#ICYMI - Space Jam: Basketball Cosmic Queries, with Neil deGrasse Tyson

Neil deGrasse Tyson joins hosts Gary O’Reilly and Chuck Nice to answer fan submitted questions about the physics of basketball, Michael Jordan, and the impact of race on athletic performance. (Warning: Adult Language.) Don’t miss an episode of Playing with Science. Subscribe to our channels on: TuneIn: tunein.com/playingwithscience Apple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/playing-with-science/id1198280360 GooglePlay Music: https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0#/ps/Iimke5bwpoh2nb25swchmw6kzjq SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/startalk_playing-with-science Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/startalk/playing-with-science NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/space-jam-basketball-cosmic-queries-with-neil-degrasse-tyson/

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

• 0:10Gary O'Reilly?

  I'm Gary O'Reilly.

• 0:11Chuck Nice?

  And I'm Chuck Nice.

• 0:12Gary O'Reilly?

  And this is Playing with Science. Today, we throw ourselves deep into the cosmos and plot a course for the superstars of a faraway galaxy known by those who search such stars as the NBA Nebula.

• 0:25Chuck Nice?

  Oh, man, I like what you did there, Gary. Yeah, that was a like, that was a really cosmological NBA reference thing. Well, guess what? We're armed only with our enduring minds and our listeners' fabulously creative questions, because we're going to trek towards those faraway stars. And our guide for this journey is none other than the one, the only, your very own personal astrophysicist, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson. Is he like my...

• 0:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would you get low.

• 0:57Gary O'Reilly?

  So let's not waste any time. Let's make some space jam, shall we?

• 1:04Chuck Nice?

  I don't know why, but just hearing you say, "Let's make some space jam," just...

• 1:08Gary O'Reilly?

  It's like the Great British Bake Off, only in space. But I think, Neil, the way I've introduced the show might be flawed slightly.

• 1:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, NBA Nebula, I love it.

• 1:18Gary O'Reilly?

  Do you?

• 1:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We have nebula, nebulosities across the cosmos, named for whatever they happen to look like.

• 1:24Gary O'Reilly?

  Ooh!

• 1:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We have a crab nebula, the North American Nebula, the, we have the Eagle Nebula. They just look like...

• 1:32Chuck Nice?

  Whatever it looks like.

• 1:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whatever it looks like.

• 1:33Chuck Nice?

  Let me ask you this about nebulae, because there are big giant clouds of space gas, right?

• 1:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nebula is like Latin for cloud.

• 1:40Chuck Nice?

  That's what it is, yeah. Big giant cloud of space gas. But since it's a cloud...

• 1:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 1:46Chuck Nice?

  Wouldn't they change shape over a period of time?

• 1:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:50Chuck Nice?

  Ah.

• 1:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You just don't live long enough to watch that happen, okay?

• 1:53Chuck Nice?

  So the Eagle Nebula will remain the Eagle Nebula as long as I'm alive.

• 1:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, it's, I mean, it's huge. You're talking about something that's hundreds of times bigger than the solar system.

• 2:02Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not going to just sort of move around, yeah, and be, be anything it wants in any given moment.

• 2:07Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 2:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so you do see some changes deep down where stars are being born, this sort of thing. But overall, these structures have a certain permanency to them.

• 2:18Chuck Nice?

  Sweet. All right. And now, remember, this is a sports show, okay? So we're gonna get back to our sports. It is a science sports show.

• 2:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 2:25Chuck Nice?

  Okay, and that was science, that was science, all right? So how are we gonna get to the sports? Because what we're doing today is we're taking.

• 2:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I have no idea what you're doing today.

• 2:31Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that's right, you're a guest.

• 2:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I'm a guest.

• 2:33Chuck Nice?

  Normally, you're driving this bus.

• 2:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I ain't driving this bus.

• 2:36Gary O'Reilly?

  You got a ticket.

• 2:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The short bus.

• 2:38Chuck Nice?

  Apparently, that's when I'm driving it.

• 2:41Gary O'Reilly?

  Well, check Neo's ticket, yes.

• 2:43Chuck Nice?

  They're like, wait a minute, who, who let that kid drive the bus?

• 2:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Drive the bus.

• 2:47Chuck Nice?

  Uh huh, yeah. All right, so today, what we're doing is we're answering your listener questions submitted about, uh, our Kareem Abdul-Jabbar show that, uh.

• 2:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was fun, I really enjoyed that, I really enjoyed that.

• 2:57Chuck Nice?

  That aired on Nat Geo a little while ago, and so, uh, we only got to answer a couple of them the first time around. So we took the rest of them, we figured, hey, why not, uh, revisit this and dedicate a show? And have your personal astrophysicist come back and answer these questions.

• 3:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, let's do that.

• 3:12Chuck Nice?

  Let's do it. First one, go ahead, Gary.

• 3:14Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay, so this is from Ranjib Rudra on Facebook.

• 3:18Chuck Nice?

  Oh my God, that was great, look at you, you practiced.

• 3:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's showing off, he's showing off.

• 3:23Chuck Nice?

  This is not cool, because everyone knows.

• 3:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He rolled his R, he.

• 3:26Chuck Nice?

  Oh, man.

• 3:27Gary O'Reilly?

  Namaste.

• 3:28Chuck Nice?

  And everybody knows that I never, ever prepare, and so therefore I look stupid. And now I gotta start preparing, because you just made me look dumb.

• 3:36Gary O'Reilly?

  No, you just gotta learn to roll your Rs. So namaste from New Delhi. Which is obviously a very, very interesting place to be. Which planet in our solar system?

• 3:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But is that called Delhi now? I thought they.

• 3:47Gary O'Reilly?

  No, no, no, no. India kinda got rebranded and they changed a whole load of names that were associated with

• 3:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But New Delhi is still New Delhi.

• 3:54Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, New Delhi is New Delhi. Bombay became Mumbai.

• 3:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mumbai.

• 3:59Gary O'Reilly?

  Calcutta became Kolkata.

• 4:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Kolkata?

• 4:02Gary O'Reilly?

  Madras.

• 4:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Kolkata.

• 4:04Gary O'Reilly?

  Kolkata. No, Kolkata. So then, Madras. You say whatever you wish, sir. Madras became Chennai. Right, that's enough of the geography and history.

• 4:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, but, but, that happened in China as well. And when Peking became Beijing, but they didn't change Peking duck. To Beijing duck. Yeah, it's still Peking duck. Absolutely. And I'm pissed off at that. Why? I don't know. Change it, change it. Beijing duck doesn't seem like I would like. And it's still Bombay gin, it's not Mumbai gin.

• 4:37Gary O'Reilly?

  Trade name.

• 4:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 4:38Gary O'Reilly?

  There you go. So, right, okay. Which planet in our solar system would be the best for having a game filled with super cool, high-flying dunks? This would mean greater hang time in the air. Take it away, sir.

• 4:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, ooh, so we're talking about basketball here.

• 4:53Gary O'Reilly?

  We are all about the NBA and the superstars within it.

• 4:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The National Basketball Association.

• 4:59Gary O'Reilly?

  Correct.

• 5:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so here's the thing, you don't want the gravity to be too low.

• 5:06Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 5:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. Because you know what'll happen, because these guys can jump, right?

• 5:09Gary O'Reilly?

  For sure.

• 5:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you want to talk about hang time? If the object has a low enough gravity, then you will jump and achieve escape velocity and just never come back. So that's the limit. By the way, that's the game I want to watch. Everybody jumps. Everybody jumps and just disappear. Next group comes in, next group comes in. Nobody comes back.

• 5:29Gary O'Reilly?

  It's gonna cost an awful lot in uniforms.

• 5:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so there's that limit. Then you don't want a limit, the other limit where the gravity's so heavy, your muscles can't get you off the ground at all, right? So, we know what Earth is like.

• 5:44Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 5:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And is that not enough acrobatics for this person from New Delhi?

• 5:50Gary O'Reilly?

  No, no, Ranjib is possibly exploring the fact that what actually would happen.

• 5:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 5:55Gary O'Reilly?

  Would we, would we see?

• 5:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think the moon is pretty good. Mars would be good too, but moon would be better. Okay, so here's what they are, just to remind you. Mars has about forty percent of Earth gravity.

• 6:07Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 6:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if you're two hundred pounds on Mars, on Earth, you are forty percent, you'd be eighty pounds on Mars. So what that means is all your musculature. All the strength of those muscles that's accustomed to moving gracefully 200 pounds, because you guys are all 200 pounds at least, okay? Um, because now, I mean, in my day, they were like 160, 70, 80 pounds. That's before the

• 6:29Chuck Nice?

  Everybody's working out.

• 6:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everybody's working out now.

• 6:31Chuck Nice?

  Weight training.

• 6:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, weight training. So 200 pounds is a good average weight if you want to think about it. So, think about the strength you have to move your own body gracefully. And now, at 200 pounds, now you weigh 80 pounds. So now, you, you can jump much higher, your hang time is much longer, and you're already acrobatic, now you could do a triple, um, pirouette dunk. Because your hang time allows it. So Earth men become supermen on Mars. Earth men become supermen on Mars. That's correct. Now, that's 40% your weight. Now, you want, you get used to that, and now this person writes in, "You Mars basketball players, I want, I want to do C1 more, one up on that."

• 7:12Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now you go to the moon. So now if you're 200 pounds on Earth, you'd be 32 pounds on the moon.

• 7:19Chuck Nice?

  Whoa.

• 7:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So now you'd be even lighter. And a little-known fact is that the, the, the, the body weight plus equipment of the astronauts on the moon

• 7:29Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 7:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  was like 350 pounds.

• 7:31Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there they were skipping like, not even a thing.

• 7:33Chuck Nice?

  Right. Like, like they were little, little, little, um, after their little lambs. There you go.

• 7:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, if they're 350 pounds on the moon, they're like, they're like 50 pounds here. We have one-sixth of that.

• 7:45Chuck Nice?

  But did, now see, on the moon, when the, when you would see the guys skipping along, as you said, with this 350 pounds worth of equipment on them, they looked a little more bouncy. So they went up and they came down slowly.

• 7:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's because, not only are they lighter, you fall slower.

• 7:59Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 8:01Chuck Nice?

  So you go up slower?

• 8:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, so now we've got hang time. So there's where the hang time comes in. Okay? So, so You don't go up, you will come down as fast as you went up, is what I'm saying. But if you go up fast, you'll go that much higher. So here's the thing. So, so you could be sawed, depending on how high the basket is. If the basket is still 10 feet up, you gotta, everybody be waiting around. Waiting for you to come down. Come down.

• 8:24Gary O'Reilly?

  See, how long's a game gonna last?

• 8:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it'll be longer. Right, right. So, so what you really would have to do would be raise. Raise the basket. Raise the basket. And then you just have more high-flying stunts within a game. Correct. And you can imagine, remember those few moves that I first saw Michael Jordan do it? Surely it's been done since then, where Michael Jordan was going with one hand, changed his mind. Right. Changed hands, and flipped, came to the other side of the basket and put the ball in. Yep. Now, you could do that, you could like change your mind four or five times.

• 8:53Gary O'Reilly?

  So, all of a sudden, you've introduced freestyling.

• 8:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Freestyle, yeah, exactly. There's enough time.

• 8:58Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 8:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To do a freestyle shot. Improv. And maybe there'll be judges for how beautiful the shot was. Yeah, I like it.

• 9:04Gary O'Reilly?

  Right, okay.

• 9:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Improv B-ball. Oh, my gosh! Make it up new sports that will never, ever happen. You come down on the left side, I come down on the right side, and I pass to you, you pass back to me. I throw it behind my back, someone shows up behind me, it goes down, back up. Because what you've effectively done is added a third dimension to the maneuverings of the ball.

• 9:25Gary O'Reilly?

  So what would we call, so we have the Harlem Globetrotters here, what are we gonna call ourselves on the moon?

• 9:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh. Ooh.

• 9:32Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay, you, you think about that one, and we're going to our next question. Asella Ikana Yake on Facebook, if I've mispronounced your name, I am sincerely sorry.

• 9:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's more like it, though.

• 9:44Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, that's just to keep Chuck happy.

• 9:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now I'm feeling you, Gary.

• 9:47Gary O'Reilly?

  There you go. If, and this follows on the trend, so if we were to play basketball on Mars or Europa, would people who are taller and bigger have an extra advantage?

• 9:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, go ahead. Well, so...

• 10:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everything scales. So if you jump higher than another person on Earth, you will still jump higher than that person on another planet.

• 10:10Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, so that's just, that's just how that works.

• 10:13Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, the competition will not change.

• 10:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're not, unless you, you, except, it may open up certain, as we said a moment ago, it might open up certain acrobatic moves that would just be gorgeous to look at. Because you have a third dimension in which this can occur.

• 10:27Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 10:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Think about it. If I'm trying to pass a ball, okay? Everybody's got long arms, so I can't toss it high. Somebody's gonna reach out and grab it. I have to toss it quickly and at chess level. And I only do it when I can, okay? Maybe it's a bounce pass, but that's it. If people are rising up and down, like son of Flubber in the basketball game in that movie, then the ball, the trajectories of the ball can become much more interesting. And many more kinds of acrobatic plays could then be.

• 10:56Chuck Nice?

  Alright, you touched on something. I gotta tell you something, man. You just gave me a, what a great idea. Wait, it's so good. I don't even know if I should share it.

• 11:05Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh.

• 11:06Chuck Nice?

  The general public, but you just gave me an idea. Who cares? I'm never gonna make it, so I'll just put it out there.

• 11:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's that?

• 11:12Chuck Nice?

  You know they have these NBA video games where you play NBA?

• 11:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh huh.

• 11:17Chuck Nice?

  NBA space video game, so.

• 11:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Change the gravity.

• 11:21Chuck Nice?

  Change the gravity. You can change the gravity and change the game.

• 11:25Gary O'Reilly?

  That's trademarked.

• 11:26Chuck Nice?

  That would be awesome.

• 11:27Gary O'Reilly?

  That's trademarked StarTalk playing with science. That's ours. Ours.

• 11:31Chuck Nice?

  That would be awesome.

• 11:31Gary O'Reilly?

  Ownership in this room right now.

• 11:33Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that's a brilliant idea.

• 11:33Gary O'Reilly?

  So now here's, Alura Dirk from Instagram. Would a basketball still bounce in space?

• 11:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay. So a couple of things there.

• 11:42Gary O'Reilly?

  Thank you.

• 11:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So.

• 11:43Chuck Nice?

  Wait, wait, wait. I wanna up the ante on this, though.

• 11:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 11:46Chuck Nice?

  I wanna fill the basketball with air from Earth. And then I wanna fill the basketball with the same atmosphere that you would have wherever you're playing. What, what, what? Okay, so for instance, fill the basketball.

• 11:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did I, did I, did I? No, no, Chuck went off on one.

• 12:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Truck derail.

• 12:05Chuck Nice?

  This is what happens when I start thinking.

• 12:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, yeah.

• 12:08Chuck Nice?

  You can tell, it's not good. Okay, so, for instance, you're on the moon, right? And the ball is filled with air.

• 12:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 12:16Chuck Nice?

  Okay, so you're bouncing the ball on the moon and it's filled with air.

• 12:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Earth air.

• 12:19Chuck Nice?

  Okay, now, you're on Mars and the ball is filled with Martian atmosphere.

• 12:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 12:25Chuck Nice?

  And you're bouncing the ball on Mars. What would be the difference?

• 12:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, here's the thing. So you have the ball on Earth. And I forgot what pressure, is it nine pounds or something like?

• 12:35Chuck Nice?

  Something like that.

• 12:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Twelve pounds. Yes, I forgot what, but it's somewhere around there.

• 12:38Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not thirty, it's not a hundred, like your bicycle tire, okay? So, that pressure is what it is pushing against atmospheric pressure.

• 12:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, that's how that works. So, so for example, if you partially filled the ball, so it's only like, so it's, it's like.

• 12:56Chuck Nice?

  Squishy.

• 12:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So dude, you haven't finished.

• 12:58Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you bring it to higher altitudes, where the outside air pressure is lower.

• 13:04Chuck Nice?

  The ball inflates.

• 13:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The ball inflates.

• 13:05Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 13:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, so you wanna make sure that you don't overfill it in one kind of atmosphere and take it to another planet. Cause then the thing will just explode.

• 13:16Chuck Nice?

  So it's all about the atmosphere pressure, it doesn't make a difference.

• 13:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Relative to the air inside.

• 13:20Chuck Nice?

  It doesn't make a difference.

• 13:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it doesn't make a difference what's in it, basically.

• 13:23Chuck Nice?

  Got it.

• 13:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Doesn't make a difference what's in it, okay, so that's first fact. Second fact, uh, the, the leather on the ball, I think it's cow leather rather than pigskin, like a football would be.

• 13:33Chuck Nice?

  Okay, yeah.

• 13:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Have you, have you ever looked inside a basketball?

• 13:37Chuck Nice?

  I can't say that I have.

• 13:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, there's a rubber inner bladder.

• 13:40Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, there's a bladder.

• 13:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, there's a bladder in there. And I've peeled off the leather and just inflate the bladder, you can make it like this big, it's kinda cool.

• 13:48Chuck Nice?

  This man dissects a basketball.

• 13:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As a kid, I, you know, you do that. I love it. What's that? An experiment. Well, I took apart every ball I ever played with, just to see what was inside.

• 13:57Chuck Nice?

  Not every ball.

• 13:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Popular. Not every ball.

• 13:59Chuck Nice?

  Not every ball.

• 14:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That I played with.

• 14:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are we still on the air?

• 14:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Playing with science after hours. Yeah. No, no, for me, the one, one of the most interesting ones was taking part of baseball. Oh, sweet. Yeah, because there's this long, there's this. Isn't a string inside of baseball? It's not string, it's like a rubber, it's like a rubber string, if you will, yeah, yeah. But just keep unraveling and then there's like another thing inside and when I had had liquid in it, I mean, it just, there was a whole universe inside the baseball. Sweet. So, so here's the thing, that if the basketball gets cold. Okay. Okay. Oh, now we've introduced temperature. Yeah, I know, here you go.

• 14:39Chuck Nice?

  Talking about shrinkage now.

• 14:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're definitely, we're definitely.

• 14:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 14:46Chuck Nice?

  I understand, yeah, I know, I know you're a pro basketball player, but even you, sir.

• 14:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To the elements. So here's what, so here's what happened.

• 14:56Chuck Nice?

  It was cold. Okay, go ahead.

• 14:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here's what happened, so on Earth, in a, in a basketball arena, temperature's 70 degrees, plus or minus, okay. If you go to a colder environment like Mars, Mars is 200 degrees below zero. Oh. Okay, so what will happen is the rubber on the inside freezes.

• 15:11Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 15:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And rubber loses its flexibility and it's sort of restoring force the colder it gets. Mm-hmm. We learned that, well, we've always known it, but tragic evidence of that was the loss of Challenger. Back in 1986. Yes. The space shuttle.

• 15:29Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 15:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, here's what happened.

• 15:31Chuck Nice?

  Please tell me.

• 15:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here's what happened.

• 15:32Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 15:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, so the O-rings that connect the segments of the solid rocket boosters, they're, they're O-rings. They're rubber, okay?

• 15:41Chuck Nice?

  Like washers.

• 15:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, and so the temperature was lower than anyone had tested this before in that place. And so the O-rings lost their.

• 15:54Chuck Nice?

  Their resiliency.

• 15:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Their resiliency, and so they could not sustain the binding between the segments. And become brittle. Fuel, yes, so fuel spilled out, and once that happens, it ignites and you lose the whole equilibrium. So, so you, you would, you would need a warmed arena. On Mars, so that you're not playing in the 200 degree below zero conditions. That's what you need. And on the moon, where there's, Mars doesn't have ozone either to protect it from ultraviolet. But on the moon, especially there's no atmosphere or anything, you could bounce the ball, but on the daytime side of the moon, it's very hot. It's like a couple hundred degrees above zero.

• 16:33Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 16:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so you might melt the butter, melt the butter.

• 16:36Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, melt the butter. Let's do that.

• 16:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Melt the rubber. And so, so you, so you, keep in mind, we invented balls to play with in our own atmospheric and temperature conditions. That's what I'm saying. Think about it. Okay?

• 16:51Chuck Nice?

  I am thinking about it. That's why I'm silent.

• 16:53Gary O'Reilly?

  That's why you're giggling. Listen, look at him.

• 16:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Think about it. Hockey doesn't require that the puck bounce.

• 17:00Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 17:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because it's sitting on ice.

• 17:02Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 17:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So though it's a rubber puck.

• 17:04Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 17:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's, it's rubber because it's, it can, it can, well, excuse me, it can careen off of things, but it's not bouncing the way you would bounce a ball.

• 17:11Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 17:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the puck is going to be basically the temperature of the ice. If you leave it there long enough.

• 17:16Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 17:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. So you don't need that feature of the puck to be active. But you would in a basketball, that's all.

• 17:22Gary O'Reilly?

  All right. So we are going to take our first break. We're going to be discussing during that period, heated ball courts, temperature controlled balls, Chuck, no giggling, and then we'll come back and we'll get on with the rest of our cosmic query about basketball. See you shortly.

• 17:42Gary O'Reilly?

  Welcome back. I'm Gary O'Reilly.

• 17:44Chuck Nice?

  I'm Chuck Nice.

• 17:45Gary O'Reilly?

  And this is Playing with Science, and this is our cosmic query with your incredibly fabulous questions about basketball. So Chuck.

• 17:53Chuck Nice?

  We are sitting here, we forgot to say who we're sitting here with, just to reset the room and let people know that joining us today and answering all of your cosmic queries is none other than your very own personal astrophysicist.

• 18:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Only the ones I know the answer to.

• 18:05Chuck Nice?

  Only the ones, which is all of them. That is Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, who you hear.

• 18:10Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes. The good doctor is with us.

• 18:13Chuck Nice?

  So I was told that segment two is going to be all about balls, and I am absolutely giddy. So here's. Our first question from James Kultus, who says, what are the physics behind the basketball itself? How do the dimples affect its performance in play? By the way, love the new show. Well, thanks, James.

• 18:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes. So it's a great question, because that's borrowing a cue from golf, where the dimples in a golf ball significantly increase how far you can hit it.

• 18:45Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 18:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so as far as I know, and have ever experimented, the texture on the surface of a basketball has no meaningful value to the play of the ball, other than giving it texture for you.

• 19:03Chuck Nice?

  The happy quality of grip.

• 19:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To palm the ball.

• 19:05Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 19:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? And if the ball were completely smooth, it would restrict how much control you have over the ball.

• 19:12Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 19:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that's, you need it for, for, for.

• 19:14Chuck Nice?

  For that devastating crossover, where I broke your ankles and went to the hole. Take that, your mama doing good luck no more.

• 19:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a good, that's a good your mama joke. So you, to be able to control the ball, moving left and right, up and down, while you're airborne, so that texture matters. And so, other than that, aerodynamically, the ball's not moving fast enough.

• 19:41Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 19:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's not in the air long enough. I mean, think of a golf ball, how fast it moves, how long it's in the air.

• 19:50Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 19:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, so I, I don't, if it has an effect, I don't know of it. It'd be interesting if someone did some other experiments to determine that. Now.

• 19:59Chuck Nice?

  Now, what about the seams, then? Because, you know, basketball has a very specific.

• 20:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is specific, but some of that's just tradition. I mean, yeah, yeah, again, I'm, you know, it's not like, let me make sure the seams are this way so that it bounces correctly. This is not anybody, nobody's.

• 20:12Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 20:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's not a thing.

• 20:14Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 20:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? And, and unlike in soccer, where the valve changes the weight balance of the ball, so if you kick it with a spin in a particular way, the weight of that valve can give it extra movement in one way or another.

• 20:30Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 20:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In a basketball, the basketball is much heavier than a soccer ball.

• 20:34Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 20:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, I don't know, maybe twice, I don't know, we'll have to look it up.

• 20:38Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, it's a little heavier, I'm sure.

• 20:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, that means the weight of the valve is less compared to the total weight of the ball.

• 20:44Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 20:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so therefore, it's not going to be torquing it as, as much as anything else. So, but here's what's important. Any good ball that you're gonna play with has, let me back up. There are two kinds of collisions that you can have in physics. Okay. An inelastic collision or an elastic collision. Mm-hmm. Okay. Elastic or inelastic. Mm-hmm. And all collisions are one or the other or some combination of the two. So let me give you the extremes. Inelastic collision would be two hot marshmallows colliding. Ooh, that sounds delicious and very sexy. Two hot marshmallows. Right. They, they stick. They, they stuck. They're there, bada bing. There you go. Now take two superballs. Okay. Right.

• 21:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bounce them, they will just immediately bounce off one another. Right. So one is inelastic, the other is elastic. Okay. So in a perfectly elastic collision, such as with a superball comes closest to it. Do they still call them superball? Yeah. Yeah, okay. You drop it, it comes maybe ninety percent up the height from where you let it go. Right. Yes, yes. Other balls, halfway up, a third of the way up. A racquetball, not a racquetball, a, a squash ball. Squash ball. Oh man, forget it. Doesn't do anything. It's a tenth of the way up. Exactly. So. Don't worry squash ball, that happens to lots of balls. Go ahead. So, so you can say, well, where does the energy go? Uh-uh. When it collides? Cause otherwise bouncing, all the energy's still, still at it.

• 22:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Kinetically, if they collide and stick, the energy goes back into the thing itself. And that's why in the racket sports, they always say, let's warm up the ball first. You're right. Okay. That's true. Gotta warm up the ball. So two ways you'll do that. One, with a squash ball, that's just absorbing the heat, cause it's not coming out any other way. Yeah. And with racquetballs, which are bouncier. If you compress the ball, the ball wants to pop back into shape. Right. But the air inside got compressed. Okay, you're pumping energy every time you hit it into the ball. And the temperature of the ball rises because of that. So, a basketball is mostly elastic, okay? So, it bounces nicely and the more air you put in it, the more elastic it gets.

• 22:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because if it's, if it's, if you, it's only got half air.

• 23:01Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you collide it, it'll, the energy will go to squish it and mush it and then it's like.

• 23:06Chuck Nice?

  There's a loss of energy.

• 23:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a loss of, a loss of kinetic energy. So, you, you, you pump it up and then you, and you don't want to put too much in because then it'll bust. But you put the right amount and that's all been measured and it wouldn't care about it. And then it bounces beautifully.

• 23:20Chuck Nice?

  And that is why Tom Brady doesn't play basketball.

• 23:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because he's, he underplays. I'm just wondering, is there a deformation element? Yes, yes. So, you don't see this because it happens too fast. And people really didn't appreciate it until high-speed film was introduced. Oh, oh, can I tell, do we have time for? We do have time. You got a minute for this?

• 23:41Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 23:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. You ever see those photos of a bullet going through a balloon?

• 23:45Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 23:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Through an apple?

• 23:47Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 23:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You ever see these, these things?

• 23:48Chuck Nice?

  Yes, I love them.

• 23:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You ever wonder how, how you get that?

• 23:53Chuck Nice?

  How you get the bullet?

• 23:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We, we had, we had, we had photography for a hundred years.

• 23:58Chuck Nice?

  Oh, you mean the high-speed film?

• 23:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, shutter speed? It's not just shutter speed.

• 24:03Chuck Nice?

  I would say that.

• 24:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not just shutter speed.

• 24:05Chuck Nice?

  No, you have to speed the film up.

• 24:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I, I, fine, but it's not just shutter speed.

• 24:10Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 24:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? Because you, we, we could have had short shutter speed long ago.

• 24:13Chuck Nice?

  Yes, we could have.

• 24:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And ain't about that. It's how much light?

• 24:17Chuck Nice?

  Oh!

• 24:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Can you put on that instant?

• 24:20Chuck Nice?

  That makes sense.

• 24:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that when you open your shutter, you see what's going on. And the light can't just stay on because it'll blur the whole thing.

• 24:29Chuck Nice?

  Right, so it has to strobe at a speed at the same amount that the, that the frame, that the, that the film is going through.

• 24:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 24:37Chuck Nice?

  So, the, oh!

• 24:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 24:38Chuck Nice?

  If you strobe the light fast enough so it matches the actual speed of the frame, you can catch individual pictures of each single.

• 24:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of each thing.

• 24:45Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that is awesome! I never knew that!

• 24:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ain't that a thing? What have you, what have you done to Chuck's brain? What have you just done to Chuck?

• 24:51Chuck Nice?

  That, wait a minute, this is why I love this job.

• 24:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a guy at MIT.

• 24:56Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that is amazing!

• 24:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who perfected the stroblight. His name is, it's Chester Egerton. He perfected the stroblight. He said, "I'm gonna be photographic badass now." And he first photographed all of these things that the human eye never sees.

• 25:11Chuck Nice?

  Chester the photo light molester!

• 25:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, so now in the- We are just think I have to get you drug tested after the show. Okay. For sure. Now, just a quick thing, it's gonna be too long for this, so put it in after, in, in, in extras. Okay. Okay? Go ahead. In extras. Okay, uh, whatever. All access. All access. Put this in all- StarTalk All Access. Okay. Give me one more minute, but put this in all, okay? We'll put this in All Access dot com. So here's an interesting thing, in the movie, Bambi. Okay. Okay? Alright. That movie came out at a time when we first photographed

• 25:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  the dripping of water into a, drips of water into a pool of water. Okay. And that's the image you get when you see this crown. Right. Have you seen this crown? It comes up- It comes up- Tiny little droplets. And the little droplets on the tip of each tip of the crown, okay? Okay. We said, wow, this is going on before our very eyes and we never knew it. We could never see it. Because it's happening faster than the brain eye connection can resolve. Sweet. Okay, your eyes see it about a tenth of a second frame rate. And if something's happening at a hundredth of a second, kiss it goodbye. Right. You'll know nothing about it. Totally missed it. Now watch what happened, Disney wanted to take advantage of that. He said, if this is actually happening during the scene when it begins to rain at the beginning of the movie,

• 26:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  where the woodland creatures come in, when it begins to rain, he's gonna show drops of water making these crowns. Okay? In that movie, there's, those drops of waters are there with the crowns. But you watch and you say, well, no, something's not right. It's not right because you don't actually see that. It was too real. Right. It was a cartoon that puts something so real that it doesn't look real. Because our brain eye connection cannot interpret it as such. So, next time you see Bambi, check it out. Now, by the way, at the end of that movie, does he strove the bullet going through Bambi's- No. Oh, oh, oh.

• 27:13Gary O'Reilly?

  He went there, didn't he? You just had to go there.

• 27:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He had to go. He, he. Chuck had to go there. Oh, dude, that's amazing. So, so.

• 27:21Gary O'Reilly?

  Naughty step.

• 27:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, hold on. So, so pick it up. So, we have photos now and now you don't, the film is so sensitive that you can just, and the, the arena is so well lit. Now you don't need a strobe light to get, you don't need it, but they, if they have it, they'll use it. You know, the, the high speed, uh, uh, uh, sports photographers. So they, um, so you can see, you can catch the ball right at the bottom. And it's just, it's like one third flat.

• 27:45Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 27:45Chuck Nice?

  Right. When you, when you, when you film it.

• 27:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When, when it's, and it's, if you get that snapshot, but it's so flat that the picture doesn't look real. I mean, you almost want some blurring in the ball.

• 27:58Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that it looks like the person is moving.

• 28:00Chuck Nice?

  Is in motion.

• 28:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is in motion.

• 28:01Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 28:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But if you freeze everything.

• 28:03Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 28:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's like.

• 28:04Chuck Nice?

  Cause you're catching that not, you're not even catching a, you're catching that at maybe one thousandth of a second.

• 28:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. And your eyes are just, will never see that.

• 28:13Chuck Nice?

  Never see that.

• 28:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, so it's cool, it's physically, it's cool as an exercise in physics, but not as a means to convey action.

• 28:22Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 28:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Super cool, man.

• 28:24Gary O'Reilly?

  All right. Well, let's.

• 28:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go.

• 28:25Gary O'Reilly?

  Let's change.

• 28:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sorry, it took so long to answer that.

• 28:27Gary O'Reilly?

  No, no, no, no.

• 28:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fascinating stuff, man. You got a whole, you got, look how many questions you got here.

• 28:31Chuck Nice?

  We've got tons of questions here.

• 28:32Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah. Chuck and I are in the front row of the class for this one. So I believe it's ink to my, from Instagram, I N K T M I. So pronounce that as you wish. Uh, I've mangled it. Okay. Here's one. Uh, it's clear that the elasticity of the ball affects the degree of force necessary for, say, a bounce pass, dribbling as well. But what about the playing surface, which allows for the most efficient play that is least force required? And by how much? Blacktop, concrete or hardwood?

• 29:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a great question. Good one. Okay, I will give a slight, I would give a different answer. Okay. Okay, but then you'll see why I'm giving a different answer. Okay. Um, there is a track at Harvard University. All right. It's a tartan track, which is the rubberized surface.

• 29:20Gary O'Reilly?

  Like you would see in a stadium.

• 29:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, in indoor, oh yes, a stadium track, okay. In the day, you didn't have those, they were either dirt or something, uh, but anyhow. So, so tartan was a new kind of surface. And my father ran on indoor tracks that were made of wood. And if you fell, you got splintered, right? So, he loved tartan tracks. But here's the thing. What they did at Harvard, they said, we want to make the fastest track in the world. Ooh. So what does that even mean, right? It's just a surface. So here's what they said.

• 29:50Gary O'Reilly?

  Flat track or banked?

• 29:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Doesn't matter.

• 29:52Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay.

• 29:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The fastest track in the world. So here's what they said. They said, all right, let us take strobe photos of somebody running on pillows. On pillows? And make a strobe photo of someone running on absolutely hard cement. Okay? Mm-hmm. Okay. And look at the forces on the body, the feet, the ankle, the toes, the, and all the rest.

• 30:15Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 30:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And look at the efficiency by which you convert your step into forward motion.

• 30:22Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 30:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Okay? And what they found was, it is not peaking in either of those extremes. There is something in between those extremes that maximizes the energy that you give to the ground. And the energy the ground gives back to you with a slight. Slight bounce. A flex. Right. Okay? Cause the cement doesn't flex. Right. I mean, the concrete doesn't flex and the pillows flex too much. Yes. So they found, it was a maximization problem in engineering. And they maximized it and people started breaking records on the track. And the amateur athletic union said, we cannot count records on this track. It is too fast. It's too fast. That's correct.

• 31:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's correct.

• 31:09Chuck Nice?

  Well, why not just make all tracks out of this stuff? What the hell? What was that about?

• 31:14Gary O'Reilly?

  It's okay. This, this didn't happen last week. This is many, many years ago.

• 31:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, this is a year ago. Okay, so now watch. So, so, the, to bounce the best is the combination of what is the, the flex of the ground relative to the flex of the ball.

• 31:32Gary O'Reilly?

  Mm-hmm.

• 31:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay?

• 31:32Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 31:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, you have, so, it's not obvious, just without doing the experiments, what the best combination of those two would be. That's all I'm saying. You have to do, you have to run those experiments. And so, I would guess that a hard, a, a blacktop

• 31:48Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 31:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  playground surface

• 31:50Gary O'Reilly?

  Sure.

• 31:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  is not as good as

• 31:52Chuck Nice?

  As a hardwood.

• 31:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  as a hardwood, which has some give to it.

• 31:55Chuck Nice?

  Some give.

• 31:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because, because the ball, when it hits, some of that's gonna go to the wood, the surface.

• 32:02Gary O'Reilly?

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But you want the surface to sort of give it back.

• 32:04Chuck Nice?

  Something back.

• 32:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Give it back.

• 32:05Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 32:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is why they don't use artificial legs for the amputees in, in, in sprints. They're blades.

• 32:14Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 32:14Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 32:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Blades.

• 32:15Chuck Nice?

  Because the blade compresses and gives back

• 32:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And gives back the energy.

• 32:18Gary O'Reilly?

  So, the other thing is with, as we learned in our

• 32:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because it's energy, you gave it just by, by, by the arc of every step you take.

• 32:26Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 32:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because you left the ground.

• 32:27Chuck Nice?

  You left the ground and you're coming back down.

• 32:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, where's that energy going? And if I'm using my, my legs, that, that, it's absorbing it, it heats up my leg, it's pumping blood, it's doing stuff that's not gonna propel me forward, forward. The blade'll do it.

• 32:41Gary O'Reilly?

  We learned through our show when we did gymnastics, that the floors, the tumbling floors that gymnasts use, they're sprung. So, they're not flat floors that we, we thought. Did we, we

• 32:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 32:54Gary O'Reilly?

  So, now, you spring-loaded a basketball court, happy days.

• 32:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and not only that, okay?

• 33:00Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 33:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And of course, professional wrestling rings.

• 33:03Chuck Nice?

  Yes, are also sprung.

• 33:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 33:05Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 33:05Gary O'Reilly?

  Ooh.

• 33:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very sprung.

• 33:07Chuck Nice?

  Cool.

• 33:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 33:09Gary O'Reilly?

  Chuck, do you have another question?

• 33:10Chuck Nice?

  No, actually, we gotta take a break and then, uh, we'll come back in our next segment.

• 33:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Am I, am I answer is too long?

• 33:15Chuck Nice?

  No, as long as they're interesting.

• 33:16Gary O'Reilly?

  Your answer's a fabulous.

• 33:16Chuck Nice?

  Yes, and, listen, it's not a cocktail party and you're not boring us. So, who cares? It's, it's, it's fascinating stuff, that's all we care about.

• 33:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. But I wanna get through people writing questions, they want their question.

• 33:26Chuck Nice?

  There's questions will still be here and this show is not getting canceled anytime soon. Someone knock wood right now, please.

• 33:32Gary O'Reilly?

  And the universe will still be there. Right, we'll take

• 33:36Chuck Nice?

  Okay, for those of you listening, Neil just knocked on my head, so.

• 33:39Gary O'Reilly?

  All right, we'll take that break. We'll be back shortly with more of your questions and more of The Good Doctor. Stay tuned.

• 33:50Gary O'Reilly?

  Welcome back. This is Playing with Science. I'm Gary O'Reilly.

• 33:53Chuck Nice?

  I'm Chuck Nice.

• 33:54Gary O'Reilly?

  And this, of course, is our basketball cosmic query with your questions and, of course, Neil deGrasse Tyson here to answer them. So Chuck, fire away with question one.

• 34:03Chuck Nice?

  Okay, let's, uh, segment three, we got. Is this lightning round? We're gonna get to the lightning round, maybe. Okay. We don't have a bell, so I don't know if we can do a lightning round. For those of you who are StarTalk fans, if you have listened, then you know that at the end of any cosmic query, the last five minutes, we answer as many questions as possible in that period of time. And Neil, in his brevity, at the end of that answer, will give a ding on a bell. But we're coming to you from Masseable today, and it doesn't seem as though there is a bell here. You know, it's one of those little, um.

• 34:37Gary O'Reilly?

  Bell free.

• 34:38Chuck Nice?

  It's a counter bell, like, you know, a short-order cook bell, you know, like, ding, order up, ding, that type of deal. So, uh, maybe I'll just do that.

• 34:47Gary O'Reilly?

  Maybe.

• 34:48Chuck Nice?

  Ding, when you're done. Okay, but let's get to our. Of course, it's a DMV bell, too. Oh, yeah. Here we go. Brian Mendesino wants to know this. What do scientists need to achieve in the lab to make Michael Jordan's game-winning dunk in the movie Space Jam a reality? Ooh, first of all, I would have to have seen Space Jam. I didn't get fully through Space Jam. I didn't, I didn't see Space Jam at all because, um, Michael Jordan was in it, and I'm just gonna say, acting ain't his strong suit.

• 35:19Chuck Nice?

  Soon as I saw it's a movie with Michael Jordan, I don't care if it's for kids or not, I am not wasting my money on that.

• 35:24Gary O'Reilly?

  Everyone's a critic.

• 35:25Chuck Nice?

  Here's the biggest insult. Even Shaq was a better actor.

• 35:30Chuck Nice?

  Hello, thank you, I like Goldbaum powder. My name is Shaquille O'Neal, I like Goldbaum powder. Alright.

• 35:39Gary O'Reilly?

  We're not getting an answer to this question, are we?

• 35:40Chuck Nice?

  He's not in the room. I look at Gary, Gary's like, you know, you're messing with a seven foot something monster of a man.

• 35:47Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 35:48Chuck Nice?

  And, but anyway.

• 35:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm sorry, I didn't say.

• 35:50Gary O'Reilly?

  He's gonna come and find you.

• 35:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm sorry, yeah, can't answer that, sorry. My bad, because maybe, you know, my bad.

• 35:56Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 35:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, sorry.

• 35:57Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay, here we are. Wolf Fomo on Instagram, how did Spud Webb at five foot seven win the NBA Slam Dunk Contest? What does it take from a physiological standpoint to have such an incredible vertical leap?

• 36:10Chuck Nice?

  Okay, so Spud Webb was five feet, seven inches tall, right?

• 36:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 36:14Chuck Nice?

  And, uh.

• 36:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, when you said Spud Webb, I was thinking of Spuds McKenzie.

• 36:18Chuck Nice?

  Spuds McKenzie. By the way.

• 36:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Bulldog.

• 36:21Chuck Nice?

  That's a dunking contest I wanna see.

• 36:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Spud Webb and Spuds McKenzie.

• 36:26Chuck Nice?

  Versus Spud McKenzie.

• 36:30Gary O'Reilly?

  For the chips, all the chips.

• 36:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so the question is what? He's five seven.

• 36:35Chuck Nice?

  He's five seven.

• 36:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The question is what?

• 36:36Chuck Nice?

  How is it that he can dunk the way he dunks?

• 36:39Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes, the, the vertical leap.

• 36:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, uh, the first time I ever dunked, I was in ninth grade and I was five feet nine.

• 36:47Gary O'Reilly?

  Wow, wow.

• 36:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's only two inches taller than he is, and he's a professional, right?

• 36:51Chuck Nice?

  So you had a pretty decent vertical.

• 36:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I grew up in the Bronx.

• 36:54Chuck Nice?

  Right on, okay.

• 36:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just back up.

• 36:56Chuck Nice?

  You had to, you had to be able to dunk.

• 36:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Give me space here when I'm talking about this.

• 37:03Chuck Nice?

  You know, I can't mess with the Bronx, I know what that is.

• 37:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Bronx. No, no, I, I grew up in a rather tame part of the Bronx.

• 37:08Chuck Nice?

  I'm from Queens.

• 37:11Chuck Nice?

  I'm just saying.

• 37:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, so, um.

• 37:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Part, part, so.

• 37:16Gary O'Reilly?

  Carry on, please, please.

• 37:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, the, I think the bigger challenge of dunking a ball is not how high you can jump, but can you control the ball with your hand?

• 37:27Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, okay.

• 37:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, because as you're going up, now you have to turn the ball around and bring it down.

• 37:33Gary O'Reilly?

  Alright.

• 37:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if you're not really holding on to the ball, as you go up, the ball could, could keep going.

• 37:39Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, right.

• 37:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you, if, if at the peak of your jump, you have to still be able to maneuver the ball. And so, I could not dunk the ball until I was able to basically palm the ball.

• 37:50Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 37:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right.

• 37:50Chuck Nice?

  And that is why I am the best dunker in the world, because I have extremely, extremely large, very, very large hands.

• 38:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So.

• 38:00Chuck Nice?

  I had to do it.

• 38:01Gary O'Reilly?

  You happy now?

• 38:02Chuck Nice?

  I am happy.

• 38:02Gary O'Reilly?

  Good.

• 38:03Chuck Nice?

  I have to say. Carry on. It was gratuitous and I liked it. Go ahead.

• 38:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If I ever shake hands with him, do you want a full report?

• 38:07Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my God, yes.

• 38:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 38:09Chuck Nice?

  If you ever shake hands with him.

• 38:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If I ever shake hands, okay, fine.

• 38:12Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 38:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so, oh, so, um, so there is a way to dunk the ball, even if you can't palm the ball.

• 38:20Gary O'Reilly?

  Uh huh.

• 38:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that is always have the ball moving, always be such that your hand is pushing the ball.

• 38:27Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 38:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so you have to sort of come up from behind.

• 38:32Gary O'Reilly?

  Mm hmm.

• 38:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I'm pushing the ball, pushing the ball horizontally upwards.

• 38:37Chuck Nice?

  And then back.

• 38:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 38:39Gary O'Reilly?

  So isn't there a point where it's basically you're, you're stationary, but the ball looks as if it's stuck to your hand?

• 38:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, exactly, because you have to come around a curve.

• 38:46Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 38:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To make that happen. So that's a way to do it if you can't palm the ball. I don't remember if Spud Webb could palm the ball. I don't remember.

• 38:53Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 38:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, um, I mean, just think, the, the reason why everyone is so acrobatic dunking the ball is because we think of the dunk as this extreme limit of your jump. Where you just barely make that happen.

• 39:07Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 39:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But for these guys, they can dunk it on the way down after their elbow had cleared the rim. Okay, so, so now we see Spud dunking and we're thinking that, so, so, yes. They can all jump. They all jump.

• 39:24Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay, so because you have the secret of vertical jump and you're from the Bronx, is it right, white men can't jump? And why?

• 39:34Chuck Nice?

  Why can't white men jump?

• 39:35Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 39:36Chuck Nice?

  Is that what, wait, I gotta take this one, Neil. I'm sorry. There is a wonderful.

• 39:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got an answer for this?

• 39:41Chuck Nice?

  There's a, there's a old, an old comedian, I shouldn't say that. There's a comedian who I have admired for many, many years. And he did all the writing for Richard Pryor, all the writing for the show In Living Color. And his name is Paul Mooney.

• 39:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, Paul Mooney, oh, yeah, oh.

• 39:56Chuck Nice?

  And he talks like this.

• 39:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 39:58Chuck Nice?

  And he goes, everybody wants to know why white men can't jump. They don't have to. They own the team.

• 40:10Gary O'Reilly?

  That isn't really the answer I was looking for. It is however, it's the answer I'm getting.

• 40:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is the answer. It also reminds me of a Richard Pryor joke. So Paul Muddin might have written this joke. Richard Pryor, live on the Sunset Strip. What was his first movie? Um, not Sunset Strip, the other one.

• 40:32Chuck Nice?

  Well, I can't say the name.

• 40:35Chuck Nice?

  This N-word's crazy, was his.

• 40:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no, no.

• 40:38Gary O'Reilly?

  Is that crazy?

• 40:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no. But anyhow.

• 40:40Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 40:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there's a, he's got a joke on there where he said, where the cops were chasing him when he was a kid. And they had a Doberman and they sent the, the dog running after him.

• 40:50Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 40:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And he said, Doberman will catch your average white boy.

• 40:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But turn his hat backwards and just.

• 41:01Chuck Nice?

  Oh, I remember that. Like he turned his hat backwards and he was like in fourth gear or something like that.

• 41:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right, right. And they turn like, catch your average white. So, so this thing with the athletics and there's a lot of like lore and mysticism and, you know, slave trade discussions.

• 41:15Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I'm, I'm, I'm not convinced of any of it.

• 41:18Gary O'Reilly?

  Disposition of fast twitch muscles and everything like that, density.

• 41:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't want to get me started on that.

• 41:24Chuck Nice?

  Uh oh.

• 41:25Gary O'Reilly?

  I've been told.

• 41:27Chuck Nice?

  Okay, we got a minute before the lightning round. Now I want to hear about this.

• 41:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here's why. Oh, you want to hear?

• 41:31Chuck Nice?

  I want to hear about fast twitch, slow twitch muscles and all that kind of stuff.

• 41:34Gary O'Reilly?

  I could, I didn't want to get you started, but you didn't say about Chuck.

• 41:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, Chuck can get me started. No, I, I just, um. The urge for people to assert that athletic talent manifested in black people is genetic. But athletic talent manifested in white people.

• 41:52Chuck Nice?

  Is hard work.

• 41:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is through hard earned work, is, continues and knows no bounds. And I'm, I'm stupefied by the extent at depth to which this is invoked.

• 42:05Chuck Nice?

  Artfully and beautifully put. I can tell you that, you know what, without going any further, because you, you basically, you're positing a, a question. Wha- wha- wha- what makes you think that?

• 42:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 42:18Chuck Nice?

  And I think that that's, I think that's perfect.

• 42:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there's Michael Jordan, who was what, sixth round draft pick or something?

• 42:23Chuck Nice?

  Yes, he was. People forget that.

• 42:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And he just, whatever the number was, it was not what you think it would have been.

• 42:27Chuck Nice?

  Right. He was not number one.

• 42:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The best player of all time.

• 42:30Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 42:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The gr- g- greatest.

• 42:32Gary O'Reilly?

  Goat.

• 42:33Chuck Nice?

  Geo, the goat.

• 42:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Goat, greatest of all time, the goat. So, he, he, he gets better, and now he's the greatest of all time. And people say, oh, that's genetic. That, that sucker worked hard, okay?

• 42:46Chuck Nice?

  I think he was a second round pick, by the way, but yeah.

• 42:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Second round, right, right. But still, you wouldn't think that he, the greatest of all time, would ever have been the second round of anything.

• 42:54Chuck Nice?

  Or am I thinking of Tom Brady? Now I gotta look it up, because Tom Brady was also a.

• 42:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, I think it was lower down. If, if not in college, certainly, if not in pros, certainly, you know, in, in college, he wasn't a starter. There were some facts about him.

• 43:06Gary O'Reilly?

  There is nothing, if you're an elite athlete, and the very top of the elite athletes, that you get without work. You just cannot, just walk in off the street and go, I'm the ready-made.

• 43:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. So for someone to say, oh, they're natural, and then you part the curtains, they're working out 80 hours a week.

• 43:22Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah. They're naturally working hard.

• 43:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, maybe some people enjoy that, and so they then become better. And if you have a hard time putting your, putting in your time, you're not, it's not gonna happen with you. And maybe that's what we should be measuring about you. Not the ultimate talent you express, but your capacity to practice on a level to achieve that talent in the first place.

• 43:43Chuck Nice?

  There you go. All right. All right. That was.

• 43:46Gary O'Reilly?

  Ring that bell.

• 43:47Chuck Nice?

  Let's, let's, let's move on to our lightning round now. That was great. Uh, here we go. Uh, God, these questions are so.

• 43:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One other thing, one other thing.

• 43:54Chuck Nice?

  Okay, go ahead.

• 43:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There was an Olympics a few decades ago.

• 43:57Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 43:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because a lot of this is invoked in the Olympics. Oh, the Africans, well, so I have an article in Time Magazine that is describing why the Africans will win every sprint and every distance race in that upcoming Olympics.

• 44:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's explaining why that will be the case. And it's talking about the slow twitch, fast twitch and all this genetics and this. Okay. And I was so happy when a white person won the marathon.

• 44:23Chuck Nice?

  I was gonna say, yeah.

• 44:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was some, no, there was some, it did not come through the way this was.

• 44:28Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 44:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The way they, they.

• 44:29Chuck Nice?

  I was gonna say, they, clearly they don't know the Germans because they're great marathon runners too, as, as well as South Africans are also great marathon runners.

• 44:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They pop up all over the place. Yeah, that's it. They pop up. That's the point. Yeah. They pop up. Now, you can say, well, okay, statistically, I'm just saying, I'm just tired of that. And. Not all, you got me started.

• 44:45Chuck Nice?

  Okay, go for it.

• 44:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  1968, Bob Beaman. Yeah, Mexico City. Mexico City, watch. My boy breaks the, the long jump by a foot, basically. Right. He leaps out of the sandpit. Crazy, whatever it was, it was, might have been more than, but around that about, okay? This is a race, this is a, an event where you break the record by an inch. Right. Not by a foot.

• 45:08Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 45:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so watch what happens. Here they come. Well, the lower air density at altitude of Mexico City is, he's moving through lower air dense, and it goes on and again, no one is saying, maybe he just kicked ass that day.

• 45:25Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 45:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So now. And that record stood for some time. So here's my point. If you're gonna say he jumped 10 inches, 12 inches farther. Hmm. Because the air density was lower. Mike, you expect everyone to have jumped 10 inches.

• 45:40Chuck Nice?

  Farther on that day.

• 45:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they did not.

• 45:42Chuck Nice?

  Oh, very good point.

• 45:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 45:45Chuck Nice?

  Right?

• 45:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 45:46Chuck Nice?

  Wait, maybe they just had a bad day, all at the same time.

• 45:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All at the same time.

• 45:50Chuck Nice?

  Everybody was just.

• 45:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everybody had. So the other thing is with the sprinters. Oh, there's one other thing. At high altitude, there's lower force of gravity. So you go a little, you can calculate how much effect this will give you, but it was not manifested in everyone. My point is. Yes. That at the highest elite point, your body gets you only so far and your brain takes you the rest of the way. Which is how it is that you can set your own world record. How's that even possible? Today, but not yesterday.

• 46:15Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 46:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Today, but not tomorrow.

• 46:17Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 46:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Your brain took you there.

• 46:19Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 46:19Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 46:20Chuck Nice?

  It's, you know, you're really right. It's about the, uh, instance of performance.

• 46:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 46:25Chuck Nice?

  It is not about all that other stuff.

• 46:27Gary O'Reilly?

  And now the understanding.

• 46:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Once you're there, once everybody's there, it's not about that anymore.

• 46:30Chuck Nice?

  It's not about that. And what's the instance of performance?

• 46:32Gary O'Reilly?

  You've got so much of a support team.

• 46:34Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 46:34Gary O'Reilly?

  So much more of a system and structure around an athlete that's at the very, very top as opposed to Bob Beaman back in 1968.

• 46:43Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 46:44Gary O'Reilly?

  But then again, with the sprinters, for instance, they won't have factored in, you could have a false start and then be ejected from the race altogether, and that happens quite often.

• 46:53Chuck Nice?

  Okay. So, listen, I think it's fascinating. I'm glad, I'm glad.

• 46:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Too forlorn.

• 46:56Chuck Nice?

  No, I'm glad we got into it. I mean, this is the stuff that we normally wouldn't get into. I think it's great. All right, we're running out of time and running out of show, but I gotta ask you this one last question because I need you to, I need to just feel like, I need to hear what you think. Chris Keely from Facebook wants to know this. Does one of Einstein's thought experiments explain how it is possible for the last minute of every game to last 20 minutes or more?

• 47:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. It's just, it's just Einsteinian, uh, the time dilation of Einstein's special theory of relativity. It's very clear, we've known about this. We haven't told you?

• 47:32Gary O'Reilly?

  Breaking news.

• 47:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We, we, yeah, in physics, we've, we've done this calculation.

• 47:36Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 47:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With the two-minute warning.

• 47:37Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 47:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that is when time-dilated special relativity effects kick in. But we were afraid that people would just freak out.

• 47:44Chuck Nice?

  Freak out.

• 47:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so we withheld this information, but you're hearing it here on Playing with Science for the very first time.

• 47:50Gary O'Reilly?

  For our own good.

• 47:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is, it is.

• 47:51Chuck Nice?

  It is indeed time dilation.

• 47:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is time dilation manifest on the gridiron, yes.

• 47:57Chuck Nice?

  Or on a basketball, on the hardwood, on the gridiron. Every place except baseball because that's boring from the start.

• 48:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you know, and, and the, the people who are manipulating the spacetime continuum to make sure that happens are the TV advertisers.

• 48:14Chuck Nice?

  Right, absolutely.

• 48:15Gary O'Reilly?

  So you are guardians of the universe on our behalf.

• 48:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're guardians of the last two minutes.

• 48:20Chuck Nice?

  Of the universe.

• 48:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of the universe.

• 48:23Chuck Nice?

  We're guardians of the last two minutes of the universe.

• 48:25Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay, they own the last two minutes. That's that dealt with. I think that's us dealt with as well.

• 48:30Chuck Nice?

  Yes, exactly. Oh, this was a fun show, man.

• 48:33Gary O'Reilly?

  A thank you to Dr Neil deGrasse Tyson for sharing his thoughts. And your questions, fabulous. And thank you so much, Chuck. That's it.

• 48:43Chuck Nice?

  That's it. Gotta say goodbye.

• 48:45Gary O'Reilly?

  It's Playing with Science for now. Stay tuned, we'll be back with another show very, very soon.

• 48:49Chuck Nice?

  Bye.