Nice?

  is that global warming, rising sea level, melted icebergs? What would cause that?"

• 17:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 17:36Chuck Nice?

  What he's saying, and that's yes.

• 17:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 17:38Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 17:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Next question.

• 17:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, he's from the Netherlands.

• 17:42Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 17:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Netherlands, and so they will be in very high demand as sea levels rise.

• 17:48Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 17:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's a question suitable for someone.

• 17:51Chuck Nice?

  Somebody from him, yeah.

• 17:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The whole country is canal.

• 17:53Chuck Nice?

  The whole country is canals and dams.

• 17:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And dams and dikes.

• 17:56Chuck Nice?

  And dikes.

• 17:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, okay. They're going to be in high demand as sea levels rise, and we want to keep our land masses. "Help us make these canals and dikes." And, you know, we do it a little bit in New Orleans. There's whole sections that are below or at sea level that get flooded easily. So they have the levees, this sort of thing. So the Dutch are experts at this. I mean, come on now.

• 18:16Chuck Nice?

  That's their whole world.

• 18:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I'm not surprised by this question. It's very much culturally informed and inspired.

• 18:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So as you go back in time to the last ice age, we know Earth was like covered in ice and glaciers. Where did that water come from to become glaciers?

• 18:35Chuck Nice?

  I'm going to say rain.

• 18:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Rain? Where did the rain come from?

• 18:39Chuck Nice?

  The sky.

• 18:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where the sky comes from?

• 18:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, how did the rain get in the sky?

• 18:48Chuck Nice?

  Well, it evaporated from someplace else.

• 18:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From where?

• 18:50Chuck Nice?

  From the land.

• 18:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no.

• 18:53Chuck Nice?

  The land is frozen. The oceans, the oceans. It evaporates up and then it becomes clouds and then it goes someplace and then it rains down and then it freezes.

• 19:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It snows down.

• 19:01Chuck Nice?

  It snows down, not rains down. It snows down, freezes.

• 19:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Does it return to the ocean?

• 19:06Chuck Nice?

  Well, it can't because it's frozen.

• 19:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you. So then what systematically happens to the oceans?

• 19:10Chuck Nice?

  Oh, they gotta get shrunk.

• 19:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They systematically drain and as they do that, more and more land masses manifest.

• 19:17Chuck Nice?

  Exposed.

• 19:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's correct. Coastlines grow.

• 19:19Chuck Nice?

  People go, hey, this is a good place to build a city.

• 19:24Chuck Nice?

  Hey, guys. Hey, y'all want to build a?

• 19:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Before we had like advanced climate modeling.

• 19:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So no doubt there's no end of cities that just got flooded as we slowly came out of the ice age.

• 19:39Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 19:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they had to move inland. All right. But that would have happened slowly as, as the water melted again, once again. Have you ever seen on a map, it might be true elsewhere, but I noticed especially North America, off the east coast, if they show the terrain of the bottom of the ocean, there's like a, what we call the continental shelf.

• 19:58Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 19:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which is the same coastline, it's just pushed out a little further. And then you have a big drop off. Okay, when New York, when it used to dump its garbage in the ocean, it wouldn't do it on the shelf. It would take it to the deep part and then drop it out.

• 20:12Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 20:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it goes way down. Okay. So you say, where'd that shelf come from? That was the coastline when the oceans were less.

• 20:20Chuck Nice?

  Got you.

• 20:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So you can imagine New York City having been built way off on that edge, it'd be completely underwater now.

• 20:26Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 20:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So the time scale of that is thousands of years. We're not going to have that happen in decades.

• 20:34Chuck Nice?

  Yes, yes, we are. So, uh, there you go. Um, we'll be calling you Danny. And all your, all your friends in the Netherlands.

• 20:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fifty thousand years in the dig up, what's this city they called it? New York?

• 20:46Chuck Nice?

  New York? What the heck?

• 20:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. Well, to him it'd be New Amsterdam.

• 20:49Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that's what it was.

• 20:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, the Dutch had a little action here.

• 20:54Chuck Nice?

  Where, where, all of, all of where you live in this city.

• 20:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I live in Lower Manhattan.

• 20:57Chuck Nice?

  Lower Manhattan, that was New Amsterdam. Yeah, man. Wow. All right, Danny, there you have it. Uh, well, please bring a bucket.

• 21:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The bail?

• 21:08Chuck Nice?

  We gonna need you. Bring a bucket, buddy, because we're in trouble. All right, this is Shane A. McDaniel. He says, hello, Neil, hello, Chuck. Time dilation discussions usually involve one object moving faster than others to slow down its relative time.

• 21:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 21:23Chuck Nice?

  Alternatively, can an object somehow move slower than everything else to speed up its relative time? How might it slow down as such?

• 21:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hmm, that implies that you can establish a speed absolutely measured. But all the speeds are relative to other things. So you can't say, this one thing is not moving and everything else is. You're not making an absolute statement there.

• 21:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 21:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You could say, I don't think I'm moving because I'm measuring everybody else to be moving.

• 21:52Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 21:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But what are they saying? They're saying you're moving by me.

• 21:56Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 21:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay?

• 21:57Chuck Nice?

  Which is the whole train thing.

• 21:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the whole train.

• 21:59Chuck Nice?

  That's the whole train.

• 22:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When you're looking out the window.

• 22:01Chuck Nice?

  When you're looking out the window.

• 22:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and you see.

• 22:03Chuck Nice?

  You see the train pulling off.

• 22:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I said, are we moving backwards?

• 22:05Chuck Nice?

  We're moving backwards.

• 22:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no. Right, right, right.

• 22:08Chuck Nice?

  Relative to the other train.

• 22:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Relative to the other train. So, since all motion is relative, hence the name of the theories, the theories of relativity.

• 22:17Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 22:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Since all motion is relative, you cannot declare that you are not in motion and everybody else is.

• 22:22Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 22:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everybody can declare they're not in motion.

• 22:26Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And everybody else is.

• 22:27Chuck Nice?

  So, you can declare you're not in motion, but then as soon as you go on the other side, you're like, oh, no, I'm in motion.

• 22:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 22:34Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know how this came up? It came up in a football game.

• 22:38Chuck Nice?

  Get out.

• 22:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got a text from, who's the coach of the Seattle Seahawks?

• 22:42Chuck Nice?

  Uh, Pete Carroll.

• 22:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Pete Carroll, texting me. He said, Neil, we just had a play where they want to call it against us where they had a, what happens if you lateral backward, uh, forward, forward lateral?

• 22:55Chuck Nice?

  That's an illegal forward.

• 22:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Illegal forward pass.

• 22:58Chuck Nice?

  Illegal forward pass.

• 22:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because the quarterback.

• 23:00Chuck Nice?

  The receiver had. To be behind the quarterback, you can only go backwards.

• 23:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Provided the quarterback has crossed the line.

• 23:07Chuck Nice?

  If you're past the line of scrimmage.

• 23:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, but otherwise it's a forward pass.

• 23:09Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, you can forward pass, right.

• 23:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, they were in a play with a quarterback, Russell Wilson. He's, he, he can't, he doesn't see an open receiver, so he scrambles.

• 23:18Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He crosses the line of scrimmage. He sees one of his running backs and he pitches to his running back. Okay, no, sorry, he pitches backwards to his running back.

• 23:29Chuck Nice?

  Uh huh.

• 23:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then he goes down and the running back gets a first down and I think they scored on this play. Okay, and the other team said, no, that was a forward lateral. And illegal. If you go to the videotape, the point on the field where Russell Wilson releases the ball.

• 23:48Chuck Nice?

  Mm hmm.

• 23:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is behind the point on the field where the running back catches the ball.

• 23:55Chuck Nice?

  Oh, yeah.

• 23:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From the point of view of the field.

• 23:59Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 24:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is a forward pass.

• 24:01Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 24:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But they were running so fast.

• 24:04Chuck Nice?

  Running together.

• 24:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Together.

• 24:06Chuck Nice?

  So, relative to one another, they still remained a backwards lateral.

• 24:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct.

• 24:12Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 24:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct.

• 24:13Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 24:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct.

• 24:15Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 24:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's not their fault they were running faster than the ball sideways motion.

• 24:20Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 24:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so in other words, he was running so fast.

• 24:23Chuck Nice?

  That's what happens with them black players.

• 24:27Chuck Nice?

  You can't even tell, can't tell where, where the ball is.

• 24:32Chuck Nice?

  Negro is running fast.

• 24:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, he's running so fast that when he throws the ball backwards.

• 24:39Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 24:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The ball actually isn't going forward.

• 24:41Chuck Nice?

  Going forward, okay, right. He throws the ball backwards, but he's running so fast that when the guy catches the ball, he's past the point.

• 24:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Even though he's behind him the whole time.

• 24:50Chuck Nice?

  Behind the whole time.

• 24:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, I analyzed it and I tweeted back and I said, according to the field, it's a forward pass. But according to the moving reference frame of the players.

• 25:03Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was a legit lateral. And that's, you know what that's called? A Galilean transformation.

• 25:09Chuck Nice?

  Ooh, they, what's even got a name?

• 25:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's got a name.

• 25:12Chuck Nice?

  Dog.

• 25:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A Galilean transformation, you take one coordinate system and transfer it into another. And it's a completely legitimate, it's, it's just a different. A coordinate system.

• 25:22Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And from the coordinate system of the running players, everything was legit. And you should not penalize them just because they can run so fast. And so the play stayed. I gave Pete Carroll some extra ammo to make sure it wouldn't get overturned.

• 25:34Chuck Nice?

  That's cool, man.

• 25:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's still on, online. I mean, still the.

• 25:37Chuck Nice?

  That's great.

• 25:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Anyway, so that's this.

• 25:39Chuck Nice?

  So that's relativity in a nutshell, right there.

• 25:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Look them up. Galilean transformation.

• 25:43Chuck Nice?

  Transformation.

• 25:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we talked about this a little in some other where, you know, you've been on the freeway and there's always somebody who's racing somebody else.

• 25:52Chuck Nice?

  Always.

• 25:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they're darting in and out among the cars.

• 25:54Chuck Nice?

  Right. And I, I was in a hurry.

• 25:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, you're going 60 miles an hour, they're going 90 miles an hour.

• 25:59Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, in and out among the cars. However, they're not really going 90 miles an hour relative to you.

• 26:06Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 26:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're going 30 miles.

• 26:07Chuck Nice?

  30 miles an hour.

• 26:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because it's 90 minus 60.

• 26:10Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 26:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it feels dangerous when you see this. But as long as everybody's just moving at 60 miles an hour, as far as they're concerned, you're standing still and they're driving 30 miles an hour among you.

• 26:24Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 26:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it gets dangerous if you decide to not do 60 miles an hour and just turn the car while it's coming by, then definite accident. And the accident will feel the 90 miles an hour because his body is moving now 90 miles and then it moves zero and then basically you don't survive that. So it's, it's lethally playing with the laws of physics.

• 26:43Chuck Nice?

  Hmm. The Jake from State Farm, I hope you listen.

• 26:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jake from State Farm. No, this will be job for Jake and Flo.

• 26:52Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 26:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You need Flo from Progressive.

• 26:56Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 26:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Double that up.

• 26:58Chuck Nice?

  Jake and Flo. All right, here we go. This is Karthik. Karthik says, hello, Dr. Tyson, Lord Nice. This is Karthik from Berlin, Germany.

• 27:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 27:05Chuck Nice?

  If the earliest light from the universe to reach us is represented by the cosmic microwave background radiation, which is from 380,000 years after the Big Bang?

• 27:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yep.

• 27:17Chuck Nice?

  How do we determine how far back from that point the Big Bang took place? So he's saying, how do you know 380,000 years gave you first light from the source of the light?

• 27:31Chuck Nice?

  Which would have been the Big Bang itself.

• 27:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So when do we get 380,000?

• 27:34Chuck Nice?

  And that's basically the question.

• 27:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so a lot of the action took place in the first fractions of a second. There's an excellent book written by Steve Weinberg, a brilliant physicist, won the Nobel Prize. He wrote a very successful physics book. Small, called The First Three Minutes.

• 27:51Chuck Nice?

  That's amazing.

• 27:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And in there, it takes you from the moment of the explosion of the Big Bang to what went on in the universe after three minutes. And I turned those first three minutes into most of the first chapter of my book Astrophysics for People in a Hurry. Cause the first chapter is called In the Beginning. That's the name of the first chapter. So I detail it.

• 28:16Chuck Nice?

  Another book, I believe. I think there's another book with that chapter that starts in the beginning.

• 28:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, you keep thinking about that. You call me when you know.

• 28:30Chuck Nice?

  It has come to me.

• 28:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was the old joke when you were a kid. How do you know God was a baseball player?

• 28:37Chuck Nice?

  I don't know how.

• 28:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He started in the big inning.

• 28:42Chuck Nice?

  Wow. How do you know God wasn't a comedian? That joke.

• 28:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was like safe for elementary school joke. So what you do is you create all the physics necessary to give you that cosmic microwave background.

• 29:02Chuck Nice?

  Got you.

• 29:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And once you know how much mass is in the universe. And you ask yourself, what must have been going on in the universe to give us that state? Where the photons run free and you get the cosmic microwave background? Once you do all of this, the time it takes to get to that point turns out to be 380,000 years.

• 29:25Chuck Nice?

  That's amazing.

• 29:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. It's all very well established physics.

• 29:28Chuck Nice?

  And you know what's funny? Right now, there are people hearing this and they're like, no.

• 29:36Chuck Nice?

  It is so counterintuitive. It's like, oh no, that's what you believe and. What they don't understand is that we can see the cosmic microwave background.

• 29:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 29:47Chuck Nice?

  It's not a belief.

• 29:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right, right.

• 29:48Chuck Nice?

  We can see it.

• 29:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We measure it.

• 29:50Chuck Nice?

  We measure it.

• 29:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and so we know what matter must be doing in order to create that environment.

• 29:56Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 29:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we're expanding now. So here's what would have to happen if we were wrong. Somehow the universe was birthed into that state, but with nothing before it. But we can account for that, provided there was a universe before it, using known laws of physics as detailed by Steven Weinberg in his book from 1970s. That book came out.

• 30:17Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 30:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And in my book, I give a full exposition of the first, you know, first moments of the universe. In fact, one of these chairs.

• 30:24Chuck Nice?

  Right, the ones that were sitting there. That were awards to him for writing.

• 30:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I won for an essay called "In the Beginning",

• 30:31Chuck Nice?

  In the Beginning.

• 30:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which basically birthed that whole first chapter of my book.

• 30:34Chuck Nice?

  Look at that, the universe is crowning.

• 30:39Chuck Nice?

  Oh no, nothing about that, no universes.

• 30:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I wonder how obscure that references to.

• 30:48Chuck Nice?

  I'm sure, so most people have no idea what I'm talking about right now.

• 30:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're talking about.

• 30:51Chuck Nice?

  They have no idea.

• 30:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gone with the Wind.

• 30:53Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 30:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know.

• 30:55Chuck Nice?

  And most people have no idea.

• 30:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, okay.

• 30:56Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Maybe they'll look it up. It'll be a meme somewhere after. Somebody will put it out as a meme so that the kids can know the joke that I made. I don't know nothing about birth and universes.

• 31:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's known laws of physics that get us to that point.

• 31:10Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 31:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That allow us to conclude how, how much time before that.

• 31:14Chuck Nice?

  How to go back.

• 31:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How to go back.

• 31:15Chuck Nice?

  Cause you get to that place and now you can go back from everything that you know at that place.

• 31:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct.

• 31:19Chuck Nice?

  That's really, God, I love science.

• 31:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, you know, you know what else? As you go back, matter is behaving in all these, all these ways, under the temperature, pressure, energy and all of this. You can make predictions in that time that says, you know, 98 out of 100 atoms in the universe should be hydrogen. And that's what we see on the other side of that fence.

• 31:42Chuck Nice?

  Fantastic, man.

• 31:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 31:44Chuck Nice?

  That's.

• 31:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, no, it's extraordinary. Yes.

• 31:47Chuck Nice?

  Brilliant!

• 31:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes!

• 31:48Chuck Nice?

  I love it!

• 31:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 31:50Chuck Nice?

  Alright.

• 31:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, by the way, that cosmic microwave was predicted. It was predicted by a guy named George Gamow.

• 31:56Chuck Nice?

  George Gamow?

• 31:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gamow.

• 31:58Chuck Nice?

  Oh, Gamow.

• 31:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ends in a W, but it's Russian, so it's a V sound.

• 32:01Chuck Nice?

  That's it, Gamow.

• 32:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He was on a paper with two or three other authors.

• 32:04Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 32:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where they said, "If the universe began with an explosion, knowing what we know about quantum physics and matter and energy and temperature and time, what should have happened? It would expand, it would begin to cool, the energy would become matter, the matter would coalesce, and at this point, light should escape. We should look out in the universe for a universe that has a temperature of about five degrees." And so we looked.

• 32:29Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 32:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we found a universe that was three degrees.

• 32:33Chuck Nice?

  Yes!

• 32:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was so off.

• 32:35Chuck Nice?

  Idiots!

• 32:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Rich Gott, a friend of our show.

• 32:39Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 32:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He characterized this prediction. He said, "It's like saying that a 50-foot flying saucer predicting a 50-foot flying saucer was gonna land on the lawn of the White House, but it was a 30-foot flying saucer."

• 32:54Chuck Nice?

  That's good.

• 32:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? So the fundamentals of the prediction are really right, and the details are something that would come out later.

• 33:01Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 33:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. So, we're good back there, that's all. By the way, if one day, we need to sort of rethink the Big Bang, it would not be to discard what works. It would be to see that the Big Bang fits into an even larger...

• 33:18Chuck Nice?

  Larger picture of the universe, right.

• 33:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the press is always trying to ditch the Big Bang.

• 33:24Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're always pooping on the Big Bang.

• 33:26Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 33:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because they think it's just, we're just making stuff up.

• 33:28Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, because it's not going to be one of these things where it's just like, "Oh, we were just completely wrong, and now that's not a thing at all." No.

• 33:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That doesn't happen anymore.

• 33:38Chuck Nice?

  Right, no. It's like...

• 33:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It happened before the year 1600.

• 33:40Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But after then, we'd test everything, and it doesn't happen that way.

• 33:45Chuck Nice?

  It'll be a further explanation of what we already know.

• 33:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It'll be a deeper understanding.

• 33:51Chuck Nice?

  A deeper understanding.

• 33:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of what we already know.

• 33:53Chuck Nice?

  Right, right.

• 34:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, let's do a quick lightning round, because we run out of time.

• 34:17Chuck Nice?

  All right, this is Mo Fury. He says, "Hi, Dr. Tyson."

• 34:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's your name, Mo?

• 34:20Chuck Nice?

  Mo.

• 34:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cool.

• 34:21Chuck Nice?

  Love that.

• 34:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And his name is Fury?

• 34:23Chuck Nice?

  Mo Fury, he's a...

• 34:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That can't be real.

• 34:25Chuck Nice?

  He's a Marvel character.

• 34:28Chuck Nice?

  He's the less menacing brother of Nick Fury. I'm Mo Fury. Hey, Thor, what's your problem?

• 34:38Chuck Nice?

  It's me, Mo Fury. Captain America, hey, you got an attitude or something? I don't know what your problem is. It's me, Mo. Okay, I don't have an eye patch. I wear glasses.

• 34:48Chuck Nice?

  All right. He says, "Hey, Dr. Tyson, barren ice, okay? I live on a pale blue dot in Tennessee called Nashville. I don't know what that means. As such as I dream about exploring the cosmos, let's say we have one world war in the next century or two." Well, this is off to a positive start.

• 35:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know, right?

• 35:08Chuck Nice?

  "Given that, do you believe humanity will be galloping around the solar system by then? I don't mean governments. I'm talking about normal, working-class people who live and work all over the system like the stories in The Expanse." Great show. Thank you, Mo. Sands the spherical wormholes, of course.

• 35:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why does this have to do with another world war?

• 35:32Chuck Nice?

  Would we be able to escape? Because regular people have the capability of exiting this planet for another destination.

• 35:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If regular people have that capacity, so does the military, who might be chasing your ass if you're the enemy. Okay? I will answer this with a quote from Albert Einstein.

• 35:54Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 35:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If I may.

• 35:56Chuck Nice?

  Please do.

• 35:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  "I do not know

• 36:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  how World War III will be fought, but I know that World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

• 36:09Chuck Nice?

  Ooh. Oh, that is so disturbing. Oh my God, that sent chills down my spine, because that just says everything.

• 36:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Says everything about everything.

• 36:18Chuck Nice?

  Says everything about everything.

• 36:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 36:19Chuck Nice?

  Like...

• 36:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're done there.

• 36:21Chuck Nice?

  That's it!

• 36:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's it.

• 36:22Chuck Nice?

  That's a mic drop and a half!

• 36:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 36:24Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 36:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If they had mics back then.

• 36:25Chuck Nice?

  If they had mics, which were made out of sticks.

• 36:31Chuck Nice?

  Took a stick and put a bunch of dead leaves on top. Is this thing on?

• 36:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You tap it.

• 36:38Chuck Nice?

  You tap the dead leaves.

• 36:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're slipping another. What do you got?

• 36:41Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. Steven Banker says, hi guys, a question about time. Is it possible to measure a length of time shorter than the stepo second or zeptosec- zeptosec- I can't say it. Zeptosec, okay. Uh, if so, can we measure infinitely small spans of time? How would we have ever gotten to the point in time? If there are possibly an infinite number of moments between the big bang and now? Wow, this guy, I love you, man, cuz you-

• 37:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, there's a little bit of Zeno's paradox in there, which is not a thing.

• 37:14Chuck Nice?

  And this dude smokes weed, okay? I'll tell you, Steven Banker, that's a weed question right there. That's a weed question.

• 37:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, all right. I didn't know that's a category of question. So-

• 37:24Chuck Nice?

  I love it.

• 37:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Couple of points there.

• 37:27Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 37:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's something called the Planck length.

• 37:29Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 37:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Planck length is the smallest unit of space within which nothing, no laws of physics have any meaning. Okay? So, in quantum physics, space is quantized by these little units of space.

• 37:43Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 37:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? So, the time it takes light to cross a Planck length-

• 37:49Chuck Nice?

  A Planck length.

• 37:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It seems to me would be the shortest unit of time. Because there's nothing that can take place inside of a Planck length.

• 37:58Chuck Nice?

  Ooh, lovely.

• 38:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is the pixels of life.

• 38:04Chuck Nice?

  So, it's like you're traveling in between the actual pixels that make up the picture itself.

• 38:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, yes. So, you go pixel to pixel, but there's nothing in the pixel for you. Right, cuz a pixel is just, there's no more detail there for you.

• 38:17Chuck Nice?

  Got it.

• 38:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, that would be the shortest unit of time possible. Anything shorter than that, I don't know that you could measure it, nor would there be anything there to measure.

• 38:29Chuck Nice?

  Right, so there's no medium there.

• 38:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, nothing-

• 38:32Chuck Nice?

  There's nothing there to, to, to, to, for you to put any kind of ruler up to and say, this is where we are, this is where we're going, anything.

• 38:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There are units smaller than that have no meaning.

• 38:43Chuck Nice?

  Right, doesn't make a difference.

• 38:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the quantum universe.

• 38:45Chuck Nice?

  In the quantum universe has no-

• 38:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, general relativity requires space be continuous and not quantized. If you want to marry general relativity and quantum physics, you need some, somebody's gotta be there for the ceremony, for the shotgun marriage. Because a shotgun marriage was taking place in the early universe. Because quantum physics is the physics of the small. General relativity is the large scale universe. When the universe was small, this quantum phenomenon influencing the entire universe.

• 39:12Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 39:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because the universe at one time was small. Okay, so let's say you could divide time infinitely small. Zeno's paradox is, you know Zeno's paradox?

• 39:21Chuck Nice?

  I don't.

• 39:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't know Zeno's paradox?

• 39:23Chuck Nice?

  Uh-uh.

• 39:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, you want to, you have a destination. Well, you gotta travel half that far.

• 39:27Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 39:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, with what's left over, you gotta travel half that far. What's that? You gotta travel half that far.

• 39:33Chuck Nice?

  Are we there yet?

• 39:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You gotta travel half that far? Okay.

• 39:39Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 39:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You keep doing this.

• 39:39Chuck Nice?

  You're never getting there.

• 39:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Never getting there.

• 39:41Chuck Nice?

  You're never ever gonna get there.

• 39:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But you end up getting there.

• 39:43Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 39:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's Zeno's paradox.

• 39:44Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 39:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so we would learn how to solve this mathematically. It's because the sum of those halves, even though there's an infinite number of them, they sum to a finite answer in a finite amount of time.

• 39:57Chuck Nice?

  That is dope as hell!

• 40:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 40:00Chuck Nice?

  That's amazing!

• 40:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so this

• 40:02Chuck Nice?

  It's where, it's the finite containing the infinite.

• 40:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes! Brilliantly worded.

• 40:08Chuck Nice?

  That's amazing!

• 40:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lord Nice. Yes, the finite can contain the infinite, and indeed it does.

• 40:13Chuck Nice?

  And it does. That's great.

• 40:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. Yeah, so he shouldn't worry about that, that, that part of it.

• 40:18Chuck Nice?

  That part of the question, yeah.

• 40:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, fast one, last one.

• 40:21Chuck Nice?

  All right, here's the last one.

• 40:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Last one.

• 40:23Chuck Nice?

  Ali Khan Hemraj, Hemraj, Ali Khan Hemraj, okay? Your name is Al, okay?

• 40:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tom's

• 40:31Chuck Nice?

  This is from Al. Al says

• 40:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tom says, "You renaming people just for your own convenience?"

• 40:37Chuck Nice?

  What can I say, man? I hope I got your name right, buddy, uh, or person. Hello, Dr. Tyson Lord Nice. I was wanting your thoughts on if transporter like in Star Trek could one day

• 40:51Chuck Nice?

  Just be possible. And P.S. Dr. Tyson, I saw you in an episode of Velma. It was awesome. What's Velma?

• 40:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know what Velma is?

• 40:59Chuck Nice?

  No, what's Velma?

• 41:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Velma is from Scooby Doo.

• 41:02Chuck Nice?

  I know. Oh, Velma.

• 41:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The woman in Scooby Doo named Velma?

• 41:04Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 41:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Had her own show on HBO.

• 41:06Chuck Nice?

  Get out.

• 41:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's she's in high school. The dog doesn't exist yet. And it's really sort of the birth of the.

• 41:13Chuck Nice?

  Oh, the Mystery Machine.

• 41:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's the roots of their origins.

• 41:17Chuck Nice?

  Oh, wow.

• 41:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, I had a, I had a brief cameo in it.

• 41:20Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 41:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 41:21Chuck Nice?

  Good for you.

• 41:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think I was a teacher. I forgot exactly what. It has to make, if I'm gonna be a camera, it's gotta make some sense. Right? I'm not gonna be like.

• 41:29Chuck Nice?

  You're not gonna be a drug dealer. What's up, Velma? What you need today, girl?

• 41:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's gotta make some philosophical sense.

• 41:38Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That I am in the, in the program.

• 41:40Chuck Nice?

  Program, okay. All right, so anyway, here's the deal. Transporters, which break down your molecules inside of a machine that remembers the imprint of your molecular structure in every single detail. Then turns that into a beam of energy, transports it someplace else, shines that beam of energy to another place where it then reconfigures all of those molecules in the same configuration. So they, bang, now you have been reassembled molecule by molecule. Could that one day be possible?

• 42:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I said I'd give a soundbite answer. This is gonna be hard.

• 42:17Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 42:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, are you ready?

• 42:18Chuck Nice?

  Yep.

• 42:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. In 1900, New York City, there were horses everywhere.

• 42:22Chuck Nice?

  Yes, there were.

• 42:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And whether you have horses, you have manure.

• 42:24Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that's for sure.

• 42:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I read, I, I have found this hard to believe, but this maybe it's right. I read, on average, a horse poops 30 pounds of manure a day.

• 42:32Chuck Nice?

  Woo.

• 42:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's in the streets. Flies are attracted to it.

• 42:35Chuck Nice?

  Oh, God.

• 42:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Back then, there were no supermarkets. People sold their goods on the street, on street carts, including fish.

• 42:41Chuck Nice?

  Mm.

• 42:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so it was nasty.

• 42:43Chuck Nice?

  That's nasty.

• 42:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Unsanitary.

• 42:45Chuck Nice?

  Terrible.

• 42:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And people trying to find solutions to this. Do you give horses some different kind of feed so there's less poop? Do you put something in the feed so the flies don't wanna reproduce in it? Do you, like, what do you do?

• 42:57Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 42:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And how do you cart, how do you cart away the poop? Well, you gotta bring in other horses and put it in a wagon that they drag out. But then they're pooping while they're dragging out the poop that they're taking out of the day. Okay?

• 43:08Chuck Nice?

  This is poop-licious.

• 43:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so how do you solve this problem? You invent the car.

• 43:15Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 43:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 43:16Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 43:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The car solved that problem.

• 43:19Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 43:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I claim, I assert that the transporter, as brilliant an idea as that was, which allowed the original series to not have to land rockets on surfaces, which would have been a whole overhead of special effects.

• 43:37Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 43:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So they said, we gotta, we need another way to do this.

• 43:40Chuck Nice?

  It also ruins most of the storylines.

• 43:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, you need a place for the, put your rocket, you know.

• 43:46Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 43:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you can't, right, and you can't.

• 43:48Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 43:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Beam into a place to get the job done.

• 43:50Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, you can't get the job, yeah, you gotta land.

• 43:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You gotta land and get out of the rocket.

• 43:53Chuck Nice?

  Right, that sucks.

• 43:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it was a brilliant visual mechanism vocabulary for the storytelling. Okay, I'm thinking by then, no, you won't get transported. We just open a wormhole.

• 44:04Chuck Nice?

  Oh, there you go.

• 44:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You step through, now you're on a planet. You're not disassembled and reassembled.

• 44:10Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 44:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With the risk that maybe.

• 44:12Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 44:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Something goes wrong.

• 44:13Chuck Nice?

  Using the structure of quantized space.

• 44:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you, there it is. And so any place you would otherwise beam, you just simply open the wormhole.

• 44:21Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 44:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And step through. So I think that, like, the car solved the poop, the poop problem, wormholes will solve the transporter problem.

• 44:28Chuck Nice?

  Let me tell you something, that is a much better answer than I ever thought you would give. I mean, that's a really good answer.

• 44:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so ends the next episode of StarTalk Cosmic Queries Grab Bag Edition, which Chuck still keeps calling.

• 44:43Chuck Nice?

  Galactic gumbo.

• 44:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, always good to have you, Chuck.

• 44:46Chuck Nice?

  Always a pleasure.

• 44:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, Neil deGrasse Tyson here, we're out of time. As always, keep looking up.