Cosmic Queries – Your God Is Too Small

What’s more terrifying: finding alien life or finding out we are alone in the universe? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice dive into fan questions about optics, religion, communicating with entanglement, and life on Earth after humans.

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

• 0:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, that might have been the best cosmic queries ever.

• 0:02Chuck Nice?

  Yep.

• 0:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Grab bag.

• 0:03Chuck Nice?

  It was certainly entertaining. And if you want to know what happened, well, you're gonna have to listen. That's all there is to it. Not giving anything away.

• 0:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's cold.

• 0:11Chuck Nice?

  No, that's how good it was. It's worth the listen.

• 0:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, coming right up.

• 0:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 0:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk. Neil deGrasse Tyson, you're a personal astrophysicist. Chuck, you're the grab bag man.

• 0:38Chuck Nice?

  I'm the man with the bag. This is Yusef Kazwini, who says, "Greetings, StarTalkers. Yusef from Damascus, Syria here."

• 0:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Damascus?

• 0:48Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 0:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whoa.

• 0:49Chuck Nice?

  That's right. Ancient, ancient city Damascus. I found your podcast recently and I joined the club.

• 0:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 0:57Chuck Nice?

  Welcome aboard, my friend. Here's my question. You often mention pro photons travel at the speed of light at all times.

• 1:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yep.

• 1:05Chuck Nice?

  Working as an optics engineer and dealing with T I R F microscopes, I wonder how evanescent waves during total internal reflection, T I R, is thought of from a particle physics perspective. Are the photons moving at the speed of light but somehow without propagating? Or the photons don't exist at all? But then, what is interacting with the sample on my microscope? Thank you. I love your work. P S. Chuck, you surely deserve an honorary PhD by now, my brother.

• 1:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 1:46Chuck Nice?

  Oh, look at that.

• 1:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My brother.

• 1:48Chuck Nice?

  My brother.

• 1:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Optics is a huge field.

• 1:53Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 1:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That does very important work on a lot of frontiers.

• 1:59Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 2:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Optics is what do you do with electromagnetic waves? Do you bend them? Do you reflect them? Do you trap them? Do you heat with? What do you do with them? An entire branch of physics and engineering addresses those questions. So I don't know.

• 2:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How specific the example is that he's giving and how that would lend itself to my explanation. Okay. Okay, so what I will otherwise say is, the speed of light is not just a good idea. It's not just a good idea, it's the law. It's the law, thank you.

• 2:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a dated reference to 55 miles an hour speed limit. Okay, gotcha. When we went out and said, "We're not gonna go fast anymore." Right. So, that doesn't mean light always travels at that speed. Exactly. It means it will never travel faster than that speed. Right, cuz you can slow it down. So, let's see how you do that. Okay, it turns out, you sort of can slow it down. Right, I got you. So, the medium itself can slow the travel. Yes. The medium. Okay, but the way it slows it down is fascinating. Interesting. Okay. Okay. Okay, so I'm gonna beam the light. Just going on about my business.

• 3:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  About my business. Look at me, traveling at the speed of light, nothing can be faster. Nothing can be faster. Then you hit the air, or you hit a piece of glass, or a piece of water. This is for visible light going through what we would say are transparent objects, okay? If you're transparent, it means the light stays coherent as it goes through. Okay. So that the waveform maintains its structure. If it does not maintain its structure, light can still get through, but you, we would not call it transparent. Right, yes. You know the word we have for that? Translucent? Translucent. Yes. And translucent means light in, in, in Latin. Latin, yeah.

• 4:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Loose, loose is light, loose. So, the light comes up to the boundary. Mm-hmm. Some light will get reflected.

• 4:18Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 4:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And optics, people know and understand that. Okay? That happened no matter, you can't.

• 4:23Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 4:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  About that. You can try to minimize it by having what are called these coatings that will delete any attempt for the light to reflect back.

• 4:33Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 4:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? Yeah. And you know, it's, it's fun, the way they do that. So they, you have a coating that's half the wavelength of the light that you're using.

• 4:40Chuck Nice?

  Interesting.

• 4:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? So then the light goes through and by the time it wants to reflect back, the light that's coming in is out of phase with it.

• 4:49Chuck Nice?

  Oh, so it creates a disruption.

• 4:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it flattens, it flattens the light.

• 4:52Chuck Nice?

  Look at that. I never knew that.

• 4:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Isn't that brilliant?

• 4:54Chuck Nice?

  That's. God, people are smart.

• 5:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so a coated lens prevents the, the reflections off of surfaces.

• 5:04Chuck Nice?

  Interesting.

• 5:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? And cameras, especially zoom lenses and other big industrial cameras.

• 5:09Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They have many, many lenses in them.

• 5:11Chuck Nice?

  Yes, they do.

• 5:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can't have light reflecting off of shiny surfaces at every time there's a surface.

• 5:17Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 5:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay?

• 5:18Chuck Nice?

  You just end up with a blob at the end.

• 5:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just a blob at the end and all the light will be scattered everywhere. You got nothing. Okay.

• 5:22Chuck Nice?

  Right, right.

• 5:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And when I say it reflects, because light will reflect off of practically any surface, whether or not it's a mirror.

• 5:29Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 5:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what I'm saying.

• 5:30Chuck Nice?

  As a matter of fact, in, in, in photography, they have something called a bounce board and it's just a stark, stark white. I forget the color of white.

• 5:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it diffuses the light that it comes back to you.

• 5:41Chuck Nice?

  Right. And that's all it does.

• 5:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Otherwise a flash can be very harsh.

• 5:43Chuck Nice?

  Exactly. So you bounce it off of there and you get the, you get the light without the harshness.

• 5:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Without the harshness. So now you took care of that. Now the light enters the medium between molecules.

• 5:54Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 5:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Light is moving at the speed of light.

• 5:58Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 5:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it hits a molecule, I gotta deal with the molecule. I gotta go in and come out.

• 6:03Chuck Nice?

  Damn it.

• 6:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 6:05Chuck Nice?

  Uh, excuse me.

• 6:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excuse me.

• 6:07Chuck Nice?

  I'm, I'm so sorry.

• 6:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now I'm speed of light again until I hit the next molecule.

• 6:11Chuck Nice?

  Right. And it's, oh God, here we go.

• 6:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There we go again, right.

• 6:14Chuck Nice?

  It's like walking down New York City street behind tourists.

• 6:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. Yes.

• 6:18Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 6:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tourists are just in the way.

• 6:20Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 6:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In ways that New Yorkers are not.

• 6:22Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 6:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I figured, I, I analyzed that.

• 6:24Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 6:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I figured out why.

• 6:25Chuck Nice?

  Why?

• 6:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  May I say?

• 6:26Chuck Nice?

  Please go ahead.

• 6:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'll try to relate it to light going through a medium.

• 6:29Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 6:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Here's why. New Yorkers. Anticipate each other's trajectories because we've done this with each other before.

• 6:39Chuck Nice?

  It's a dance that we know.

• 6:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a dance we know. Whereas a tourist, they might step left unannounced. Who, nobody told you to step left?

• 6:50Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 6:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause I'm about to pass you on the left.

• 6:52Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, who does that?

• 6:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who does that?

• 6:53Chuck Nice?

  Who does?

• 6:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But a tourist who's just ambling, looking, ambling.

• 6:58Chuck Nice?

  Alright.

• 6:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so you can't predict what their next move is, but for other New Yorkers, you can.

• 7:03Chuck Nice?

  It's true.

• 7:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not only that, there are people who are, I've walked perpendicular to people, they're on the sidewalk and I'm crossing the street. You time it so that you know exactly.

• 7:15Chuck Nice?

  No, it's, it's a dance.

• 7:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a dance.

• 7:17Chuck Nice?

  You gotta live here to know the dance.

• 7:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whereas the tourists will stop.

• 7:19Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, now they just messed up my timing.

• 7:22Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 7:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, they'll look, they'll say, excuse me, pardon me.

• 7:24Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you get people, I'm trying to get in the subway, okay? And a train just lets out. There are people, tourists will wait for everyone to clear from the stair.

• 7:35Chuck Nice?

  No, you dummy. You make your path and they know you're coming down. They will move aside as they come down and you're going up. Right. Exactly.

• 7:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just because it's a massive, you don't mean that.

• 7:47Chuck Nice?

  You just made me miss my train.

• 7:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know that, right?

• 7:49Chuck Nice?

  That's what you did, waiting in line to get on the damn stairs. The hell is wrong with you? I'm late for work. Gosh, and by the way, stand back from the doggone platform. Not that I'm worried about you or concerned about your safety. I'm late for work. You fall on the damn tracks, guess what? Now I'm late.

• 8:09Chuck Nice?

  Okay, anyway.

• 8:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How to give New Yorkers a bad name?

• 8:14Chuck Nice?

  Anyway, so the light in the medium is bumping into the molecules.

• 8:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The molecules of the medium.

• 8:21Chuck Nice?

  In between, it's going back at the speed, it's traveling at the speed of light.

• 8:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct, so the combination of getting through the molecule plus the speed of light between molecules, on average, slows down the propagation of light through the medium.

• 8:35Chuck Nice?

  Look at that.

• 8:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is called the index of refraction.

• 8:38Chuck Nice?

  Woo!

• 8:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's, and it's a beautiful mathematical construct.

• 8:42Chuck Nice?

  I love it.

• 8:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The index of refraction. Yeah.

• 8:45Chuck Nice?

  Ooh.

• 8:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so.

• 8:47Chuck Nice?

  Oh, I love it.

• 8:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and I'll tell you how it works.

• 8:49Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 8:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The index of refraction, you can use that in a formula to tell you how much the light will bend coming in or out of that medium. That's how you make a lens at all, okay? But. The index of refraction, if you take the speed of light and divide by the index of refraction.

• 9:09Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 9:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the speed of light in that medium.

• 9:12Chuck Nice?

  It does something. That is really cool.

• 9:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so let's do the math. The index of refraction of diamond is 2.4. What is 1 divided by 2.4? 1 is like the speed of light. Divide by 2.4. What's the number?

• 9:25Chuck Nice?

  Point 4.

• 9:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 9:27Chuck Nice?

  Point 4 something.

• 9:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  About 0.4.

• 9:29Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 9:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, light in diamond is going 40% as fast as it goes in a vacuum.

• 9:36Chuck Nice?

  That's awesome.

• 9:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Isn't it?

• 9:39Chuck Nice?

  Ah, I love it so much.

• 9:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. And so diamond is, is one of the hardest natural substances known. It's hard for light to get through as well.

• 9:48Chuck Nice?

  Yes, it is, yeah.

• 9:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And even though it's transparent.

• 9:49Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And before we get get all, get all emotional about light trying to get through the medium. Visible light can't get through most mediums. Like through a brick wall. Like it ain't gonna do it all.

• 10:02Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, it's just like, damn it. That's light trying to get through a brick wall. Damn it.

• 10:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If light, if, if light were giving a voice.

• 10:11Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's try the brick. Nope, nope. Let's try the, you know, the steel.

• 10:17Chuck Nice?

  No, nope. Damn it.

• 10:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But other wavelengths of light are transparent in these other substances, as you know. So your cell phone works in here because the walls are transparent to microwaves.

• 10:32Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Microwaves come right on through.

• 10:33Chuck Nice?

  No problem.

• 10:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No problem.

• 10:34Chuck Nice?

  They don't travel well through plaster, though.

• 10:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What are you talking about?

• 10:39Chuck Nice?

  Because my house, the walls are plaster. My house was built in 1898.

• 10:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think there might be something else in your walls.

• 10:45Chuck Nice?

  Oh, you know what? You're right. It's a metal lathe.

• 10:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Metal grid.

• 10:48Chuck Nice?

  Metal lathe. Plus, so here's what it is. It's plaster, then it's wood, then it's lathe, then it's metal.

• 10:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I bet there's a metal mesh.

• 10:59Chuck Nice?

  It's a mesh.

• 11:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To hold up the plaster.

• 11:01Chuck Nice?

  To hold up the plaster.

• 11:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's, so you're in a Faraday cave, my son.

• 11:03Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my God.

• 11:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Faraday cage.

• 11:05Chuck Nice?

  That's what it is.

• 11:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right. If you're surrounded by a metallic anything.

• 11:09Chuck Nice?

  Metallic, yeah.

• 11:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Then the electrons in the metal will conspire to prevent electromagnetic energy from entering.

• 11:18Chuck Nice?

  That's why I can only hear the voices when I go outside.

• 11:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's why. Don't blame the plaster. Damn, plaster had nothing to do with this. That's wow, look at that. Okay. Yeah, back then they would put up the mesh. Yeah, you put the mesh. And they put the plaster up. Hold the plaster up because all the little, um, the grid of the metal. Yeah. So if you have multiple internal reflections, that's the light just going back and go. By the way, by the way, check this out. Check this out. Ready? What? Okay, so if I have two media. Okay. Two media with different indices of refraction. Uh huh. Okay, so I have light coming up from one, it crosses the border and it bends. Anytime you go between two media, the path of light bends, it will bend. Okay. Right. That's why sunset happened five minutes ago.

• 12:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. Because the light bend going from that vacuum of space to our atmosphere. And it gave us an extra five minutes of sunlight because it refracted around the, your horizon. Nice. Okay, so it will bend. Okay. Now watch this, it comes up and it bends. Right, yes. Suppose I take the angle of the light and make it steeper like this.

• 12:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then that will keep this come further and further down. There is an angle at which the light never enters the next medium. Oh. Because this bend now takes it backwards into the medium itself. And it's called total internal reflection. Oh, wow. That's something I avoid at all costs. So I can't sleep at night.

• 12:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's that angle. It's, it's still in the other medium. Right. Bam, now it's total internal reflection. That's pretty cool, man. Very cool. That's, I love that. It's, and, and you can know exactly what that angle is. Right. What the, what the, how to do that. And so if you have an optical system where the light is just bouncing back and forth, it is within the parameters of, or you can have just a reflective surface as well. Right. Just a mirror would do that. Right, but anyhow.

• 13:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What you do inside your medium is your business. And what that then does to a beam of light. But yeah.

• 13:32Chuck Nice?

  Interesting.

• 13:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There it is. That's all I can, that's the all I can do to illuminate. See what I did there? To illuminate that question. There may be other places to go in the physics of optics. That I would not have known to touch.

• 13:47Chuck Nice?

  Very cool, man. What a great question and thanks, Youssef. And welcome to the club.

• 14:06Speaker 02

  Hello, I'm Vinky Brook Allen and I support StarTalk on Patreon. This is StarTalk with Nailed Grass Tyson.

• 14:25Chuck Nice?

  All right, this is Vic G. He says, hey there, Lord nice, Dr. Tyson, Vic G here from California with a question for each of you. Are there any cosmic mysteries that you are most looking forward to knowing their resolutions, but sadly may not be resolved in our lifetimes? Bonus points if you can name mysteries that we are so close to resolving, but is probably just beyond our reach.

• 14:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, you go first.

• 14:54Chuck Nice?

  Well, see, mine is the easiest because I just want to know what exactly is causing the acceleration, the expansion of the universe.

• 15:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like everybody else wants to know.

• 15:07Chuck Nice?

  Because that's everybody else wants to know. But the reason is because I believe that it's a pressure from outside of our universe that bleeds through. That's what I think it is and I just.

• 15:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You think there's a puppet master?

• 15:23Chuck Nice?

  No, well, I don't, I'm not going to call it a puppet master. I think there's a bleeding. That's what I'll call it.

• 15:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  An injured puppet.

• 15:30Chuck Nice?

  An injured puppet master.

• 15:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Leakage, leakage of pressure.

• 15:35Chuck Nice?

  Because what that, if we were to find that out. Now we have to explore the leak. And that means we're looking at a whole nother universe. And to me, that's fascinating.

• 15:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's interesting.

• 15:49Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 15:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You have to then explore.

• 15:52Chuck Nice?

  You gotta explore the leak now.

• 15:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I can't, I can't top that. That's good. No, I would say, I don't think we're gonna know for sure. If there's life in the universe in my lifetime.

• 16:09Chuck Nice?

  Whoa.

• 16:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Intelligent life in the universe.

• 16:11Chuck Nice?

  You, you, you win the bonus points because that is something we are very, very close to. But it's very possible we may not find in our lifetime.

• 16:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I don't think in my lifetime, we will know that. What we will know in our lifetime is if there's any life at all.

• 16:27Chuck Nice?

  Outside.

• 16:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, in our own solar system.

• 16:29Chuck Nice?

  In our own solar system.

• 16:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, cuz we're looking at Europa.

• 16:31Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We did a whole episode. We went to JPL.

• 16:36Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chip Propulsion Lab.

• 16:37Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 16:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  NASA in Pasadena.

• 16:39Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 16:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Talked to the Europa Clipper people.

• 16:41Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 16:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Talking about what are they gonna do, how are they gonna measure it, what's beneath the ice? So we will know whether or not.

• 16:49Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 16:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There has ever been or is currently life in our solar system other than on Earth.

• 16:56Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 16:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think that will happen. But it would be sad if there is no life other than life on Earth. You know, you know what has been said?

• 17:04Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 17:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How profound it would be. If we discovered intelligent life in the universe. But how more profound it would be. If we discovered that we're alone.

• 17:20Chuck Nice?

  Listen, the second one is far scarier.

• 17:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a little scarier, isn't it?

• 17:25Chuck Nice?

  Cuz that means.

• 17:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You kinda want neighbors, don't you?

• 17:27Chuck Nice?

  All of this was a mistake.

• 17:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it would feed many religious thinking that the whole universe is just for us.

• 17:38Chuck Nice?

  That.

• 17:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Some, some branches of Christianity and perhaps other religions as well, require that life on earth be the sole object of God's creation.

• 17:55Chuck Nice?

  Okay, I'm just gonna say it, and please don't judge me here. I'm being logical and I'm thinking like God. All right. That's the dumbest crap I ever heard, and here's why it's stupid. I don't need to do all this, okay? I don't need to do.

• 18:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're God, you're God speaking.

• 18:16Chuck Nice?

  I'm God right now. I don't need to do all this to show you that you're the only thing necessary and good and my central and crowning creation. As a matter of fact, all I really need is the sun and the earth, because that's our, that's the energy system that makes all of this happen.

• 18:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nothing else matters.

• 18:43Chuck Nice?

  Nothing else matters. So, if the sun, like a hydrogen atom, had just the earth going around it, then I would say, there is a God, and he made this just for us. But when you look at the vastness of the universe and the trillions of galaxies, all of which containing stars, billions and billions of stars in each galaxy, to a place where we can't even fathom the number of celestial bodies that are out there, then what you're saying to me is, I'm stupid and I like to waste my time.

• 19:29Chuck Nice?

  I like to waste my time. That's what I'm doing.

• 19:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So God is an inefficient manufacturer of-

• 19:34Chuck Nice?

  And that's it.

• 19:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of worlds.

• 19:35Chuck Nice?

  Right. It doesn't make any sense. So either there's a lot more of us out there, not meaning us, but life all over the place.

• 19:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This was Giordano Bruno's argument.

• 19:44Chuck Nice?

  Who was that?

• 19:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't know Giordano Bruno? I never remember.

• 19:46Chuck Nice?

  We never talked about Bruno.

• 19:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bruno?

• 19:48Chuck Nice?

  Who's Bruno?

• 19:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's a monk.

• 19:50Chuck Nice?

  I'm sorry. That just sounds funny, but go ahead.

• 19:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A 16th century monk.

• 19:53Chuck Nice?

  No, really?

• 19:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In Italy.

• 19:54Chuck Nice?

  Yeah?

• 19:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. He had just, he had just read Copernicus' book, De Revolutionibus, which is, puts the sun back in the, I say back because the Greeks knew this, but it got lost in the dark ages. But the sun back in the middle of the known universe.

• 20:10Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 20:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He, religious man.

• 20:13Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 20:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  God fearing man said, hmm, if the sun is in the middle and not earth, that means earth is a planet. Going around the sun like Jupiter and Mercury and Mars and Venus. If the sun has planets and we're life on a planet, maybe these stars in the night sky are just like our sun. And if they are, maybe they have planets. And if they have planets, maybe they have

• 20:41Chuck Nice?

  Uh, life.

• 20:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Life.

• 20:42Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 20:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Heretical.

• 20:44Chuck Nice?

  Oh, they killed him.

• 20:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because that meant earth was not the object of God's creation.

• 20:51Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 20:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So they put him on trial, sentenced him to death.

• 20:56Chuck Nice?

  Oh my God.

• 20:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Burned him upside down.

• 20:59Chuck Nice?

  Oh Lord.

• 20:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Naked in the Campo di Fioro, uh, the piazza in Rome.

• 21:06Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 21:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, I think that's in Rome, not Florence. And they drove a steak into his mouth.

• 21:14Chuck Nice?

  To shut his ass up.

• 21:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that even in the

• 21:18Chuck Nice?

  Afterlife.

• 21:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He would not preach such a parodies.

• 21:24Chuck Nice?

  We don't-

• 21:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 21:25Chuck Nice?

  We do not deserve to be a species running this.

• 21:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. You know what his, one of his last words were?

• 21:29Chuck Nice?

  Uh, let me guess.

• 21:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, before that.

• 21:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He says, he had a few good last words. My favorite among them was, "Your God is too small."

• 21:53Chuck Nice?

  Yes. Way to go out.

• 21:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Way to go out.

• 21:57Chuck Nice?

  Way to go out, man. "Your God is too small."

• 22:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Too small. "You've got just earth and the sun."

• 22:04Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 22:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so anyhow.

• 22:05Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my God. Okay, first of all, I'm gonna read up on this guy. Bruno is his name, huh?

• 22:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Giordano Bruno.

• 22:10Chuck Nice?

  Giordano Bruno. So, check this out. Um, you know, some people know my background, but, one of my last words before I left my other life, my religious life, was over this whole idea of homosexuality. I never understood it. I still don't understand it, like, why people have a problem with it. And why would God have a problem with it? I couldn't get around it. As I'm studying to become, you know, a minister.

• 22:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it's because it's in Leviticus.

• 22:40Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, but Leviticus is full of shit. Anyway. I mean, honestly, you know how many people have read Leviticus? Me being one? Okay, so anyway. So, I, one of my last-

• 22:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know what someone told me? A Jewish person told me, "Leviticus are just suggestions."

• 22:57Chuck Nice?

  Kind of.

• 22:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because if they were important enough, they would have been a commandment.

• 22:59Chuck Nice?

  They would have been commandments, right. No, seriously. The Levitical law, and by the way, it's a Levitical law for the priests? Okay, anyway. Anyway, um, I said, "A God that needs me to fight this battle for Him is not a God I want to serve."

• 23:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 23:19Chuck Nice?

  If God needs me to fight this battle-

• 23:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Homosexuality.

• 23:23Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, right. If that's the battle that I gotta fight.

• 23:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Interesting.

• 23:26Chuck Nice?

  I gotta be worried about two dudes doing it. Like, that's what my God is all about.

• 23:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Two consenting dudes.

• 23:32Chuck Nice?

  Two consenting dudes doing it. Like, that's what I gotta worry about? I, I can't serve that. I gotta be out. Anyway, so I love this Bruno dude, and I'm gonna-

• 23:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, check him out.

• 23:40Chuck Nice?

  I'm gonna check him out.

• 23:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 23:41Chuck Nice?

  Awesome.

• 23:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, by the way, there's a, there's a memorial to him in the square.

• 23:46Chuck Nice?

  I'm sorry.

• 23:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Looking very-

• 23:47Chuck Nice?

  A little late.

• 23:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's there, he's, he's got his monk robe on and he's very solemn. There.

• 23:58Chuck Nice?

  Dear Darno Bruno.

• 23:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 24:00Chuck Nice?

  Oh, I can't wait.

• 24:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think it was 1601, something like that, yeah.

• 24:04Chuck Nice?

  That's amazing. Wow, what a great, great story. I love it. Okay, this is Keith Coensberg. Coen- Coensberg. Coenigsberg. Yes.

• 24:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With a K.

• 24:15Chuck Nice?

  With a K.

• 24:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 24:15Chuck Nice?

  Um, Keith says, hello, team, start talk. This is Keith here, writing from New York, New York, big city of dreams. Uh, here's a question I've been wrestling.

• 24:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  First one we've gotten from New York, New York.

• 24:26Chuck Nice?

  That's so true. We don't get a lot of New York, New York people.

• 24:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're right here in my office in the Hayden Plantarium. And, and we, we're getting from Syria, from...

• 24:34Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, Pakistan, from all kinds of Chile.

• 24:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's cool.

• 24:37Chuck Nice?

  He says this, LIGO has used light waves to detect the shrinking and expanding of space caused by passing gravitational waves. But wouldn't the waves be in and out of the material of space? If space expands, don't your light waves stretch along with it? Uh, and any other measuring rod, as Einstein would say, and cancel out the change? So.

• 25:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 25:07Chuck Nice?

  Yes. Okay, explain to me.

• 25:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What the hell?

• 25:12Chuck Nice?

  What the hell he's really asking? Cause I'm confused.

• 25:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What he's saying is we, we have a laser that bounces back and forth.

• 25:18Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? We measure the trip of that laser with very high precision.

• 25:23Chuck Nice?

  Very high precision.

• 25:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What he's asking is, if a gravitational wave washes over the measuring device, how's the measuring device gonna know if everything about it moves with it?

• 25:36Chuck Nice?

  I got you. I got you.

• 25:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 25:40Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if I'm measuring your height, how, how tall are you?

• 25:43Chuck Nice?

  I'm 5'10".

• 25:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You lying low?

• 25:46Chuck Nice?

  No, I'm 5'10".

• 25:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I'll give you 5, like, I'll give you 5'9". That's it. Okay. So you're 5'9" and I have a 5'9" uh, tape measure.

• 25:57Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you look at us as 5'9", right? Okay. Then we stretch both you and the tape measure.

• 26:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're still 5'9".

• 26:06Chuck Nice?

  True.

• 26:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Unless you have some other way to measure what just happened.

• 26:10Chuck Nice?

  Uh, they're called Ron DeSantis heels.

• 26:15Chuck Nice?

  Anyway, sorry, go ahead.

• 26:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. That's like a news item from like eight years ago.

• 26:20Chuck Nice?

  Uh, last year, but okay.

• 26:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Feels like it.

• 26:23Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, it does, doesn't it?

• 26:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, you're absolutely right. If I stretch you and the tape measure, you're still 5'9".

• 26:28Chuck Nice?

  Right. But we're talking about something washing over the measurement system.

• 26:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it, but if, so now watch. It's because of that fact. That LIGO, Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory, has two lasers.

• 26:43Chuck Nice?

  Ah.

• 26:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At right angles to each other.

• 26:47Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 26:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, if one of them stretched, moving that way, it's not stretching the other one. And it's those two path lengths that we compare with each other.

• 26:59Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 27:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's how we know.

• 27:01Chuck Nice?

  That's how we know.

• 27:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If a gravitational wave washed over us. We've got smart people designing this.

• 27:06Chuck Nice?

  That, first of all, is a brilliant question. And secondly, those people, they deserve the money.

• 27:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What money?

• 27:13Chuck Nice?

  Whatever money we gave them to make LIGO.

• 27:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, oh, the, the, the funding.

• 27:17Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 27:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:17Chuck Nice?

  Whatever the funding was, they deserved it.

• 27:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  National Science Foundation, yeah.

• 27:20Chuck Nice?

  They deserved that, cuz that, first of all, what a simple, simple little answer to what could be, um, you know, altered results.

• 27:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right, right.

• 27:31Chuck Nice?

  Interesting. I love it.

• 27:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, 1915.

• 27:34Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Albert Einstein puts forth the general theory of relativity.

• 27:37Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 27:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A year later, he uses the general theory of relativity to predict the existence of gravitational waves.

• 27:45Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But he doesn't think we'll ever detect them.

• 27:48Chuck Nice?

  Of course.

• 27:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cuz the energy level's so low and how's.

• 27:50Chuck Nice?

  How would you detect?

• 27:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is 1916, for goodness sake. Okay? That same year, he publishes a paper on the stimulated emission of radiation.

• 27:59Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 28:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which is the foundation for the laser.

• 28:03Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 28:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  100 years later, in 2016.

• 28:09Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or was it 2015? 99 or 100 years later?

• 28:13Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 28:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We discover gravitational waves using lasers.

• 28:18Chuck Nice?

  Damn. Bro, Einstein was gangster.

• 28:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gangster.

• 28:23Chuck Nice?

  He was gangster.

• 28:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gangster.

• 28:25Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 28:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gangster.

• 28:26Chuck Nice?

  That's like a chicken laying an egg so you can discover a egg.

• 28:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 28:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You made it way less profound than it started out. Normally, you would digest it into something more profound.

• 28:42Chuck Nice?

  I know, and poetic.

• 28:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But that was worse than all counts.

• 28:45Chuck Nice?

  It probably is, yeah.

• 28:48Chuck Nice?

  That's Einstein. He was gangster.

• 28:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gangster.

• 28:50Chuck Nice?

  Oh, yeah, that's dope. Okay, that's really... God, if you... See, this is... You don't love science. Don't get angry with people. This does not make you love science! I swear!

• 29:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm gonna go kick your ass.

• 29:07Chuck Nice?

  You should... You know what? You should go... You should get a... Like, a dumbass poker. Bang, right up. That's what it is. A big poker that's... Brands... Anyway, God help me. So good. That is so good. Okay, Scott Jarboe says this. "Hello, Dynamic Duo. My name is Scott Jarboe from Seattle, Washington, and you mentioned, I believe, recently, that we cannot gather data from sending a probe into a black hole, as we would have no way to transmit any data collected because it could not escape the gravity of the black hole." Okay, so my question is: "Understanding we can't at this time,

• 29:47Chuck Nice?

  if we quantum entangled the instrumentation of the probe with a twin probe that was kept external, could we not record that data that way? And in fact, in general, would that not be a feasible mechanism for interstellar communication in faster-than-light speed? The state of each should instantaneously mirror." Is that correct?

• 30:12Chuck Nice?

  Quantum entangle-

• 30:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm not a black hole entangled expert.

• 30:16Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 30:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, it feels plausible that you should be able to entangle particles even though you lose one of them into the black hole.

• 30:25Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It feels like you should be able to do that.

• 30:29Chuck Nice?

  They should know what the other particle is doing, even though it's inside of a black hole.

• 30:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It should.

• 30:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, and so, someone interacts with the particle that just went into the black hole, which then triggers the measurement of your, the one outside the black hole.

• 30:48Chuck Nice?

  Entangled particle outside of the black hole.

• 30:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that way you knew something happened in the black hole.

• 30:51Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't see why that wouldn't be possible. I don't know what to say.

• 30:57Chuck Nice?

  Oh, you know, I don't know what to say. You don't know what to say.

• 31:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't see why not.

• 31:05Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 31:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, but they wanted to talk about faster than light communication. The problem is, you're not, your, your thing has the information already built into it.

• 31:15Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 31:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can't, after the fact, change that information.

• 31:18Chuck Nice?

  Now that we know.

• 31:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, normally, communication happens where, oh, turn left instead of right.

• 31:25Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 31:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, and if it's already built in, I can't do that.

• 31:29Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 31:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, there's still some jury that's out on how we will fully exploit quantum entanglement as a communication mechanism going forward. And from what I have read, it's less favorable than you want to believe it is.

• 31:46Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 31:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For these reasons.

• 31:47Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 31:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 31:48Chuck Nice?

  Right, all right. This is James Peterson. Hello to my personal astrophysicist and personal science comedian. My name is James Peterson from Lacey, Washington. Here are my scenarios and related questions. Two manned spacecraft are approaching each other at a constant rate within a huge cosmic void. Neither one is accelerating or decelerating. They are, no, there are no other visible or detectable objects within this cosmic void. Just the blackness of the vacuum of space. Neither of them knows if they are moving or stationary. They only know that they are approaching each other at roughly 20% the speed of light. What would be the reference point for each of them to determine their individual velocities,

• 32:32Chuck Nice?

  assuming that they could compare rates of time on their clocks as they pass? Could the relative speed of their clocks be used to determine their individual velocities? And individual velocities relative to what? Everything is relative, you know?

• 32:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do all these people have jobs?

• 32:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To have the time to come up with questions like this?

• 32:57Chuck Nice?

  I know. It's just like, this guy, weren't you satisfied with?

• 33:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Two trains leave the station at the same time. One in Chicago, one in DC. He didn't stop there. He didn't stop there.

• 33:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, what he's not getting right in the question, a simple point, is each of them does not know if they're moving. As far as they're concerned, they're stationary. Right. So he's saying, well, they approach each other. I don't know that. As far as I'm concerned, I am still in a void and I see this other craft coming towards me. Right. There it is. That's the only thing that matters. That's it. That's it. And so I will measure how fast he's moving. Right. There'll be time dilation relative to me as a function of how fast it's going. There's, it's not more complicated than that. That's it. We don't have to do a double calculation. Nothing. Or anything. And we will each measure exactly the same thing about each other.

• 33:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. Because it's relative to the observer. It's relative to them. And so each one of us will see the other ship coming. We will measure that. And we will think we are not moving at all. And we're gonna still stay stationary as far as we're concerned. Correct. And when the, when the ship goes by, it's like, whoa, did you see that? Right. And that's gonna be the end of it. That's the beginning and end of it. Right. And there were jokes back in 1905, when Einstein came out with this for the first time, special relativity. They tried to egg him on, saying, hey Einstein, when does Grand Central Station arrive at the next train?

• 34:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's actually kinda funny.

• 34:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Damn. Boy, haters no matter. I know, I know. There's haters no matter what. I know. Even Einstein had haters. Look at that.

• 35:00Chuck Nice?

  Alright, so this is Vexonar who says greetings Dr. Tyson.

• 35:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's his who?

• 35:04Chuck Nice?

  Vexonar.

• 35:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Vexonar, okay.

• 35:05Chuck Nice?

  Vexonar, who says greetings Dr. Tyson and Lord Nice. What are you putting in your time capsule for the next generation to open?

• 35:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, so, so, so.

• 35:15Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 35:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So.

• 35:18Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 35:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I just gotta say this, okay?

• 35:22Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, and there's a book written on this, I forgot the name of it, forgive me, and I don't remember the author. But, there's nothing less interesting to a subsequent generation than an earlier generation's time capsule.

• 35:36Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 35:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the evidence of this is, nobody remembers where any time capsules are buried. There's ceremony, there's, there's, and, and there's a mayor speaks, and then, and then, as things move on, and culture advances and technology advances, no one cares what your sorry ass from forty years ago thought was modern.

• 36:01Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 36:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, I, I, look at this, a phonograph!

• 36:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was in Flushing Meadow, near the Unisphere.

• 36:13Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 36:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tell everybody what the Unisphere is.

• 36:15Chuck Nice?

  It's the thing outside of the Old World's Fair Stadium, it's a big giant globe, right?

• 36:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's the one that, it's what anyone thinks of when they think of the Flushing Park.

• 36:24Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 36:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, it's Earth, US Steel created this for the World Fair. And there's these three rings around it.

• 36:31Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 36:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Evocative of John Glenn's three orbits around the Earth.

• 36:35Chuck Nice?

  I did not know that.

• 36:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just saying, just saying, so, there I am, this is maybe fifteen years ago, I'm just sitting on a bench, I forgot why I was there, it's, I don't remember, forgive me, I don't remember why I was sitting on a bench in Flushing Meadow, because I don't live in Queens, I was just driving through Queens.

• 36:53Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 36:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I'm sitting there, and I look down. And under the, the, but, under the brush, I part of it. Here is a time capsule from 1965. It was like a, a time capsule buried in that spot. No one cares.

• 37:11Chuck Nice?

  They just put a bench on it.

• 37:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No one cares. There's no, there's no memorial around it, no ceremony, nothing. We have a time capsule for the Rose Center here. And they asked me, what do I want to put in the time capsule? So I thought about it. I said, okay, I, I'll tell you what I put in it. I put a MetroCard in it.

• 37:27Chuck Nice?

  Oh, and guess what? That's a good thing to put in it because they don't exist anymore. So you were ahead of your time.

• 37:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I put in a MetroCard. I think I put in a, a, a, um, an iPod.

• 37:41Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 37:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 37:42Chuck Nice?

  And, and interesting.

• 37:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This was modern stuff.

• 37:46Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 37:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At the time. We were all excited about it, but who cares?

• 37:51Chuck Nice?

  Right. Because like both of those things are non-existent now.

• 37:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're non-existent and no one wants one.

• 37:56Chuck Nice?

  Nobody wants one.

• 37:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No one cares about them. No one wants one. We moved on.

• 38:00Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 38:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I, for me, time capsules, though they mean well.

• 38:04Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think are one of the greatest misplaced investment of our attempt to communicate with the future.

• 38:12Chuck Nice?

  Okay. That's very cool.

• 38:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't want to be victim of that.

• 38:15Chuck Nice?

  I don't, right.

• 38:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So no, I ain't putting.

• 38:17Chuck Nice?

  I'm putting nothing in it. I'm putting, um, the transcript of every speech given by President Trump. Just the transcript. No, no audio and no, just the transcript.

• 38:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just the words.

• 38:28Chuck Nice?

  Just the words.

• 38:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 38:30Chuck Nice?

  So that they could read it and go, what the? What the?

• 38:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Words are the most powerful person in the world.

• 38:38Chuck Nice?

  Exactly. The most powerful man in the world said these words. Okay? That's it. Thomas says this, uh, Dr. Tyson Lord Nice, greetings from Hungary.

• 38:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hungary.

• 38:49Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, way to go. In an earlier episode, Dr. Tyson said, uh, that mathematically, the horizon of the universe has all the same properties as the event horizon of a black hole. That got me thinking, if our universe would be a black hole, knowing that gravity has no limits on range.

• 39:07Chuck Nice?

  The continuous falling in of matter into our black hole universe explain accelerating expansion of our universe? And if that would be the case, is there any possible way to detect such matter? Since it would be at the edge of our known universe? Thank you for your work.

• 39:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would be true. Good question. That would be true if

• 39:31Chuck Nice?

  if

• 39:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  we were not

• 39:33Chuck Nice?

  expanding

• 39:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  exponential.

• 39:35Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 39:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so the fabric of the universe is expanding and because of that, there's nothing falling in.

• 39:41Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 39:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's taking it with it out to the edges.

• 39:44Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 39:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, but if we were not that way, we just had our horizon, an object moving could just kind of cross our horizon and show up. And it'll just show up. Okay, if it moves in that way. Or you wait enough time, I should say that differently. Wait enough time that horizon washes over the next set of galaxies that are sitting there waiting to be seen by you. Because right now the horizon is 14 billion light years away. Wait a billion years. Then it's 15 billion. That's a whole extra universe that's in your horizon.

• 40:19Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 40:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, the scariest day of them all will be?

• 40:23Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 40:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You wait another billion years. And there's no new galaxies to reveal themselves.

• 40:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And meant you reach the

• 40:31Chuck Nice?

  Actual

• 40:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  edge of the universe.

• 40:35Chuck Nice?

  Yes, not just the observable universe, but the

• 40:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The edge of the whole universe itself. That's a scary day right there.

• 40:42Chuck Nice?

  That's, that's kind of a cool day though.

• 40:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's kind of cool.

• 40:45Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 40:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it also means cosmology will evaporate. Because at that distance, we're seeing things that are that old getting born. But if there's nothing there, then the galaxies that a billion years ago were just born, they're now a billion years old.

• 41:02Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And another billion years, they're two billion years old. There's nobody new coming in that's just being born.

• 41:07Chuck Nice?

  Mm hmm.

• 41:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gone is cosmology.

• 41:09Chuck Nice?

  Look at that.

• 41:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 41:10Chuck Nice?

  Wow, that is a scary day.

• 41:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I have it on my calendar.

• 41:16Chuck Nice?

  All right, this is Bill.

• 41:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This might be the last question, I think.

• 41:18Chuck Nice?

  Okay, last question. Bill gets the last question. Bill says, hi, Dr. Tyson, Lord, nice. This is Bill. I made it easy for Chuck to say, shut up, Bill.

• 41:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is how you pronounce Bill.

• 41:33Chuck Nice?

  He says from Ba- uh, Benoch, uh, Benoch Scotland. And he says, I need some cheering up considering the state of the earth in a few hundred years. Maybe sooner if he whose name we shall not mention gets his way. From now, when humankind has finally turned Mother Earth against us. Which species that exists just now, would you imagine will pick up the cloak of dominance that we humans held for a few thousand years? Will they have, will they be land based, sky or sea based? Or even amphibious? What is it about the species that leads you to that conclusion? Or do you see a bright future for us?

• 42:18Chuck Nice?

  And what that future would look like in the event we are still here in 25, 25? Ooh. A, a, a, a question that is, um, I'll say laced with hope, but yet very dark. Very dark and daunting.

• 42:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, yes, it's both hopeful and darkful.

• 42:40Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 42:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, uh, I have some important replies to that.

• 42:45Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 42:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So first, there's a book written, forgive me, I don't remember the author. It's called After Man.

• 42:51Chuck Nice?

  After Man?

• 42:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Something like that.

• 42:53Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 42:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 42:54Chuck Nice?

  And is that like?

• 42:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What it does is it renders humans extinct. And it looks at other animals to see what would become of them.

• 43:05Chuck Nice?

  Oh, I thought it was a woman who left her husband for a lesbian relationship. After Man. I am so much happier, I can't tell you how much better it is with no man.

• 43:19Chuck Nice?

  Which by the way, seems to be the consensus.

• 43:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Apparently.

• 43:22Chuck Nice?

  Anyway.

• 43:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so.

• 43:25Chuck Nice?

  After Man.

• 43:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so I looked it over. I didn't read every word, but there's, it's highly illustrated. It's intriguing.

• 43:31Chuck Nice?

  It is.

• 43:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 43:32Chuck Nice?

  To think about.

• 43:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, now.

• 43:34Chuck Nice?

  Cause who would have bet on us?

• 43:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Consider, what's the largest?

• 43:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Animal there ever was. Um, from what I understand, it is the blue whale. And it is alive today. It's alive today. What kind of animal is it? It is a mammal. Mammal? Yes. Uh, do you know the size of the smallest mammal? Um, I don't, but I think it's pretty small. It's can fit inside of it like a teacup. Yeah. It's like this big. Yeah. I think it's a marsupial. Yeah, it's like a little shrew. Marsupials are mammals, I think. Marsupials are mammals. It's some little thing. Yeah. Okay, this big and the whale. So mammals have the capacity to not only occupy practically any size range. Uh huh. But practically any place on earth, they can figure out how to live there. And we are on every place on earth. Basically. Where even.

• 44:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We saw bacteria, but, but in terms of animals. We're a different kind of bacteria. We're more like a virus. No, I'm talking human beings. So unlike reptiles and other cold-blooded creatures, they can't exist. Right. In, in cold climates. Right. Right? Cause they would just freeze and die. But we maintain our body temperature, no matter where we are. All right. The reason why I'm saying this is this book said, if that's the case. What's limiting the size of rats? Um, I don't know. I'm gonna tell you, you ready? Go ahead. I could be wrong, but just, just put it out there. Cats?

• 44:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The size of, not New York rats. Yeah. The size of the hole they will run into so that you don't harm them. Really? Okay. Okay. Just think about that. Yeah. Go look in the subway, you see rats? Yeah. They'll crawl and there's a hole they go into. There always is. There always is. No matter what rat you're talking about. There always is. Right. There's a hole. Yeah. Okay. If humans aren't here, they don't need the hole. Oof. Which is why you get some, they're not rats, but they are a part of rodentia in certain parts of the world where they're as big as like. Like a copy bar. A small horse. Like a copy bar. The biggest rodent is, is right. Right.

• 45:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So rodents, which are one of the most successful.

• 45:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Branches in the tree of life. Yeah. For how many they are and how many species they are. Mm hmm. Okay. How many species are there in the branch called Homo? I don't know. One. One. It's Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens. We're the only ones left. Left. Correct. When you say how many species, I was. They were. Trying to think. We're the only ones left. Denisovians. That makes us. Homo erectus. Fragile. Right. On the tree of life. Yeah. Rodents. So many of them. So many of them. Okay, so this book foresees that basically rodents take over. And they become huge, like people sized. Oh. Like rats. Oh. That are people sized. That's scary. And they don't, there's nothing that. And nothing to stop them. Nothing to stop them. Ah. Nothing to stop them. You dirty rat.

• 46:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it talks about, uh, uh, aquatic creatures. Right. What is it? The penguin gets really large or something? Right. The, so when you take away a predator, you don't, there's no longer a limit on the size of what it is. Okay. So, Earth after humans, uh, I picture a natural history museum. With a bunch of giant rats walking through. Walking through. Looking at us. I know. And it's, oh, mommy daddy, what's that? And there's like hu- human skeletons there and say. Oh, those were called dumbasses.

• 47:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They used to run the earth at one point, sweetie. And then they. I was talking about the dinosaur. They ruled the earth. Yeah, yeah. So these dumbasses, what they liked to do was burn stuff. Dig it out of the ground and burn it, sweetie. And, and they would burn it and it would release something called carbon into the atmosphere. And then they all died and now we run the stuff. And they kill each other for any reason at all? And they also like to kill each other, you know? So, so that's the future of Earth. Because Earth and other life forms are gonna survive us. Right. For sure. Right. Exactly. All right, so, don't, no, this all is talked about, this green movement, save Earth? No. Earth's gonna be fine. Save your ass. That's what you need to do. Oh. Earth gonna be fine. Save your ass. Yo ass.

• 47:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That makes a lesser poster of a march. Exactly. Save your ass. Save your ass. Okay. All right. So, but in terms of hope. In terms of hope. Here's the hope. Mm hmm. A boy here is from Scotland. That's right. I gave a public talk a few nights ago. Someone asked me, what was my favorite song ever? Really? And you know what I told them? What? Amazing Grace. Okay. I think that's a song of a millennium. Amazing Grace. It's a beautiful song. It's a beautiful song. And you know how it's most beautiful-est? Okay, no? In bagpipes. Okay. I'm not a fan of bagpipes. You would be if you heard it and play Amazing Grace. You know? That's all I'm saying. Okay.

• 48:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm a- And bagpipes, that's a Scottish thing. It really is. So what I'm saying is, when life and the world gets us down, we should hear chorus of bagpipes

• 48:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  performing Amazing Grace. How sweet the sound. The savior of- The savior of wretch like me. Cause we're all wretches and we need saving. It's true. From each other. So Scotland may, may be the savior of us all. Well, look at that. All right, we gotta go. We gotta go, right? Oh, man, man. That was fun. That was so much fun. All right. This has been yet another Cosmic Queries, what kind of edition? This is Cosmic Queries Grab Bag. Grab Bag with Chuck Nice, of course. Neil deGrasse Tyson here, your personal astrophysicist. Always good to have you, Chuck. Always a pleasure. As always. Keep looking up.