Maker Mix, with Bill Nye (Part 2) – StarTalk All-Stars

What is the maker movement? Find out when Bill Nye and Chuck Nice answer more Cosmic Queries about makers, including Maker Faire, kids and STEM, robots vs. bots, greenhouses and hydroponics, large scale 3d printing, renewable energy and recycling, more. NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free. Find out more at https://www.startalkradio.net/startalk-all-access/

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

• 0:00Bill Nye?

  This is StarTalk.

• 0:08Bill Nye?

  Greetings, greetings, greetings. Bill Nye here, your host of StarTalk Cosmic Queries Edition. And I'm here with worldwide citizen Chuck Nice. And Chuck, this is no ordinary StarTalk Cosmic Queries Edition. Oh, no.

• 0:23Chuck Nice?

  It is not.

• 0:24Bill Nye?

  It's special. It's a special edition sponsored by Google, and we want you to check out the website, makingsciencewithgoogle.com. It's all about making things.

• 0:33Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 0:33Bill Nye?

  It's all about engineer. For me, it's all about engineering, Chuck, where we use science to solve problems.

• 0:40Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 0:40Bill Nye?

  And make things.

• 0:41Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely.

• 0:42Bill Nye?

  Solve problems and make things. Oh, and my excitement.

• 0:46Chuck Nice?

  Solve problems and make things.

• 0:47Bill Nye?

  You have a query.

• 0:48Chuck Nice?

  Yes, I do.

• 0:48Bill Nye?

  A question from a listener, a viewer, a person.

• 0:52Chuck Nice?

  This is funny, because this is from @MrsDoodleJourney on Instagram.

• 0:56Bill Nye?

  @MrsDoodleJourney.

• 0:57Chuck Nice?

  @MrsDoodleJourney.

• 1:00Bill Nye?

  Okay. Okay.

• 1:04Chuck Nice?

  What is the best way to make a portable greenhouse? So I suppose she's looking at this.

• 1:10Bill Nye?

  If I were, no, no, no, no, this weekend.

• 1:13Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 1:13Bill Nye?

  Yes, with clear plastic inflatable dome. That's what I do.

• 1:17Chuck Nice?

  That's it. That's all you really need.

• 1:19Bill Nye?

  That's what I do. People play tennis under inflatable domes. People make inflatable domes for their backyard for fun.

• 1:25Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 1:26Bill Nye?

  Held up by a fan.

• 1:27Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 1:28Bill Nye?

  So you could, I could easily imagine a clear plastic dome. You carry it in essentially a backpack, or a shopping cart, or a hand truck.

• 1:37Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 1:38Bill Nye?

  And you show up at wherever you want inflatable dome zone, and turn the bad boy on. And the fan to hold the thing inflated will run off a solar panel connected to a battery that would keep the thing inflated all night.

• 1:51Chuck Nice?

  All night.

• 1:51Bill Nye?

  I did that without even... Just from the hip.

• 1:54Chuck Nice?

  I'm gonna tell you, that was impressive.

• 1:56Bill Nye?

  And then in space, it seems like it would be just the same thing with a lower pressure inflatable dome. And plants do seem to grow okay in space. You know, that's a little game they play up there.

• 2:06Chuck Nice?

  Right. So as long as you have the right soil.

• 2:09Bill Nye?

  Or the right.

• 2:10Chuck Nice?

  The right.

• 2:11Bill Nye?

  Hydroponic medium.

• 2:12Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:12Bill Nye?

  Can I say medium?

• 2:13Chuck Nice?

  I like that.

• 2:14Bill Nye?

  You're on the radio medium.

• 2:15Chuck Nice?

  I like hydroponic even better.

• 2:17Bill Nye?

  Yes, uh, and then, uh, then you can grow stuff, I guess, portably.

• 2:23Chuck Nice?

  Awesome.

• 2:23Bill Nye?

  But still, so far, you still need light, a source of light and water and hydroponic nutrients.

• 2:28Chuck Nice?

  That's why they have lamps and closets. I'm sorry.

• 2:31Bill Nye?

  Uh, can't hear you. Don't know what you're talking about. But you know, uh, changing the subject to, uh, what used to be illegal manuf- or legal agriculture at home.

• 2:42Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 2:43Bill Nye?

  Looks like that's all gonna be legal soon enough.

• 2:45Chuck Nice?

  Well, it should be, let's be honest.

• 2:47Bill Nye?

  I just, can I ask as a fellow citizen?

• 2:49Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 2:50Bill Nye?

  I don't wanna breathe a secondhand smoke from the legalized and properly taxed marijuana sales.

• 2:57Chuck Nice?

  You do not wanna breathe the second.

• 2:58Bill Nye?

  I do not wanna breathe the secondhand smoke.

• 3:00Chuck Nice?

  Well, that's why they'll have coffee houses where you will can go and designated areas for people who.

• 3:05Bill Nye?

  And grown in inflatable greenhouse.

• 3:07Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 3:07Bill Nye?

  Maybe in an inclement place, say you're in Norway or something in the wintertime and you just gotta have your inflatable greenhouse for whatever.

• 3:16Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:17Bill Nye?

  You could do that.

• 3:18Chuck Nice?

  Your coffee house, uh.

• 3:19Bill Nye?

  Uh, enjoyment.

• 3:20Chuck Nice?

  Enjoyment, right.

• 3:21Bill Nye?

  But just don't make me breathe this. I just never liked the smell, if I may whine. I just never liked the smell. And you worked in nightclubs for a hundred years.

• 3:30Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 3:30Bill Nye?

  Everything smelled like smoke.

• 3:32Chuck Nice?

  Well, you didn't, not, well, that was one of the great things about moving here to New York City was shortly after I moved here, uh.

• 3:40Bill Nye?

  When was this?

• 3:41Chuck Nice?

  Uh, nineteen ninety-nine, exactly. But shortly thereafter, uh, the mayor said, no more smoking in the, in, anywhere. We're gonna get rid of smoking and.

• 3:52Bill Nye?

  Interior spaces.

• 3:53Chuck Nice?

  No interior spaces. And everyone lost their mind.

• 3:56Bill Nye?

  Thought the place was gonna go out of business.

• 3:58Chuck Nice?

  It was gonna go out of business. Got it, and especially the.

• 4:00Bill Nye?

  Restaurants.

• 4:01Chuck Nice?

  Restaurants and more importantly, the comedy clubs. Because they're like, what are you talking about?

• 4:05Bill Nye?

  It's all we do here.

• 4:06Chuck Nice?

  All we do here is smoke and drink. That's all that happens here.

• 4:09Bill Nye?

  And so occasional laugh is told.

• 4:10Chuck Nice?

  And right, and we don't even care about that as long as people are smoking and drinking. And sure enough.

• 4:15Bill Nye?

  What happened is.

• 4:16Chuck Nice?

  The more people came.

• 4:18Bill Nye?

  And they spent more money.

• 4:20Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 4:20Bill Nye?

  Yeah, that's cool.

• 4:21Chuck Nice?

  More people came, so.

• 4:22Bill Nye?

  So I'm just asking, after we have the inflatable greenhouse, and you're growing marijuana commercially and taxing it legally, and enriching the government coffers through proper commerce, I don't want to have to breathe a secondhand smoke, that's all.

• 4:38Chuck Nice?

  There you have it. Alright, so let's move on to at Jennifer. Mmm, you know Jennifer.

• 4:45Bill Nye?

  It's a long last name.

• 4:45Chuck Nice?

  Oh my, Jennifer. Mmm.

• 4:51Chuck Nice?

  Melchide, Melchide.

• 4:55Bill Nye?

  Melchide.

• 4:55Chuck Nice?

  Okay, M E L C H I A D E. Melchide?

• 5:00Bill Nye?

  Melchide.

• 5:00Chuck Nice?

  Okay, Melchide.

• 5:01Bill Nye?

  Anyway, Jennifer.

• 5:03Chuck Nice?

  Exactly, coming to us from Instagram. Now, this is somewhat of an existential question.

• 5:08Bill Nye?

  Like dude.

• 5:10Chuck Nice?

  And so you're gonna have to kind of really just branch yourself for a minute. Hey Bill, what's next after 3D printing?

• 5:22Bill Nye?

  Jennifer, I don't know. I don't know, but I think additive manufacture of all sorts is in the future, for sure. You know, you can, you can design shapes, you can make additively or 3D printing that you can't make through conventional machining. So, what's after that? I guess molecular scale, 3D printing, atomic scale.

• 5:46Chuck Nice?

  Look at you, you had it in you.

• 5:47Bill Nye?

  Yes, atomic scale 3D printing. Individual atoms placed on, let's say substrates of circuit, of exotic new future circuits.

• 5:56Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 5:56Bill Nye?

  Extremely compact, hustling against Moore's law, you know, where every 10 years, we double the amount of memory in a given volume.

• 6:05Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 6:05Bill Nye?

  Yes, that's the future, Jennifer. I've answered it succinctly, and you can take that to the bank, Jennifer. No.

• 6:13Chuck Nice?

  But it does seem reasonable. Alright, so now, okay, so this is, uh, these people, I think they're doing this on purpose, Bill.

• 6:21Bill Nye?

  They're like 3D printing festival?

• 6:23Chuck Nice?

  No, this, these names.

• 6:25Bill Nye?

  Oh.

• 6:26Chuck Nice?

  Uh.

• 6:29Bill Nye?

  That's not her name.

• 6:33Bill Nye?

  But go ahead, try it.

• 6:34Chuck Nice?

  I'm gonna say.

• 6:35Bill Nye?

  He or she will be very sympathetic.

• 6:36Chuck Nice?

  Uh, Yoimacum, that's imposs- this is impossible. Listen, I'm gonna spell this. Y-O-I-M-A-C-Q-U-B-A-N-B. Come on. Come on. Really?

• 6:53Bill Nye?

  You're Nakubun.

• 6:54Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 6:55Bill Nye?

  You're Nakubun.

• 6:56Chuck Nice?

  You're.

• 6:57Bill Nye?

  You're Nakubun.

• 6:58Chuck Nice?

  You're Nakubun.

• 6:59Bill Nye?

  Could be Yoinokubun. Yoinokubun. But probably there's some language where it's a guy's name.

• 7:05Chuck Nice?

  I'm sure there is. I'm sure, and I don't mean to disparage your name.

• 7:08Bill Nye?

  Mr. Chuck Nice.

• 7:09Chuck Nice?

  Exactly, right.

• 7:10Bill Nye?

  Barely two syllables.

• 7:11Chuck Nice?

  I'm, I'm, I don't mean to disparage.

• 7:12Bill Nye?

  You don't even finish to say Chuck Nice.

• 7:16Bill Nye?

  Alright, so go ahead.

• 7:17Chuck Nice?

  Alright, so this person, I'm gonna call you Yoey. Okay?

• 7:20Bill Nye?

  Yoey, that's pretty cool.

• 7:21Chuck Nice?

  Yoey, alright. Hey, Bill.

• 7:23Bill Nye?

  I think you mean Yo.

• 7:25Chuck Nice?

  Or Yo.

• 7:26Bill Nye?

  Yo.

• 7:26Chuck Nice?

  You could stop right there.

• 7:27Bill Nye?

  Yeah, Yo Bill.

• 7:28Chuck Nice?

  Yo. And he says, hey, Bill, what are the limits of 3D printing? Don't cop out and say the human mind, Mr. Science Guy. Do we know yet what we cannot do or could never do with 3D printing?

• 7:43Bill Nye?

  Well, I think of something big. What's a big thing?

• 7:46Chuck Nice?

  Uh, Empire State Building.

• 7:47Bill Nye?

  Empire State, I don't see why you couldn't 3D print it. No, and imagine the printer.

• 7:53Chuck Nice?

  How big does the?

• 7:54Bill Nye?

  Oh, no. No, no, no, the printer could go around, well, not just that. The printer could go around, uh, the foundation in a big spiral. And going up to the sky indefinitely as somebody, as long as somebody fed it spiral 3D printing fluid.

• 8:08Chuck Nice?

  You know what? Now that you say that, there are these window cleaning, uh, Autobots. That they use, I forget the building in Autobots.

• 8:17Bill Nye?

  Clean windows.

• 8:18Chuck Nice?

  Yes, but.

• 8:19Bill Nye?

  Robotically.

• 8:20Chuck Nice?

  Robotically. And, uh, that's how they work. They just go around the building all day long.

• 8:25Bill Nye?

  Yeah, why not? What's not to love? So, I mean, you can, in other words. Think of it where the printer doesn't have to be bigger than the object being printed. Let's go with that insight.

• 8:34Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:35Bill Nye?

  Follow me?

• 8:35Chuck Nice?

  Right, I got you, got you.

• 8:37Bill Nye?

  Like a spider web is bigger than a spider.

• 8:39Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 8:40Bill Nye?

  Like the Empire State Building is bigger than a human.

• 8:42Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 8:42Bill Nye?

  By some fraction.

• 8:44Chuck Nice?

  My god.

• 8:45Bill Nye?

  And humans showed up there and built the freaking thing.

• 8:47Chuck Nice?

  See, so, hey yo, here's the problem. You think too small. No, I'm joking.

• 8:52Bill Nye?

  I know, he or she is a listener and viewer, we love you.

• 8:56Chuck Nice?

  No, we do love you.

• 8:56Bill Nye?

  You're not.

• 8:57Chuck Nice?

  That's a really good point, though. It's, a spider web is much bigger than a spider.

• 9:01Bill Nye?

  Yes.

• 9:02Chuck Nice?

  And it's because you're building out, and so this would be building around.

• 9:05Bill Nye?

  Spider provides the protein, the raw material, and then also the design and construction. It's very cool.

• 9:11Chuck Nice?

  Look at that.

• 9:11Bill Nye?

  Think big, think big. It doesn't have to be a spiral, that was Uncle Bill just kinda jamming.

• 9:16Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm. Alright, here we go. Uh, Swanson Dinner.

• 9:23Chuck Nice?

  Swanson Dinner wants to know this.

• 9:25Bill Nye?

  Our good friend.

• 9:26Chuck Nice?

  Our good friend Swanson Dinner, Swanny. Uh, says 3D printing seems like a great way to pave the road for human colonization.

• 9:33Bill Nye?

  Pave the road, get it?

• 9:34Chuck Nice?

  Solar system.

• 9:35Bill Nye?

  Well, that's it, that's what we want to do, is have 3D printers onboard spacecraft that would make everything an astronaut needs when he or she needs it, rather than packing all this stuff.

• 9:45Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:45Bill Nye?

  And I'm sure, I think you'll want a substantial number of rolls of duct tape. But also, you'd have a machine that would print all the tools you might need. Should anything go wrong, you make the tool to fix that thing. Otherwise, you don't take the tool. Instead, you take computer programs, computer files, full of what, of the files to make the tools.

• 10:08Chuck Nice?

  And whatever powder, or liquid, or goo.

• 10:11Bill Nye?

  Goo, yeah. I presume you have cold weather glue, uh, goo, vacuum goo, inside the spaceship goo, uh, food-grade goo, non-food-grade goo, all onboard the spaceship.

• 10:22Chuck Nice?

  Nice, alright.

• 10:24Bill Nye?

  Steve Martin used to have a bit about, suppose not only were the hamburgers in the package recyclable, so they're made of the same thing. Then here's your change.

• 10:35Chuck Nice?

  Let's take a query, uh, this, uh, a very broad question coming from at Teddy, T B D on Instagram, who wants-

• 10:45Bill Nye?

  Teddy to be determined.

• 10:46Chuck Nice?

  That's right, Teddy to be determined, uh, wants to know this, could you please tell us what the maker movement is?

• 10:54Bill Nye?

  Well, I'd ask them-

• 10:55Chuck Nice?

  Is there a maker movement?

• 10:56Bill Nye?

  Well, it sure seems like, especially in the Bay Area and, uh, San Francisco and California, it seems like there's a lot of people who celebrate this. And it's, to me, it's like, uh, kinetic sculpture, it's sculpture that moves.

• 11:07Chuck Nice?

  Uh huh.

• 11:07Bill Nye?

  That's what I feel, uh, a lot of the maker movement is, but, um, phrases include more than they leave out. Some makers like to make, uh, improve sewer systems, some makers like to make better airplanes, some makers like to make cool, looks like a tyrannosaurus art.

• 11:24Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 11:25Bill Nye?

  So, but they've made it, that's what's cool.

• 11:27Chuck Nice?

  The idea is-

• 11:28Bill Nye?

  Encourage young people to make things.

• 11:31Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 11:32Bill Nye?

  Now, these kids today, with their electric computer games, they're not making anything.

• 11:37Chuck Nice?

  Uh, well-

• 11:38Bill Nye?

  We want them to make stuff.

• 11:39Chuck Nice?

  That's what, uh, believe it or not, when you say, that's all my son wants to do, is make computer games, he's convinced that he's going to be, which I never discourage him.

• 11:46Bill Nye?

  How old is this guy?

• 11:47Chuck Nice?

  He's nine and he just started coding.

• 11:49Bill Nye?

  Oh, so this is it, he may end up to be computer man of the future.

• 11:52Chuck Nice?

  Uh, maybe, I, I-

• 11:54Bill Nye?

  And then he can support you in your old age.

• 11:55Chuck Nice?

  I hope so, but I keep telling him that there are much greater pursuits than making the next first-person shooter game, like, once you know how to speak that language and write that language, whatever is in your mind, no matter how, like-

• 12:11Bill Nye?

  Listen, Dad, you're inspirational.

• 12:13Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I just feel like-

• 12:13Bill Nye?

  Bring it on, Dad.

• 12:14Chuck Nice?

  Why limit yourself to a first-person shooter game?

• 12:17Bill Nye?

  Yes.

• 12:18Chuck Nice?

  When you might write code that could figure out, um, how we can, uh, uh, solve global warming.

• 12:25Bill Nye?

  Yes.

• 12:25Chuck Nice?

  I mean, somebody's gonna write-

• 12:27Bill Nye?

  Yes.

• 12:27Chuck Nice?

  An algorithm that will take us to that place, you know? I mean, we already know that, what, we also, I mean, I'm talking to the man who is single-handedly taking up this fight, uh, i- i- in the media, but, you know, there's other things that we have to do, but there are gonna be some, there are gonna be some answers that we're gonna need, cause I think we're a little late to the party when it comes to global warming, you know?

• 12:48Bill Nye?

  That's all you're saying.

• 12:49Chuck Nice?

  Climate change.

• 12:50Bill Nye?

  But you're, having your son resolve global climate change?

• 12:54Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 12:54Bill Nye?

  Is a great idea, but he is nine. There'll be some other things he's gotta do, like third grade.

• 13:02Bill Nye?

  I'm not saying he won't solve global warming. I don't mean to be that.

• 13:05Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 13:05Bill Nye?

  I'm just saying, dad, dad, take it easy on the guy.

• 13:11Bill Nye?

  Let him be a kid.

• 13:12Chuck Nice?

  All right. You might have a point.

• 13:15Bill Nye?

  Maybe. All right, go ahead.

• 13:17Chuck Nice?

  Let's, um, oh, God, I just realized how ridiculous I sound.

• 13:21Bill Nye?

  You were on it, man.

• 13:22Chuck Nice?

  I just realized.

• 13:23Bill Nye?

  You were having your kid save the whole world.

• 13:27Chuck Nice?

  Save the world, son.

• 13:28Bill Nye?

  Just like you did when you became a stand-up comic.

• 13:31Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 13:33Bill Nye?

  Dude, role model dad.

• 13:36Chuck Nice?

  Oh, geez.

• 13:36Bill Nye?

  Pull it back. This is why someday, everybody, I want to meet the wife. I want to meet Chuck Nice's wife.

• 13:41Chuck Nice?

  Oh, God.

• 13:42Bill Nye?

  This woman.

• 13:43Chuck Nice?

  She's a saint, man.

• 13:44Bill Nye?

  I want to say goes through hell, but it's gotta be close.

• 13:47Chuck Nice?

  Oh, God. That was, that was, dude, I'm crying. That was hilarious. I never even thought of that. I'm telling my son to save the world and I tell dick jokes for a living.

• 13:57Bill Nye?

  Okay, here we go.

• 13:59Chuck Nice?

  Can't hear you. There we go. At Mountain Mint wants to know this. Where is the line, when you talk about making, where is the line between a computer and a robot? When does a computer stop being a computer and become a robot?

• 14:15Bill Nye?

  Well, I think these, uh, when, I think, you know, words include more than they, um, leave out. And words never say all there is to say about anything. The words are not interchangeable. For me, a robot has something that moves, mechanically moves.

• 14:29Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:30Bill Nye?

  That, for me, and it might be driven by a computer program, but we use the term bot, which is a piece of software that does something.

• 14:39Chuck Nice?

  That's a task.

• 14:40Bill Nye?

  So these, there's no question, the two words or the two ideas are merging. So, uh...

• 14:48Bill Nye?

  I wouldn't worry about the difference so much.

• 14:50Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:50Bill Nye?

  If you're not a, if English isn't your first language, uh, the person who asked this question.

• 14:56Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:56Bill Nye?

  Uh, then just, if it's got something that moves mechanically, physically in, in physical spacetime.

• 15:02Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:03Bill Nye?

  Then call it a robot. If it's just, if it is only software, then call it a computer program.

• 15:09Chuck Nice?

  There you go. So there you go.

• 15:11Bill Nye?

  But if you're a native speaker of American English, you just gotta roll with it. You gotta listen and use the words how you feel they're appropriate.

• 15:18Chuck Nice?

  Awesome. There you go. There's your answer. Very succinct and a clear.

• 15:22Bill Nye?

  And then the, by the way, the person whose English is a second language will pretty soon will be smarter than, better with English than I am. So that's just the start of things. Oh, my chops will be busted yet again.

• 15:33Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 15:34Bill Nye?

  Heavens, I will get more hate mail.

• 15:36Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, you know, see, that's, I don't have that problem. I just ignore them, you know?

• 15:40Bill Nye?

  I could do that. That's all I get, though. I don't have any non-hate mail.

• 15:42Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that's not true at all. That is not, do you know how many people?

• 15:46Bill Nye?

  Do you have any idea?

• 15:48Chuck Nice?

  Do you have any idea how many people when, that I meet? And they actually say, oh, my God, you know Bill Nye? And, and that's it. Like, they don't, there's nothing else that comes after that. Like, and, and all I can say is, yes, yes, I do. And, but they're, they seem to be amazed that I just get to be in your presence. Now, I don't know if that's a, a referendum on me. I'm not sure.

• 16:15Bill Nye?

  Well, I'm in my presence all the time, and I just want you to know, it's not always pretty.

• 16:20Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 16:20Bill Nye?

  No, so I was just at the science teacher convention. You know, we made the Science Guy show 20 years ago.

• 16:25Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:26Bill Nye?

  And these people are still, they stay, they watch it all the time in class.

• 16:30Chuck Nice?

  It's unbelievable.

• 16:31Bill Nye?

  Worked really hard, and it's very gratifying. I'll take that as a thank you, uh, thank you, Chuck.

• 16:35Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, well, there's, there's a ton of people out there that are just.

• 16:37Bill Nye?

  Get another query.

• 16:38Chuck Nice?

  Huge, huge Bill Nye fans, uh, like Luke the Magic Kid. Luke the Magic Kid, having a little fun here, says, can I 3D print a Bill Nye clone to do my science homework for me?

• 16:53Bill Nye?

  No.

• 16:54Chuck Nice?

  Is that you personally telling him no? Are you denying him? Or are you saying that it's not possible?

• 17:01Bill Nye?

  Uh, I don't think that's really what you want. And certainly you can't do it, for example, this weekend in time for your homework.

• 17:08Chuck Nice?

  For your, for your, for your math test on Monday.

• 17:10Bill Nye?

  No.

• 17:10Chuck Nice?

  That's not gonna happen.

• 17:11Bill Nye?

  Because where I think he's going with this, what I'm sensing is that, Bill, would you come take the test for me?

• 17:16Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 17:16Bill Nye?

  Couple of things about that. First of all, no. But secondly, you might be disappointed when you haven't done, uh, when you haven't derived the fundamental theorem of calculus in 20 years. You maybe not be as sharp as others.

• 17:30Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 17:30Bill Nye?

  Uh, you haven't done entropy in chemical reactions. Clausius, whatever that is, you, I may, may not be the first guy you want for that. Writing an essay, you can see how much trouble I have with English. Uh, so this is, uh, Bill Nye here with Chuck Nice, worldwide citizen of the wide world. And this, you're listening to Star Talk, and we'll be back right after this.

• 17:52Bill Nye?

  Welcome back to Star Talk Radio. I'm your host, Bill Nye, here with wide world citizen of the worldwide world, Chuck Nice. This is Cosmic Queries, and we've just been jamming here, uh, on the special edition, the maker edition, which is brought to you by Google.

• 18:10Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 18:11Bill Nye?

  And we will encourage you strongly to check out their website at making science with google.com. Making science with google.com.

• 18:19Chuck Nice?

  Will not be disappointed.

• 18:20Bill Nye?

  Of course, you're on the radio right now, or you're podcasting. You're, you have earbuds on, everybody around you has earbuds on, and you're the only one who's getting enlightened by citizen of the wide world Chuck Nice, as he reads us our next cosmic query.

• 18:35Chuck Nice?

  Yes, yes, Bill. Uh, here is a cosmic query from, uh, someone you should be familiar with, and this is the Planetary Society.

• 18:45Bill Nye?

  Ah, the Planetary Society, ah, yes, of which I am CEO.

• 18:48Chuck Nice?

  You are CEO.

• 18:48Bill Nye?

  Wonder which one of my staff is out to jab me in the brain.

• 18:52Chuck Nice?

  Might this be a setup question?

• 18:57Bill Nye?

  Oh, if it is, I haven't heard it yet. What is it?

• 18:59Chuck Nice?

  As, as Sarah Palin would say, a gotcha question. Okay. Uh, hi, Bill. This is the Planetary Society from Pasadena, California, wondering if 3D printing will be able to one day print glass or lenses in particular? Curious if a deep space telescope like Hubble could be fully printed and assembled in space.

• 19:23Chuck Nice?

  Rather than built here and then launched. And I'd like to follow up with what would be the benefits of that?

• 19:29Bill Nye?

  Oh, it'd be so cool. So, uh, keep in mind, everybody, when we talk about lenses.

• 19:34Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:35Bill Nye?

  This is where you refract light like you do in your eye.

• 19:38Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 19:39Bill Nye?

  Uh, but these large telescopes almost always use mirrors. And then lenses kind of, uh, in the smallest part of them. Uh, the mirrors gather, mirrors are big, gather large amounts of light. Concentrate it and then it might pass through a lens or two before it gets to an electronic sensor.

• 19:55Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:55Bill Nye?

  Charged couple device like in your digital camera, like in your phone. But with all that said, very reasonable, you know, there's optical plastic. In fact, if you're watching this on the electric internet video feed. I'm wearing plastic contact lenses. Which, uh, refract light beautifully. And they have rings and they have an up and a down. They're bifocular, mine are.

• 20:18Chuck Nice?

  Look at that.

• 20:19Bill Nye?

  Yeah, and so very reasonable to me that you could manufacture lenses in space out of optical plastic without really having to change too much. Like, that technology's probably right at our fingertips. Then it seems to me you could certainly manufacture a very large mirror in space. But keep out, keep in mind that we manufacture those mirrors and these things to microns. To millions of a meter.

• 20:41Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 20:41Bill Nye?

  And so to make a machine that manufactures these things to millions of a meter in space may not be that easy.

• 20:49Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 20:49Bill Nye?

  So that's why we haven't tried it yet, but it sure seems reasonable.

• 20:52Chuck Nice?

  Look at that.

• 20:53Bill Nye?

  Sure seems reasonable. Let's take, uh, some optical plastic in space and squirt it out of a 3D machine and see if we get a nice lens.

• 21:01Chuck Nice?

  Very cool. Well, look at the planetary society actually a- a- asking a, uh, very salient question.

• 21:07Bill Nye?

  It sounds like.

• 21:07Chuck Nice?

  Don't figure that.

• 21:08Bill Nye?

  It's like Moir- Murric or Matt, one of those thoughtful thinkers.

• 21:12Chuck Nice?

  Cool.

• 21:13Bill Nye?

  Emily would just assume that, of course, it's possible.

• 21:16Chuck Nice?

  All right, let's move on. Uh, this is from Cassie Rosemary, who, uh, comes to us for Instagram. "Hi Bill, are there environmentally sustainable printing material?" Uh, okay, let me just-

• 21:30Bill Nye?

  No, yes, of course there are. There's recyclable plastic. Mary name person. You ever, did you get her name out? Did you ever manage that?

• 21:40Chuck Nice?

  Uh, it, it says-

• 21:41Bill Nye?

  Cassie, you're saying-

• 21:42Chuck Nice?

  Cassie, Cassie Rosemary.

• 21:44Bill Nye?

  Rosemary, as I heard the last couple syllables. Yes, Cassie. Yeah, it's very reasonable that you'd have plastic that is recyclable. Now, I have from time to time gotten hold of a corn plastic coffee mug.

• 21:57Chuck Nice?

  Corn plastic?

• 21:59Bill Nye?

  Made from corn. And it's cool, a cellulose made from corn. And they don't last forever. They, they too literally leak after a while. But they last a long time and they are melt downable and they are made from organic material. So it's very reasonable to me as this, as engineers and chemists and chemical engineers keep messing with this. In the very near future, we could have completely recyclable plastic. Very reasonable to me.

• 22:21Chuck Nice?

  Wheat. Sweet.

• 22:23Bill Nye?

  Off its sweet corn, yeah.

• 22:25Chuck Nice?

  Look at that.

• 22:27Bill Nye?

  Stop it. See that? There's where the ties are so simply made.

• 22:31Chuck Nice?

  Uh, now, here's the follow up. "Is the makers movement focused on going about their manufacturing revolution in a manner that takes into account the resources that they are using?"

• 22:41Bill Nye?

  Well, so much of the make, when you go to the maker fair, so many of the objects there are made from recycled or repurposed materials.

• 22:49Chuck Nice?

  This is something that is top of mind.

• 22:51Bill Nye?

  It is a tradition, yeah, yeah. And plus, if you're gonna, if you're a person on a budget, if you're a normal person who doesn't want to just trash money on a thing for maker fair, you find stuff to make things out of. And that's good.

• 23:05Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:05Bill Nye?

  What's not to love?

• 23:06Chuck Nice?

  Right, yeah.

• 23:07Bill Nye?

  But the whole promise of the near future is to make anything in any shape from recycled plastic or recyclable materials. Yeah. I mean, that's, instead of just taking the- Computer fan, computer cooling fan and making it into the uh drone, flying drone propeller.

• 23:30Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:31Bill Nye?

  You'd actually grind up the original fan and make it into the perfectly shaped propeller.

• 23:37Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 23:37Bill Nye?

  And you do it with renewable energy made from wind and solar electricity.

• 23:41Chuck Nice?

  So now with that in mind, do you, you know, when the plastics revolution came about.

• 23:47Bill Nye?

  When was that?

• 23:48Chuck Nice?

  Uh, back in the sixties.

• 23:49Bill Nye?

  Alright.

• 23:50Chuck Nice?

  And.

• 23:50Bill Nye?

  Started throwing the Pluto platter.

• 23:52Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:54Chuck Nice?

  Exactly, to the frisbee. And uh, you know, we knew that this material, this space age material was going to change the world. No one took into effect the fact that uh, once we have it, we have it. Okay?

• 24:09Bill Nye?

  And it doesn't degrade.

• 24:10Chuck Nice?

  Doesn't degrade. We made it and now it's here.

• 24:12Bill Nye?

  Now the.

• 24:12Chuck Nice?

  Now it's all in our oceans and everywhere.

• 24:14Bill Nye?

  But when you buy a plastic water bottle now, it says on there, it's recyclable. It says recycle this. I walk through the airport or the subway. Here's the recycling bin.

• 24:23Chuck Nice?

  Right. So now with that in mind, when we're manufacturing with uh, this wonderful technology, do we try to incorporate a way that we can recycle for the manufacturing on premise? Where, where, where, where the manufacturing started? Or do we stick to this, this system that we have now where we're dropping it in a recycling thing?

• 24:47Bill Nye?

  What I'm saying, that there'll be a future with, I'm, I know this follow, the following word is very troubling. It's an obscene word for certain people.

• 24:58Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 24:59Bill Nye?

  Regulations.

• 25:02Bill Nye?

  Where you would not be allowed to make things out of anything. Everything would be, have to be made out of environmentally benign material.

• 25:10Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 25:11Bill Nye?

  I can easily see that.

• 25:12Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 25:13Bill Nye?

  You're not allowed to manufacture stuff that leaches bad stuff into the water supply.

• 25:17Chuck Nice?

  Alright.

• 25:18Bill Nye?

  Monomers and cancer carcinogenic pieces of molecules. Instead, you, everything would have to be made responsibly. You can easily imagine that. Furthermore, the free market would enable it because manufacturers say, check our things out. Your dog can chew on this without getting sick.

• 25:35Chuck Nice?

  Okay, so now is there.

• 25:36Bill Nye?

  Paraphrase.

• 25:37Chuck Nice?

  No, here's the thing. Now that's.

• 25:38Bill Nye?

  Your cat.

• 25:39Chuck Nice?

  That's it. Or, or your baby. Or right. Or your Chuck Nice.

• 25:43Bill Nye?

  Your wife.

• 25:45Chuck Nice?

  So now with that in mind, I ask you this. Because this seems to be very much like the internet. This, this, this printing, uh, it seems to be the Wild West. It's kind of like, it's just out there.

• 25:57Bill Nye?

  Anybody can do it.

• 25:58Chuck Nice?

  Anybody can do it.

• 25:58Bill Nye?

  It's cool. It's democratizing manufacture.

• 26:01Chuck Nice?

  Exactly. So now, how do we get those regulations in place? Because just like when the plastics revolution happened and nobody considered that one day we would have a trash circle in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Right? Um, I don't think anybody's looking forward to what will the carbon imprint of this be?

• 26:22Bill Nye?

  I think people are.

• 26:23Chuck Nice?

  Are they really?

• 26:24Bill Nye?

  Yeah. I mean, it says on the bottle, this is recyclable.

• 26:27Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 26:27Bill Nye?

  Right?

• 26:27Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 26:28Bill Nye?

  It says on your vest, this is made from recycled materials.

• 26:31Chuck Nice?

  No, mine says made in China.

• 26:33Bill Nye?

  Well, it might say both.

• 26:34Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 26:35Bill Nye?

  Right?

• 26:35Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 26:35Bill Nye?

  Everybody freaks out about having things manufactured in Asia. They're designed here and we buy it from somebody else. It's, it's just a global way of thinking about having it designed in Pittsburgh, but manufactured in Milwaukee, just on a global scale.

• 26:53Chuck Nice?

  Okay, gotcha.

• 26:54Bill Nye?

  Just everybody, uh, it's not inherently bad that things are manu- different things are specialty manufactured in different parts of the world.

• 27:02Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:02Bill Nye?

  For example, my sister continually busts my chops about my bow ties are not made in the States.

• 27:09Chuck Nice?

  You mean the bow ties that you, uh, do you have a brand of bow ties?

• 27:12Bill Nye?

  Yeah, yeah. Because we don't have silkworms in the United States. I'm sorry.

• 27:16Chuck Nice?

  Oh, wow. Look at you using real silk. Lovely.

• 27:19Bill Nye?

  But I mean, you guys, uh, I can't, maybe one day with the inflatable greenhouse, we'll have silkworms. Right now, and that's kind of an entrepreneurial idea right there. You know, we have butterfly houses. Let's have silkworm manufacturer right here. Silkworm, um, products, silk products right here in the United States. It could be a big thing. So the, what's exciting about this show today, Chuck.

• 27:41Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 27:42Bill Nye?

  Is how empowering it is. This 3D printing additive manufacturer is gonna change the world. This is StarTalk.

• 27:49Chuck Nice?

  That's right. I'm Chuck Nice and this special segment of Cosmic Queries Maker Edition with Bill Nye is brought to you by Google. Be sure to check out their website at makingsciencewithgoogle.com. And now, without further ado, the one, the only, Mr. Bill Nye.

• 28:04Bill Nye?

  Thank you, Chuck. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you, Chuck. Chuck, you, you, you have the queries over there.

• 28:09Chuck Nice?

  Yes, I do.

• 28:10Bill Nye?

  Read me one.

• 28:11Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 28:13Chuck Nice?

  Let's jump right into this. Uh, speaking of make, this comes from Aiden on Facebook. Speaking of making.

• 28:20Bill Nye?

  Using science to make things and solve problems.

• 28:22Chuck Nice?

  Right. What is the best way to get children, especially girls, into STEM? And specifically engineering? I suppose that's why he said, speaking of making. Specifically engineering.

• 28:36Bill Nye?

  Algebra.

• 28:37Chuck Nice?

  Oh, really?

• 28:38Bill Nye?

  Yeah, so you just want to make sure everybody learns algebra.

• 28:40Chuck Nice?

  Algebra.

• 28:40Bill Nye?

  Apparently algebra, uh, enables you to think not only abstractly about numbers, but enables you to think abstractly about all kinds of things. So just make sure that your young ladies learn algebra. Now, there's a period in middle school and our upper elementary school where girls are just better at everything. And so they're better at math, too. Just don't let them pull back.

• 29:03Chuck Nice?

  Don't let them pull back.

• 29:04Bill Nye?

  Yes, make sure they stick with it.

• 29:06Chuck Nice?

  Now, most people don't get to algebra until, well, I went to a school where we got it to in eighth grade.

• 29:11Bill Nye?

  Yeah, seventh, eighth grade.

• 29:13Chuck Nice?

  Right. And then there-

• 29:14Bill Nye?

  What we want in the big picture is to start having letters represent numbers earlier.

• 29:19Chuck Nice?

  So, right, so-

• 29:20Bill Nye?

  Lower pressure, so it doesn't all show up at once in eighth grade.

• 29:23Chuck Nice?

  Right. So, you know, and, and, and so, and the other thing, too, is, one of the things that I see that they're doing in math now is getting children, they as in educators, or at least the educators that are educating my children, uh, from what they said on the parent teacher night, was to get, getting children to be able to write about math. Now, is there-

• 29:47Bill Nye?

  That's good.

• 29:47Chuck Nice?

  Is there something, is there a value there?

• 29:49Bill Nye?

  I guess, yes.

• 29:54Bill Nye?

  Yes, there is. Of course, there's value to writing about math.

• 29:56Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 29:57Bill Nye?

  Cause that- You're trying to solve, that's what a word problem, you're trying to solve problems. Yeah, so everybody who thinks, uh, later in life, in general, is thinking in words.

• 30:07Chuck Nice?

  Right. So if you think about your numbers and words, you're doing that much better.

• 30:11Bill Nye?

  Yeah, right.

• 30:11Chuck Nice?

  Numbers.

• 30:11Bill Nye?

  That's right.

• 30:12Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha, gotcha. So for girls, get them.

• 30:16Bill Nye?

  And then you know, like I've had a thought, but I can't really express how I feel. Really skeptical. Humans have been around for so many thousands and thousands of years. You know, everybody talks about Greek has these wonderful word, thirty-five different words.

• 30:30Chuck Nice?

  Just for love.

• 30:31Bill Nye?

  Or whatever that.

• 30:32Chuck Nice?

  That's for love.

• 30:33Bill Nye?

  And that's good. But I bet you, if you really have something you really need to express, there's a word for it. Cause we've just got, people have been talking for so long.

• 30:42Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 30:42Bill Nye?

  And so, um, uh, you may have to use some adjectives. You can't, may not be a single word, but you'll get there.

• 30:50Chuck Nice?

  You'll get there.

• 30:50Bill Nye?

  That's my feeling.

• 30:51Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:51Bill Nye?

  I'm sure there are linguists out there who'll bust my chops, but I'm doing my best here.

• 30:57Chuck Nice?

  Especially when it comes to love.

• 30:58Bill Nye?

  With these words.

• 31:00Chuck Nice?

  Especially.

• 31:00Bill Nye?

  Use.

• 31:01Chuck Nice?

  All right, let's move on to, uh.

• 31:06Bill Nye?

  It's very easy for you to say, Mr. Nice.

• 31:09Chuck Nice?

  Carlero Adams.

• 31:11Bill Nye?

  Carlio.

• 31:12Chuck Nice?

  Carlio. Mm-hmm. Or Carleroi. Carly Roy. Carly Roy.

• 31:17Bill Nye?

  Carly Roy.

• 31:17Chuck Nice?

  Carly Roy Adams wants to know this. Hi, Bill. I'm a big fan. I'm interested to know your predictions for Africa. Specifically, where do you think this pre-post-materialistic initiative will drive progress? Towards and will it fill gaps in the production systems faced in many countries? That have the raw materials, yet lack the skilled manpower and policies for scientific missions? Ranging from space exploration to medical research. Wow, you want to talk about a question?

• 31:55Bill Nye?

  Think the answer there is yes.

• 31:59Bill Nye?

  No, what we want is for everyone in the world to have access to clean water, reliable electricity and access to.

• 32:07Bill Nye?

  The information superhighway, the internet, the world wide web.

• 32:11Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 32:11Bill Nye?

  I believe that if everybody in the world's given access to the world wide web, then everybody will become exceptionally more productive, especially in remote areas. So, one of the things you gotta do, for example Chuck, by way of example.

• 32:25Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 32:26Bill Nye?

  In order to use the internet, computers have to have clocks, very accurate clocks inside. And so, we do that here in the developed world by running wires everywhere. And everybody's got a clock.

• 32:38Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 32:39Bill Nye?

  Now, even if you're running your phone, there are the cell towers that communicate with your phone are running on landline wires at this point. But wouldn't it be cool, in the developing world, if we have just local things in the village with solar panels? That run their electrical system, big batteries that store enough electricity to run overnight. And, the world wide web is coordinated from space.

• 33:04Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 33:05Bill Nye?

  Satellites in space. And so, why would the developed world do this for the developing world? Why would it, we provide?

• 33:13Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 33:13Bill Nye?

  Those them?

• 33:14Chuck Nice?

  Right, because then they're gonna be better off than we are.

• 33:16Bill Nye?

  Because, well, no, everybody'd be more productive.

• 33:18Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 33:18Bill Nye?

  And if you wanna buy the raw materials from people, wouldn't it be nice if they were all on the internet? And you could do business with them electronically? And so, this is in everybody's best interest. Clean water.

• 33:28Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:29Bill Nye?

  Reliable electricity and access to the internet to everyone in the world. Those are our goals. Rural Africa is as good a place as any to get started on this.

• 33:38Chuck Nice?

  Fantastic. So, there you-

• 33:41Bill Nye?

  Skills will emerge, people will get good at it.

• 33:43Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:44Bill Nye?

  Not this weekend, but in a few years.

• 33:46Chuck Nice?

  Okay, well now, I'm done with that. I want it this weekend.

• 33:49Bill Nye?

  Okay, then, go to the right guys and gals.

• 33:52Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, tell me about it. All right, let's move on to, okay byte.

• 33:58Bill Nye?

  Okay byte?

• 33:59Chuck Nice?

  Okay byte.

• 33:59Bill Nye?

  B Y T or B Y T?

• 34:01Chuck Nice?

  B Y T. Okay byte. Hi Bill.

• 34:04Bill Nye?

  Hi, okay.

• 34:05Chuck Nice?

  I'm a big, I'm a big fan from Turkey. I wonder whether we will be able to connect every little electronic device in our home? From our coffee machines to our clothes dryers. Uh, to a local network, so that we can control them from anywhere at any time. So...

• 34:25Bill Nye?

  Yes.

• 34:26Chuck Nice?

  That's it.

• 34:26Bill Nye?

  Yes.

• 34:27Chuck Nice?

  We're already pretty much there, right?

• 34:29Bill Nye?

  Where all the food has a label on it that tells you when it was put in there and suggests recipes you could make from the food. And we certainly all want a thing where we can take out our phone and program our recorder to record a show.

• 34:41Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 34:41Bill Nye?

  But even that's not all the way happening because now you can get it on demand.

• 34:45Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 34:46Bill Nye?

  After if you forgot to watch it or forgot to record it.

• 34:48Chuck Nice?

  You're just going down, though you stream it.

• 34:50Bill Nye?

  I'm imagining both. The refrigerator, the dryer would tell you when it's done.

• 34:54Chuck Nice?

  Alright, so.

• 34:54Bill Nye?

  So you put the clothes in the dryer.

• 34:56Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 34:57Bill Nye?

  Then you go downstairs to play ping pong with your neighbors, or you go to the garage to play ping pong with your neighbors.

• 35:02Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 35:02Bill Nye?

  And the phone goes beep beep beep, dryer's done, and then you go back inside. Why not?

• 35:06Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 35:06Bill Nye?

  What's not to love?

• 35:07Chuck Nice?

  So now here's the real question to that.

• 35:10Bill Nye?

  It's on your watch.

• 35:11Chuck Nice?

  Uh.

• 35:13Bill Nye?

  Your clothes are dry, your clothes are dry.

• 35:14Chuck Nice?

  Wouldn't that, when it comes to the singularity?

• 35:17Bill Nye?

  Oh, boy.

• 35:18Chuck Nice?

  Come on now, seriously, when all these machines are connected together, Bill!

• 35:22Bill Nye?

  It's just that, you guys.

• 35:24Chuck Nice?

  Come on, man!

• 35:24Bill Nye?

  StarTalk listeners and the singularity. Yeah, go ahead, what about it?

• 35:28Chuck Nice?

  Well, isn't that, won't that?

• 35:30Bill Nye?

  End of the world as we know it?

• 35:32Chuck Nice?

  Oh, seriously, because if all the machines are connected and you have a centralized...

• 35:37Bill Nye?

  Why would it have to be centralized?

• 35:38Chuck Nice?

  Well, I'm just saying, you have one machine that is, that centralizes all these other machines, then that one machine may have the ability of communicating through all these other machines to do whatever. So instead of your clothes, uh, coming out of the dryer, you're, the, the...

• 35:54Bill Nye?

  You got a pastrami sandwich.

• 35:57Chuck Nice?

  Or, or it says, "Leave those clothes in there until they catch fire," or whatever.

• 36:00Bill Nye?

  Well, so...

• 36:01Chuck Nice?

  I'm gonna, I'm gonna cause chaos throughout the world because all these machines are now tied together.

• 36:06Bill Nye?

  So they don't do that. Uh, so just remember that having things distributed is pretty natural. By that I mean, information gets distributed. You don't have to have a central place that controls every clothes dryer.

• 36:19Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 36:20Bill Nye?

  This is the guy made OK, uh, Byte.

• 36:22Chuck Nice?

  Hey, Byte.

• 36:23Bill Nye?

  Or AkByte.

• 36:24Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, AkByte.

• 36:24Bill Nye?

  Made reference to local networks.

• 36:27Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 36:28Bill Nye?

  This whole thing that when you connect everything together is inherently bad and will lead to chaos, I'm not buying it. Because what if somebody just unplugs the whole thing? Then nothing happens.

• 36:38Chuck Nice?

  Now, that's true. That's a good thing.

• 36:40Bill Nye?

  It'll probably be plugged in locally and run locally. This... This idea that there's one computer that could set all the clothes in the world on fire. Clothes have to be in the dryer, you have to turn it on, the electricity has to be working, or the fuel source has to be working, and then

• 36:57Chuck Nice?

  All right, now-

• 36:58Bill Nye?

  Worldwide singularity dryer robot has to decide it's worth doing to set all the clothes on fire.

• 37:04Chuck Nice?

  Okay, so now, let's, let's get off of my ridiculous premise-

• 37:08Bill Nye?

  Maybe not ridiculous, just, singularity's a huge thing on this show.

• 37:12Chuck Nice?

  A lot of people are very, very much into this singularity.

• 37:14Bill Nye?

  And just one afternoon, you won't recognize the place.

• 37:17Chuck Nice?

  Let me, let me-

• 37:18Bill Nye?

  Unless you don't even have running water and a light.

• 37:21Chuck Nice?

  Let me ask you this.

• 37:23Bill Nye?

  In your house.

• 37:24Chuck Nice?

  When you look at a, a network, okay, any like, a company network.

• 37:29Bill Nye?

  Yes.

• 37:30Chuck Nice?

  One of the ways that they hack into the network is through one of the satellite computers that is on the network.

• 37:36Bill Nye?

  Yeah.

• 37:37Chuck Nice?

  So they go to this lower priority entry point, and they get into the mainframe. Would the connection of all these devices like Okbyte is saying, would that give, uh, someone the opportunity to hack into, I don't know, uh, your personal bank account?

• 37:53Bill Nye?

  Yes, yes.

• 37:55Chuck Nice?

  Or what have you.

• 37:56Bill Nye?

  Yes, if your dryer is connected to your phone and tells you when it's done, the world will end. We'll be back after this. This is StarTalk Radio with Chuck Nice, and I'm your host, Bill Nye. Welcome back to StarTalk Cosmic Queries. Uh, this segment is brought to you by Google, and this is the maker edition, so it's making science with google.com. Making science with google.com, Chuck.

• 38:25Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 38:26Bill Nye?

  I hope you're feeling the excitement, you're feeling the electricity, because this, my friend, is the lightning round. Give me a query, Chuck.

• 38:34Chuck Nice?

  Here's the query, this one coming from Steve Weinick. And Steve wants to know this, standardization of parts made the industrial revolution possible. What will the customization of parts for 3D printing do?

• 38:47Bill Nye?

  Uh, well, it'll make things fit together. There'll still be standards. There'll still be pressure vessel standards and threads per inch or threads per centimeter, threads per meter, millimeter standards.

• 38:56Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 38:57Bill Nye?

  It'll just be available to everybody and the standards will not be made through hardware as such, they'll be made through software. You'll download the ISO thread spacing, thread pitch, and you'll make all your parts perfectly fit. I was trying to get to perfect pitch, but you know what I'm driving at.

• 39:15Chuck Nice?

  Yes, I do.

• 39:16Bill Nye?

  Electronic standards, it's gonna be a piece of cake, a piece of electronic cake.

• 39:22Chuck Nice?

  Very nice. Christina Vuletic, Vuletic comes to us from Twitter and she wants to know this. What progress has been made to use more than one type of material in 3D printing processes?

• 39:36Bill Nye?

  Well, there's all different, there's several different kinds of plastic already and people have managed to print certain metals. So all sorts of progress is being made and I like the term 3D printing, but I really prefer the term additive manufacturing. You add material. And if you think of it that way, it's not, doesn't necessarily have to be a printer head going back and forth squirting out goo.

• 39:58Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 39:58Bill Nye?

  It could be added in another cool way.

• 40:01Chuck Nice?

  Additive manufacturing, Christina, there is your answer. Joey Rudy from Instagram wants to know this. He says, hey, Bill, 3D printers have made it into the household, but they're not quite a home essential yet. What is the next step to making 3D printers in the home as common as dishwashers and laundry machines?

• 40:22Bill Nye?

  I think the more people buy them, the cheaper they'll get. Like anything else, engineers will be motivated to fine tune them. And you make more parts, if you make more printers on an assembly line, the cost per printer will come down. You don't have to worry about it, just embrace it, it'll be organic, it'll just happen.

• 40:41Chuck Nice?

  Nice. All right. Oh, here's something. Speaking of making, uh, this is from, uh, oh, God.

• 40:51Chuck Nice?

  Former Stags, I'm gonna say that, but it's F.

• 40:54Bill Nye?

  It's a lightning round.

• 40:55Chuck Nice?

  Former Stags, here we go. Uh, if you were to build your own classroom with Maker Things in it, what would it look like and what would you include? Matt from Kentucky wants to know this.

• 41:05Bill Nye?

  Well, I guess it would depend how many students you have, but you'd wanna have a printer for every four students, maybe every six students.

• 41:10Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 41:11Bill Nye?

  That'd be cool. And have competitions, who could make the best thing? What thing would you make?

• 41:15Chuck Nice?

  My god, that's...

• 41:16Bill Nye?

  A pen?

• 41:17Chuck Nice?

  Uh.

• 41:17Bill Nye?

  Drinking cup.

• 41:18Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:19Bill Nye?

  A salt shaker. A rocket engine.

• 41:22Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 41:22Bill Nye?

  A, uh, planter box. And I'd want it to not only be functional, I'd want it to look good. I'd like it to be artistic.

• 41:30Chuck Nice?

  Well, you know that, my little buddy, my son, uh, and, I'm sorry, I know we're in a lichen round, but that's what they're doing in his STEM, he has an after-school STEM class that goes to. And that's one of the things they did. He was very upset because they made a bridge.

• 41:42Bill Nye?

  It's worn so long ago.

• 41:42Chuck Nice?

  He made a bridge that failed. He made a suspension bi- bridge, and it failed. And I've never seen a kid more upset in my life.

• 41:49Bill Nye?

  Well, is he gonna rebuild it? Is he gonna redesign and rebuild it right on?

• 41:52Chuck Nice?

  There you go. All right. Uh, this is Seattle Girl 12, she wants to know this. What do you think will be the best or most important use of 3D printers? And what impact do you think it will have? Whitney from Seattle, what's the most important thing we'll be printing?

• 42:08Bill Nye?

  It's really hard to predict the future, Whitney. You don't have to worry about it. Uh, printers will be made, uh, or additive manufacturing systems will be made for every place where it's appropriate, because that's what people will do.

• 42:19Chuck Nice?

  So what would you say?

• 42:20Bill Nye?

  But the first thing for me is repair. I feel there'll be a, uh, several years where stuff that is wearing out can be repaired by going to your local additive manufacturing place, akin to FedEx, Kinko, or Staples, and get a new juicer middle reamer thing.

• 42:39Chuck Nice?

  I love that. And the fact is that everybody's thinking of having a printer in your home. So will it be like you have a printer in your home? I have a printer in my home, but I still go to Kinko's.

• 42:47Bill Nye?

  That's right. When you need a lot of stuff printed. You'll need both, a small scale and big scale.

• 42:51Chuck Nice?

  Right. From Joseph Clark coming to us from Twitter and he says, would 3D printing robots eventually be capable of making a 3D printed army to take over the world?

• 43:01Bill Nye?

  Yes! Bahahaha! You're listening to StarTalk Lightning Round with Wide World, Citizen of the Worldwide World, Chuck Nice.

• 43:09Chuck Nice?

  Here we go. How far off is printing using raw materials from asteroids? How far off are we from using materials from asteroids as raw materials for 3D printing?

• 43:22Bill Nye?

  Well, it depends how you look at it. Either you say everything on Earth is made of the same stuff as asteroids, so we're already doing it right now, ha, ha, ha. Or when do we fly out to an asteroid and mine it?

• 43:34Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 43:35Bill Nye?

  I think it's 50 years away.

• 43:37Chuck Nice?

  50 years.

• 43:38Bill Nye?

  It could be next weekend if somebody gets out there. The thing is, for in the example of platinum.

• 43:43Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 43:44Bill Nye?

  There's a lot of platinum on the Earth you don't have to build a rocket to get.

• 43:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 43:48Bill Nye?

  To find a platinum asteroid is just not so easy. Not saying it won't ever be done, but the big thing is to go to an asteroid now and get the ice, the water ice, and separate it into hydrogen and oxygen using solar panels on your rocket ship. And then use that for rocket fuel, electrically produced rocket fuel.

• 44:07Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 44:08Bill Nye?

  But that's not the same as 3D printing a new coffee mug or something.

• 44:11Chuck Nice?

  No, no.

• 44:12Bill Nye?

  So I think it's a ways off, but time will tell. It's hard to predict stuff like that.

• 44:16Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 44:17Bill Nye?

  If somebody finds a particular material that you really need, and an asteroid's the only place to get it, it'll probably be sooner than you think.

• 44:24Chuck Nice?

  There you go. Here's one from AndreGamma07 wants to know this, think he's just having a little fun. Is it possible to 3D print a planet?

• 44:43Bill Nye?

  I don't think so. Yeah, thank you, though. The big thing is planets generally have enough gravity to become balls.

• 44:53Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 44:54Bill Nye?

  And printing or cutting things into a sphere is not so easy. So the answer would be, of course it's possible, it'd just be kinda difficult.

• 45:01Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 45:04Chuck Nice?

  All right, this is from Ian Landy, uh, at Technolandy on Twitter. And Ian wants to know this. From the elementary perspective, should maker movement be experimental, free play, or scaffolded with supports? No idea what he's talking about.

• 45:26Bill Nye?

  I think your kids go to an after-school program where they learn to write code and print.

• 45:30Chuck Nice?

  That's correct.

• 45:30Bill Nye?

  That's good. Other people take their 3D printer, which they buy at Staples, and make stuff and send files to each other to make more stuff. You don't have to restrict this, it's happening.

• 45:40Chuck Nice?

  You just let it happen.

• 45:41Bill Nye?

  Well, but also encourage it in schools.

• 45:43Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 45:43Bill Nye?

  And then let it happen outside of school.

• 45:46Chuck Nice?

  There you have it. And that is why, uh, what's the name of that, uh, program?

• 45:51Bill Nye?

  StarTalk, it's called StarTalk.

• 45:53Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that's right.

• 45:53Bill Nye?

  That features you and me, Chuck Nice and Bill Nye.

• 45:58Chuck Nice?

  Okay, El Sabio, uh, on Twitter says this. I love how SpaceX uses 3D printing for their Super Drago engine. Super Draco engine. Is there a chance NASA expands on this idea? First of all, what is a Super Draco engine?

• 46:15Bill Nye?

  Uh, it's SpaceX's rocket engine.

• 46:18Chuck Nice?

  That's their rocket engine.

• 46:19Bill Nye?

  And they make the bell housing, Lisa Soread and Space News, they make the nozzle.

• 46:24Chuck Nice?

  Oh, I saw that.

• 46:25Bill Nye?

  3D printer. It's cool. So, uh, keep in mind that, you guys, SpaceX is well advertised and so on, but all that, all that, uh, technology really comes down from NASA.

• 46:37Chuck Nice?

  Ah.

• 46:38Bill Nye?

  Uh, most of it's, so much of what we take for granted in our modern world, the internet especially, in this type of podcast, is a result of the space program. So, uh, also keep in mind that when SpaceX builds a rocket, they're doing it with your tax money. It's usually a contract, most of the time, it's a contract under NASA. Once in a while, the Air Force. So, uh, it's not just that SpaceX is doing something, it's that we're all doing something. Yeah, and 3D printing's cool. It's cool. Uh, additive manufacture of these exotic shapes is really a great, great way to go.

• 47:15Chuck Nice?

  Sweet. There you have it.

• 47:16Bill Nye?

  I meant to go.

• 47:17Chuck Nice?

  All right. Hello, Sir William Nye. My name is Jason from Cincinnati, Ohio. I'm curious to hear your thoughts about the future of solar power. Do you think there will someday be a way for anyone to have solar power? And will we be able to do a DIY for the entire setup without the need for an electrician?

• 47:32Bill Nye?

  Well, you're talking about a lot of power. So we have electricians so they don't electrocute themselves, or your neighbor have sparks come out.

• 47:39Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 47:40Bill Nye?

  So I have solar panels on my house, and they work great, but in the coming years they're going to be cheaper and better.

• 47:46Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 47:47Bill Nye?

  And that will enable us to, dare I say it, power the world!

• 47:50Chuck Nice?

  Yes!

• 47:51Bill Nye?

  This has been StarTalk's Lightning Round with Citizen of the Wide World Chuck Nice and I, Bill Nye. Keep looking up, and turn it up loud!