Pod Insights StarTalk Podcast Science and Psyche in Film, with Darren Aronofsky About this episode Neil deGrasse Tyson explores the scientific, metaphysical, and psychological aspects of filmmaking with auteur filmmaker Darren Aronofsky, co-host Paula Poundstone, astrophysicist Charles Liu, PhD, neuroscientist Heather Berlin, PhD, and Bill Nye.
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Sebastian Seilund, Ian Schulze, Heidi Lynne Makela, Calvin Mitchell, Sinai Coons.
Photo Credit: Brandon Royal.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? From the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, and beaming out across all of space and time, this is StarTalk, where science and pop culture collide. Welcome to the hall of the universe. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And tonight, we explore the extreme, from the depths of the human psyche to the cold vacuum of space. So let's do this.
0:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, my co-host tonight, Paula Poundstone, welcome to StarTalk. Been a big fan of yours for a long time. And you also had a recent book, The Totally Unscientific Study of the Search for Human Happiness, where you actually do experiments, even though you say it's unscientific.
0:51 Speaker 01 I do experiments. Every chapter is written as an experiment. I do experiments with things that either I or other people thought would make me happy.
0:58 Neil deGrasse Tyson? All right. Also joining us is StarTalk's resident geek-in-chief, Charles Liu.
1:07 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Professor of astrophysics at the City University of New York in Staten Island. And we're featuring my interview with Oscar-nominated director Darren Aronofsky. He's the man behind popular films like Black Swan, Noah, but his directorial debut was for a film called Pi, as in the mathematical constant, pi.
1:30 Charles Liu? 3.1415926535, etc.
1:39 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I'm good for eight decimal places, that's it. 3.1415926, yeah, nine, that's all I'm good for.
1:46 Speaker 01 You know what? I think that's plenty.
1:49 Speaker 01 You know, most circles, you go further than that.
1:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're good. We're good for most circles here. So because of this, you know I had to ask him about any sources of mathematical inspiration in his life, so let's check it out.
2:02 Speaker 03 In high school, I had a really great math teacher, the head of the department, Mr. Schneider, taught this weird elective, which was like, I guess mysticism in mathematics or something.
2:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh.
2:14 Speaker 03 We learned about Pythagoras and his cult running around, really fascinating stuff. But he also talked about pi and how...
2:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Because we remember Pythagoras with the Pythagorean theorem.
2:26 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah.
2:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But there was a whole subtext to what was going on in his...
2:29 Speaker 03 He was kind of a cult leader, I think.
2:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? In his life and his followers.
2:31 Speaker 03 They were monks or something, that sort of all... So that was interesting, and then all these weird kind of mystical ideas that, you know, if you actually take the height of Giza versus the width of it, you get the... I don't know if it's true, you get a more accurate number of pi than what the Egyptians were using. So he was just turning us on to these different ideas. I mean, now it's become really popular. When I was doing pi, there were no books on, you know, cosmic geometry and all that stuff. There was very few books out there. Now it's become, people are really into all those connections. It's like math being the language of nature. And repeating patterns and different shapes, and that, you know, it became a big theme in pi, the spiral idea that connects us.
3:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So you had pi on the brain.
3:16 Speaker 03 Yeah.
3:17 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And from what I understand, you were enchanted by Fibonacci.
3:22 Speaker 03 Yeah.
3:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Fibonacci sequence.
3:24 Speaker 03 It's weird, this is my weird connection to it. My zip code as a kid in Brooklyn was 11235.
3:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Ooh.
3:31 Speaker 03 Right? That was my zip code.
3:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So there's 1 plus 1 is 2, and then 2 plus 1 is 3, and then 3 plus 2 is 5.
3:41 Speaker 03 Right.
3:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So 1, 1, 2, 3...
3:42 Speaker 03 3, 5, that was my zip code.
3:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That is crazy.
3:44 Speaker 03 So...
3:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You got a Fibonacci...
3:46 Speaker 03 Fifth grade.
3:47 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Fibonacci zip code.
3:48 Speaker 03 Exactly. So Charles...
3:54 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The film Pi.
3:55 Charles Liu? Yes.
3:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Is about a mathematician's obsession with numbers.
3:58 Charles Liu? Yes.
3:59 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Can you relate to this?
4:00 Charles Liu? Absolutely, I can. They are so cool, not to mention, by the way, my wife is a mathematician and my son, one of my sons is studying to be a mathematician. They're fascinated by numbers too. Except that mathematics far exceeds just numbers. What's cool about numbers is that you can get lots of neat things happening and you don't really know why. And that excites people and it triggers imagination, makes them think about mysteries that you don't understand.
4:25 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, but you can over-manipulate numbers and think it has meaning.
4:28 Charles Liu? All the time.
4:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? All the time.
4:29 Charles Liu? People do it all the time and it's actually a kind of a caution that we have to make sure that things like that do not overwhelm your legitimate understanding of the limitations of the patterns you see.
4:40 Speaker 01 What do you mean manipulating numbers?
4:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Well, so you can measure, you can measure things and then work for hours to combine numbers or divide them or multiply them and come up with something that you deem significant. And then you assert that the object had that significance buried deep within it. And then you extracted it by having manipulated measures of that object.
5:04 Speaker 01 I would never do that.
5:07 Speaker 01 Just to be clear, never.
5:08 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, explain, Charles, the Fibonacci sequence or its relevance to nature.
5:13 Charles Liu? Sure. Fibonacci, just as you described in the clip there, you go one, one, two, three, five, eight, etc. Adding the two previous numbers to get the next number. It turns out that as you go forward, the numbers grow very rapidly on an exponential scale. And as the sequence heads toward infinity, the ratio between each number and each successive number approaches what we call the golden ratio, which creates a spiral pattern that can go on into infinity, always repeating itself in a very beautiful and interesting way.
5:48 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Darren also mentioned something called cosmic.
5:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Geometry.
5:53 Charles Liu? Yes.
5:53 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Do you have any sense? It sounded a little mystical to me.
5:56 Charles Liu? Yeah, yeah. Cosmic geometry, or sometimes known as sacred geometry, is to shapes. The way that, say, numerology is to numbers, or astrology is to stars.
6:05 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay.
6:06 Charles Liu? In the sense that people saw so many cool things about the universe or about the world around them that they could put in the context of shapes and structures that they thought surely there was something mystical, perhaps even divine.
6:20 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Deeply, deeply significant.
6:21 Charles Liu? Yeah, it turns out that there is not, because you can always find ways to relate shapes to one another, to the things that we imagine, we see. In the end, almost all of that is coincidence. But it's a good place to start, to start thinking about things.
6:36 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Relationships.
6:37 Charles Liu? Relationships that eventually lead to scientific truths.
6:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Eventually.
6:41 Charles Liu? Eventually, but not right away.
6:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Well, after I got the scoop about his film on math, I asked him how he found his path to become a filmmaker in the first place. That's always a fascinating story. And I got it from him. Let's check it out.
6:56 Speaker 03 I graduated high school early, and I was backpacking around Europe. And I ended up in...
7:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Are you one of those?
7:01 Speaker 03 Yeah.
7:02 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Finding yourself? Is this what you were doing?
7:03 Speaker 03 I'm still doing it. Still haven't found it. And then, um, ended up in Marrakech in Morocco, in the Gemma, the big square. You been there?
7:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No.
7:13 Speaker 03 It's an amazing place. And they basically, uh, you know, at sunset, you got snake charmers, and you have food hawkers, and you have all different types of people. And they were storytellers. And I remember pushing through this crowd and seeing this old man on a cane speaking in his language. I didn't understand a word, but everyone, like, as he moved, he just became this giant. And I was like, oh, it's storytelling.
7:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So that was evidence for you?
7:41 Speaker 03 I just liked...
7:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That the power of storytelling was not only international, but possibly primal?
7:47 Speaker 03 Yeah, and I believe that. And it goes beyond language. And I mean, that's the beauty of film, is that you can watch a seven-year-old in Iran or an 80-year-old in Scotland. And if the film, the film can take you into their subjective experience. And then you suddenly realize we're all human, going through the same types of challenges in their own unique ways. But you can connect with any character on the planet.
8:12 Speaker 01 You know.
8:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? What?
8:14 Speaker 01 Wouldn't it be sad if it turned out that the guy he encountered in front of the restaurant in Morocco was just listing the dinner specials?
8:23 Speaker 01 And then he launched his career unnecessarily.
8:28 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I see. Well, somebody had, Charles, he says stories.
8:32 Charles Liu? Yes.
8:32 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Darren says stories are a way to connect anyone on the planet.
8:37 Charles Liu? Yes.
8:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So do you, you are a professor?
8:39 Charles Liu? Yes.
8:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I was once a professor, I'm not anymore. Do you use storytelling to help your students connect with science?
8:46 Charles Liu? All the time.
8:47 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Really?
8:47 Charles Liu? Yes, it is pedagogically wise to do so, in fact. Studies have clearly shown psychologically, educationally, et cetera, that human beings are very much interested in narrative. If you can tell a story about the universe, if you can tell a story about whatever you're trying to describe, it's much more likely to be both remembered and make an impact than if you just list the information.
9:11 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So what's more universal, math or stories? Will aliens like stories if we meet one?
9:17 Charles Liu? You know what, that's like saying-
9:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It'd be cool if we saw aliens and they got around a campfire and they were telling stories to each other.
9:21 Charles Liu? Yeah, no, I'd say this, it's like asking what's more universal, your right leg or your left leg?
9:27 Speaker 01 Oh, your left leg.
9:29 Charles Liu? Then that's the answer, right? You need both to walk, right? Think about it, when we created the-
9:34 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Otherwise you're hopping, yes.
9:35 Charles Liu? Yeah. When we created the constellations, how do we remember these weird patterns of stars unless you tell a story? Oh, there's Orion hunting or defending himself while the dogs are behind him and the bull is in front of him, things like that. Telling the stories may indeed be the way that we connect with aliens in the future. First, though, with the math, right? Once we send them a Fibonacci series of bleeps, then they know we understand something about mathematics, and then we can tell them, "Let me tell you about what my mother-in-law Glorpthla did yesterday, you know, with the roast."
10:11 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So that's an alien grandmother name?
10:14 Charles Liu? Yes, Glorpthla.
10:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, you thought about this, okay.
10:19 Charles Liu? That's part of the story.
10:20 Speaker 01 You know, this is like, we haven't even met the aliens yet and already we're stereotyping.
10:28 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Next, we'll break down the psychology of facing extreme situations in film, when Star Talk returns.
10:40 Speaker 04 This is StarTalk.
10:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Welcome back to StarTalk from the American Museum of Natural History. We're featuring my interview with director Darren Aronofsky. And I asked him how he uses film to explore the far reaches of human experience. Check it out.
11:00 Speaker 03 I think the idea is to take people inch by inch, step by step, into extreme places. I mean, that's what I've done in a lot of my work is like...
11:07 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Wait, that's a... I gotta hear that sentence again.
11:11 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Take...
11:12 Speaker 03 Take an audience.
11:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Take an audience.
11:14 Speaker 03 Step by step.
11:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Inch by inch.
11:15 Speaker 03 Inch by inch.
11:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Step by step, into where?
11:18 Speaker 03 Into very extreme places because I think that's sort of showing the range of humanity. I mean, I end up telling the story of these characters that they don't have ordinary journeys. They're definitely going somewhere really far. So, you know, I wanted people to understand Natalie Portman, the ballerina's kind of motivation, her urge, her dream.
11:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? In the black swan.
11:42 Speaker 03 Yeah, as she slowly gets possessed by, you know, this need to be perfect and this need to succeed and...
11:49 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's the inching of the way.
11:50 Speaker 03 It's inching. You take little steps. It's like in Requiem for a Dream, you see... What I loved about the book is that it was this, you know, these two stories. One was like a typical drug story of young kids and one was an old lady who was just sort of addicted to a dream. And how being addicted to a drug could be the same as being addicted to not eating a chocolate because you want to lose weight. And that, how that kind of conversation in your head is the same sort of biochemical conversation that you're...
12:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You're grappling with, yeah.
12:19 Speaker 03 Yeah, you're grappling with. And that, to me, was fascinating, but to show that, you have to be, it's really inch by inch. You see her look at the box of chocolates, you see her try to look away, you see her look back, then you do something where the chocolates get a little more exciting through sound and design and you slowly can, you know, show the audience of what she's feeling.
12:35 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So it's a psychological seduction?
12:37 Speaker 03 Yeah.
12:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Exactly.
12:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Joining us to discuss the psychological seduction of film is neuroscientist Heather Berlin.
12:51 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Dr. Heather Berlin, a friend of StarTalk. You're assistant professor of psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine, Mount Sinai.
13:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And your research focuses on a range of neurological disorders.
13:10 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So what makes a movie a psychological thriller?
13:13 Heather Berlin? Well, I mean, basically, the action, the main action of the film is happening usually inside the main character's mind. And so the action doesn't take place externally, it takes place internally. And often, there's some ambiguity between, either for the audience or for the lead character, between fantasy and reality. And that sort of takes you on this journey.
13:35 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So when you're observing it, you don't know all the details in the head, but it's the director's trying to feed it to you in little bits. And so there's mystery and a little bit of terror.
13:47 Heather Berlin? Yeah, I mean, anytime you get deep inside somebody's psyche, there's gonna be some terrifying bits. You wanna sort of be aware. I mean, there's a reason why we have these fronts and why we present ourselves in certain ways that-
14:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? A facade.
14:01 Heather Berlin? Absolutely. Because if you really get into the deep crevices of the mind, there's gonna be some dirt in there. Would you say that the emoji movie is an example?
14:13 Heather Berlin? The deep psyche of the poo emoji? Is that what you're referring to? Yeah. Yes, I've thought about that.
14:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So the psychological states and conditions he's explored include obsessive-compulsive disorder, addiction, narcissism, perfectionism. These, you're familiar with all of these?
14:30 Heather Berlin? Yeah. I mean, he, you know, throughout his films, he always kind of also plays upon hallucinations and delusions. But in particular, obsessive-compulsive disorder, perfectionism, black swan, obsession, and pot, even in The Fountain, the lead character is obsessed with trying to find a cure for-
14:49 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Age.
14:49 Heather Berlin? Brain age or brain- And addiction. I mean, it was really interesting what he said because it's true. I study behavioral addictions, like things like being addicted to food or gambling or the internet. And what we find is that the same neurocircuitry is involved with behavioral addictions as is involved with addiction to drugs, to chemical addictions. So it's true. And that's why that film was so amazingly well done is that it's the same brain chemistry involved.
15:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So do you think technology will ever allow us to see inside of someone else's mind? Or generating the visualizations of dreams? Rather than just knowing that they're having a dream through rapid eye movement or something?
15:29 Heather Berlin? I mean, the thing about the mind is that it's subjective, right? So the only thing we can know objectively is which neurons are firing when you tell me you're having a thought of, let's say, seeing a rose. So one rate-limiting factor is we'd have to map out every neural correlate of every thought you've ever had, which is a pretty difficult task. But even if we could do that, right? Then it would just be a sort of a computer simulation. We'd say, ah, that neural activation looks as if he's imagining a rose. And then we can sort of create an image of that on a computer. So we never can get directly into anybody's mind.
16:02 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh, so what you're saying is you would you studying the connection between my seeing a rose and the neurosynaptic response trains you to draw a rose based on this impetus, based on this impulse?
16:15 Heather Berlin? Exactly.
16:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But what you're telling me is you can never look into someone's brain and just draw the picture that they're seeing? Why not?
16:23 Heather Berlin? Okay, well, first of all,
16:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You're a neuroscientist.
16:24 Heather Berlin? There's nothing, the brain, there's darkness in there. You never actually see anything.
16:29 Speaker 01 You're thinking there's like a little camera?
16:31 Neil deGrasse Tyson? A little slide projector?
16:33 Speaker 01 A little projector, yeah. No, it's funny that you think that because you're a science guy. No, it's all like bloody and gooey in there. There's no.
16:44 Heather Berlin? I mean, I look inside people's brains all the time. You know, I'll sit in on neurosurgery and we can actually, a patient will be fully awake and we can talk to them and be looking inside their brain and manipulating things at the same time.
16:55 Speaker 01 Do you ever see any popcorn in there? That's the only way to know for sure.
16:58 Charles Liu? Loose change would be nice.
16:59 Heather Berlin? Right, exactly.
17:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Car keys, or, yeah, the house keys.
17:02 Speaker 01 How do they do, I've, I've, I've read about that before. How do they do that, where you're having, somebody's having brain surgery and you can talk to them? How is that possible?
17:10 Heather Berlin? Well, basically, there's, there's no nerve endings in the brain. So actually, the brain, you don't feel anything. There's no pain in the actual pain center.
17:17 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You stick fingers in somebody's brain?
17:18 Heather Berlin? You can do whatever. The only thing is you have to numb the, the scalp. And once you get through there, you can do a lot. So what we do is, we actually can map out a person's brain.
17:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You're speaking way too glibly about going inside somebody's head.
17:29 Heather Berlin? Yeah, well.
17:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Are you feeling scalp, but just, just remove it, put a little anesthesia here? And then you just go in the stand, poke the brain? And that's all?
17:38 Speaker 01 Well, all this is kind of new to him, who only a few moments ago thought there was a screening room.
17:44 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right, would, would either of you? Paula, would you or Charles allow her to put you on one of her machines? To see what you're thinking?
17:52 Charles Liu? I a hundred percent would. One hundred percent totally.
17:55 Speaker 01 No, I don't, I don't want anybody cutting into. First of all, my scalp is really sensitive. I, I don't even like to comb my hair. Uh, so, just cutting my scalp right off the bat.
18:07 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Do you think your field is just not mature enough yet? To come to the, just to hook somebody up and say, here's the picture that they're looking at?
18:14 Heather Berlin? We're starting, there are experiments now where, for example, I can show you a picture of a house, let's say, versus a cat. And I can see, we can do nerve imaging and see what your brain looks like when you're viewing either one of them. Then, I can put you in a scanner and say, just imagine something, don't tell me what it is. And then, based on that, we can predict whether you're imagining a house or a cat.
18:33 Speaker 01 So, if you had a patient and, and they just all day long thought, cat, house, cat, house? Then you'd be?
18:41 Heather Berlin? We could pretty much read their mind at that point, yeah. So basically, we can read a simplistic mind.
18:46 Speaker 01 Yeah, well, that is exciting.
18:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, Aronofsky is also known for exploring taboo topics in his films. And in The Fountain, his film from 2006, he confronted our resistance to the process of death. And I asked him about that, so let's check it out.
19:08 Speaker 03 I think there's something spiritual about our journey towards death that the West has turned their back on. It's not something we respect, it's not something we study, it's not something we teach.
19:20 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We try to avoid it at all costs.
19:21 Speaker 03 At all costs, and yet, you know.
19:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Literally, at all costs.
19:24 Speaker 03 And we lock up our old people, we don't take care of them. And it's a lot of suffering, as opposed to easing people and helping and taking people on part of their journey. You know, it's funny, when we're in kindergarten, we collect the fall leaves, a sign of death, as this sign of beauty, but we can't sort of apply it back to, you know, our own kind of reality and our own...
19:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We decorate with...
19:46 Speaker 03 We decorate with them and we glorify this cycle that's happening, which you have the beautiful green, that turns into brown, it becomes bare, and that idea of the cycle...
19:57 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Rebirth.
19:58 Speaker 03 And recycling, which is really what's happening. You know, even as we're alive right now, we're recycling each other and this world. So, look, I'd like to live an extra 10, 15 years in a healthy way, maybe even more for my son and stuff, but I think a bigger part of the conversation should be about how, you know, what is life without death? It's a terrifying idea, and death isn't really need to be terrifying. It can be something that's beautiful.
20:28 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Heather, why are we so resistant, maybe just in the West, but perhaps in general, why are we so resistant to the inevitable reality of death?
20:36 Heather Berlin? Well, you know, so there are other species that sort of understand death. There was a recent story of an orca that carried her calf around for weeks.
20:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Orca?
20:44 Heather Berlin? Yeah, orca that had died and carried it around for weeks. So they have some idea of death, but I think we're the only species that really can anticipate our own death, which leads to anxiety, right? And even religious people, who supposedly believe in heaven, so you shouldn't be scared of death because you're going to go to some beautiful place, they don't want to die either, right? So there's something about, I think, losing your consciousness, your awareness. So even the sort of comfort in, oh, maybe our bodies are going to be recycled and turned into something beautiful, but if my consciousness isn't there for eternity, that's quite frightening to people.
21:20 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, but we're fascinated by death in movies and news stories and...
21:27 Neil deGrasse Tyson? What does it mean to be fascinated by something that we fear?
21:31 Heather Berlin? Well, I think that it's the great unknown. It's this great mystery. And so films and media and ways can either interpret what happens in death to give us comfort. I mean, The Fountain kind of was an example of that in a way that it's not just there is nothing. There might be something. There might be something spiritual. And so if we can visualize that and imagine what it might be like to die, that might give us some comfort. And that, I think, is our obsession with it.
21:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I think kids are fascinated with T-Rex among all dinosaurs because they can be eaten by T-Rex. And in the universe, they're fascinated by black holes because you can be eaten by a black hole.
22:06 Heather Berlin? I think it's fascinating when children first realize that they're going to die and how they interpret that. And for me, that's why I became a neuroscientist. Because when I first realized at the age of five I was going to die, I thought, can I keep my thoughts? How can I keep them? Oh, my brain makes them. How does my brain make my thoughts? And how can I keep them?
22:21 Speaker 01 You have very advanced mind. I put Play-Doh up my nose.
22:27 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So Charles, how do you view death coming from the universe?
22:30 Charles Liu? Everything dies, right? Planets die, stars die, even black holes die.
22:35 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's very holistic of you.
22:36 Charles Liu? It is. So in my sense, the concept of death is really a transition from what you are now to what you will be in the future. So in that sense, if you're comfortable with that, there's nothing to fear. I think this idea of being uncomfortable with death is exactly what Heather is talking about. We're afraid that we won't have a legacy, that eventually no one will remember us. The things that we value from others, someday no one will value us for it. And so that's our search for eternity, for longevity, for something in the future. If you think astrophysically, that the idea, well, you are going to change, but somehow what you were will become something else that may be even more grand and more beautiful, don't worry about it.
23:17 Heather Berlin? But I don't even think it's sort of that's a bit of a narcissistic view, like I want to be remembered. But, but I don't.
23:23 Charles Liu? Narcissist.
23:24 Heather Berlin? That's not why I want to live. I just like experiencing life. I don't even care if I'm remembered or whatever. But I want to smell the rose and, you know, see my children. And so I just like the experience of being alive.
23:37 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Paula, are you afraid of death?
23:39 Speaker 01 I don't even like it when my turn is over in a game.
23:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Heather, I got one last question before I let you go here. If science could prevent death...
23:51 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Should we?
23:53 Heather Berlin? I like that question. Well, you know, insofar as death is often caused by some sort of illness or disease which involves human suffering, I think if there's something that we can cure a preventable disease, we should. And as we start doing that, life will inevitably get more, longer and longer. I mean, we're already living way longer, even just for the invention of antibiotics, right? And so I think for sure we should do that. And if it becomes that, you know, we've figured out a way to keep us alive indefinitely, then maybe it's a person's choice when they want to go. And they'll be the, you know, they'll feel bad for all the people that we lost who didn't have the option to stay alive. And I don't think there's anything wrong with it
24:36 Heather Berlin? other than the fact that it might get a bit boring after a while, you know, and then you can choose to go. But it would be nice if it could be your choice when to go rather than having some horrible disease.
24:46 Neil deGrasse Tyson? If we choose not to die, we'll need more planets.
24:49 Heather Berlin? Yeah, no, I mean, that's where you come in, obviously.
24:53 Speaker 01 Are you in charge of that?
24:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The population growth assumes people die.
24:59 Heather Berlin? Right.
24:59 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Mixed in with the birth rate.
25:01 Heather Berlin? There might have to be some laws.
25:02 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And if you still die, you're still making babies, we need another planet. We need a bigger planet.
25:06 Charles Liu? There's probably at least a trillion planets in the Milky Way galaxy alone. I think we're cool.
25:12 Speaker 01 Yeah, but the other thing, you guys, when you're talking about these lives that go on forever, are you talking about having like more of your 30s?
25:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Or more of your 90s?
25:24 Speaker 01 Or are you talking about functioning with a body? That is, like, a lady just died who was 117. She was the oldest woman in the world. She called everyone kiddo.
25:34 Speaker 01 But that's what I'm saying. Are you talking about extending the years where you're 120? Because, by the way, count me out.
25:41 Charles Liu? What's wrong with 120?
25:43 Speaker 01 I don't think you're in great shape at 120.
25:46 Charles Liu? It doesn't have to be the case. I mean, studies show that we humans have a greater bias toward age than anything else, be it race, or gender, or anything like that. Why should we feel bad?
25:57 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Bigger bias against age.
25:58 Charles Liu? Right. Why should we have that bias if we can live forever? It no longer matters. Age is just a number. How many experiences have we had? How many places have we gone? How many people have we met and enjoyed the company of? That becomes the measure, and not how long you've been around.
26:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Plus, based on the STD rates in nursing homes, old people are having a lot of sex.
26:20 Speaker 01 Going out with a bang.
26:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Heather, thank you for joining us.
26:24 Speaker 01 Thanks for having me.
26:25 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Tonight on StarTalk.
26:28 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Up next, we learn some of the science behind Hollywood's movie magic when StarTalk returns.
26:44 Speaker 04 Bringing space and science down to earth. You're listening to StarTalk.
27:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Welcome back to StarTalk from the American Museum of Natural History. We're featuring my interview with filmmaker Darren Aronofsky. And I asked him about the movie magic behind celestial objects in his film The Fountain. Let's check it out.
27:17 Speaker 03 Remember the cloud tanks like in the old Spielberg films where the clouds are coming up over, you know, over the neighborhood and stuff? That was basically pouring ink and milk into actual tanks. And they would photograph it, and then they would combine them. And so every single effect in The Fountain is photographed. All of the nebula, all of that stuff, none of it is CG.
27:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh.
27:41 Speaker 03 I mean, most of like the celestial scenes, including the supernova, were through a microscope. And that was just basically two or three different chemicals reacting. And when they, you could picture, you know, dropping a little.
27:54 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's brilliant.
27:55 Speaker 03 Yeah.
27:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's brilliant.
27:55 Speaker 03 And it came out great.
27:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Congratulations.
27:57 Speaker 03 You get this texture and weirdness that is...
27:59 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Because I didn't think, to think about it.
28:01 Speaker 03 Yeah.
28:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's a good sign.
28:02 Speaker 03 Yeah, that's good. How was that representation of moving through a nebula? Was it okay?
28:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No, it was all right. I get B+.
28:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Well, in addition to the math connection that Darren made in the movie Pi, he also featured an ancient board game called Go. And since then, the company Google created an artificial intelligence project called AlphaGo that learned the game with such proficiency that it can now beat any human player. So I asked Darren about this. Let's check it out.
28:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The main character in Pi was also a Go enthusiast, is that right?
28:44 Speaker 03 Yeah.
28:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, what did you know about Go?
28:47 Speaker 03 I didn't know much.
28:48 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So you make a character who does?
28:50 Speaker 03 No, exactly what you said. Well, that's the cool thing about making films. They basically take three, four years, so it's almost like another university degree. Each time I do something, but it gives you the opportunity because, you know, you get to talk to experts, you know, I'm sure I've tried to call you about certain things, and just get insight into the research we're doing. And, you know, when I did the fountain, I got to hang out with brain surgeons and actually watch surgeries. So that's one of the great gifts of filmmaking, is that you get to sort of be a dilettante through all these different worlds.
29:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So in the game Go, this predated, I think, AlphaGo.
29:27 Speaker 03 Yes, absolutely.
29:28 Neil deGrasse Tyson? From Google.
29:29 Speaker 03 Yeah.
29:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? As the AI.
29:31 Speaker 03 Yeah, that beat.
29:32 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So what, did you have a reaction to that?
29:34 Speaker 03 The AlphaGo.
29:35 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah.
29:35 Speaker 03 There was something interesting that came out of that that was fascinating. Not only that they beat a master at something that no one thought would ever happen, but the way the computer played undid thousands of years of tradition in the way it was played, so that now it's affected how people play each other. So the AI actually has changed us as people, not just beating us. It's actually taught us something, to think about it in a different way.
30:08 Speaker 01 You know, I think in order for AI to play a game like that in a lifelike way, it would have to be able to flip the board when it knows it's about to lose. Or yell at the other player and say, "It's your turn, will you go?" That's an important part of any board game.
30:24 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Flipping the board, you need that. You so need that. Charles, our geek in chief for StarTalk, give us a quick overview of the game Go.
30:31 Charles Liu? Sure.
30:32 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Because it's not as popular here in the West as it is in the Far East.
30:34 Charles Liu? But it's a long-standing, tremendously tradition-based game. It was invented more than 2,000 years ago in China. The Chinese name for Go is "Wai Qi", which literally means "surrounding chess". Your point is to try to make sure that your pieces are cornering or surrounding your opponent's pieces, top, bottom, left, and right. And because it's such a big board and because the rules are so simple, it has been calculated that there are 20 billion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, Google possible legal board combinations. So it is a remarkably difficult game to grok.
31:17 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You invoke the word "Google" as a number, not as the name of a corporation.
31:20 Charles Liu? That's right, one with 100 zeros after. But in reality, it's actually very hard to calculate the exact number of possible outcomes because the numbers are so huge. We can't wrap our heads around them. Even the number of atoms in the Milky Way galaxy is far smaller than these combinations. So it's really, really hard.
31:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right, right. Well, coming up next, we answer your cosmic queries about the origin of the moon when StarTalk returns.
31:51 Speaker 04 This is StarTalk.
31:54 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Welcome back to StarTalk from the American Museum of Natural History. We're featuring my interview with filmmaker Darren Aronofsky. And he recently produced a science series for National Geographic called "One Strange Rock" about our home planet. Let's check it out.
32:12 Speaker 03 We were trying to do this 10-hour portrait of the planet. That basically showed how amazing all of these different systems have to work and connect to make life possible. So we have astronomy, we have Earth science, we have chemistry, we have biology, we have anthropology and sociology. And kind of blending it as a portrait of all these different ways and different connections between them. But the kind of big question was how we were going to unify it. So we, in the room, had this idea about going to astronauts, who actually have this amazing thing called the overview effect. They all have this similar thing happen to them, where they start to see the planet as one system.
32:58 Speaker 03 And they start to see themselves not as Americans or Iowans, they start to see themselves as Earthlings. And I find, found that really an inspiring idea. So One Strange Rock is just this kind of beautiful portrait of, of all these systems working together in ways that are just fascinating.
33:20 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Charles, in your head, what, what makes Earth One Strange Rock to you?
33:24 Charles Liu? You do, Neil.
33:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I do.
33:26 Charles Liu? And me, and Paula, and all of us, and all the algae, and all the lobsters. The concept of life as we know it makes this rock so much stranger than any other rock we have ever found or may ever find.
33:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So One Strange Rock is told from the perspective of astronauts looking down, but we, as astrophysicists, we look up.
33:49 Charles Liu? Yes.
33:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But I think we have the same view, without having the benefit of going to space.
33:54 Charles Liu? I think so.
33:54 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But, but there's surely some benefits from looking down. What would they be?
33:58 Charles Liu? Well, sure. When we are trying to understand the unknown, we look around us to find analogues and then extend them forward, right? The physics in the kitchen, the chemistry in a pond are the kinds of physical and scientific processes that happen out in the universe, on other planets or in other galaxies. So we look down to us, and the more we understand about where we are now, the better we can understand what's out there.
34:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Charles getting all deep.
34:32 Speaker 01 Charles, what are the physics in the kitchen?
34:34 Charles Liu? Well, say you take your frying pan.
34:37 Speaker 01 Yeah.
34:38 Charles Liu? And you put it on the stove.
34:40 Speaker 01 Yeah.
34:40 Charles Liu? It gets hot because the burners are touching the stove. And the burners on the stove are then touching the pan.
34:49 Neil deGrasse Tyson? He has an electric stove.
34:50 Charles Liu? That's called conduction.
34:51 Speaker 01 Yeah.
34:52 Charles Liu? Right.
34:52 Speaker 01 That's conduction.
34:53 Charles Liu? Then, right. Furthermore, once you put the water or the sauce in the pan, the liquid in the pan starts moving around in pieces, kind of moving energy around, that's called convection. And then finally, when it gets hot enough that you put your hand over the pan, and then you have the sauce that's radiating heat out onto your hand. So, that kind of convection, conduction, and radiation is exactly what happens inside the sun. And the way that energy comes out of the sun is first radiating from the nuclear-powered core, thermonuclear-powered core, and then out-convecting in the interior of the sun, and then being eventually radiated out past the surface to the earth,
35:36 Charles Liu? to our faces, which then can touch other things and then conduct that heat.
35:42 Speaker 01 Can you do anything with peanut butter and jelly?
35:46 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, Darren Aronofsky, he may have tackled big questions about Earth in the show, but he had a question for me about the moon. So let's check it out.
35:57 Charles Liu? The moon is a piece of the earth, right?
36:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Mostly, yes.
36:01 Charles Liu? So why is it all gray?
36:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The question is, if Earth didn't have life, what color would it be? Maybe that is what you should ask.
36:13 Charles Liu? Okay.
36:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, so the moon is made of mostly of the material that is Earth's crust.
36:21 Charles Liu? Right.
36:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Our crust and mantle. And our best ideas are that there was a, early in the solar system, there was a collision between a sort of a protoplanet and Earth, and it side-swipes Earth.
36:32 Charles Liu? Right.
36:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And if you side swipe Earth, and Earth has already separated out its ingredients. The heavy things had fallen to the middle, that's why we have an iron core. We've all heard this. Maybe you didn't think through why that's so. There's a point when Earth was molten. Right. When you're molten, heavy stuff goes, falls, and lighter stuff floats. Right. So, the iron goes to the middle, the lighter stuff, such as what we call the silicates, which makes rock. Yeah. Goes to the surface. Right. And now, something side swipes us, it's not reaching into the core to get it. So you have all of these silicates in, we think we might have had a ring. Right. A Saturn-like ring for a while, briefly. It would have been fun. It would have been totally fun. So people ask me, if I were to go back in time, what would I want to witness? Just to see the ring?
37:17 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's like, I want to see the formation of a moon. Take me back, put me at a safe spot, give me a bucket of popcorn, and I'm watching that. So, it side swipes, you get a ring, the ring coalesces, and it's a dog-eat-dog. So the bigger the chunk of matter. Yeah. The more gravity it has, the more rapidly it then accretes. And it winds out very quickly, it's an unstable system. And then you get the moon. Earth would look like that, if we didn't have weathering, if we didn't have life, if we didn't have... Because the weathering hides the evidence. Right. That you've been hit. Right. And so, the moon with no atmosphere, you get hit, it's going to be there a billion years from now. Right. So, that's why we don't look like the moon. Interesting. Yeah.
38:04 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Good one, right?
38:10 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, StarTalk fans had their own questions on this very topic. It means it's time for Cosmic Queries! Yeah!
38:20 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So Paul, you have some moon questions for us.
38:22 Speaker 01 I do. Renee Douglas from Pittsburgh wants to know, what actually defines a moon? For example, Mars's moons, Phobos and Deimos, are not round and are captured asteroids.
38:37 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, they're still moons, but they're pretty lame. As far as moons go.
38:41 Speaker 01 So what is a moon?
38:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's a rock that orbits a planet.
38:45 Speaker 01 A rock that orbits a planet, that's a moon.
38:48 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah.
38:49 Charles Liu? It could also orbit another, say, asteroid or something like that.
38:53 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, asteroids have moons too.
38:54 Charles Liu? Yeah.
38:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah.
38:55 Charles Liu? So it's a smaller solid object that's orbiting another solid object that's probably not a star.
39:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, and, but if the object is large enough, then their center of motion sits in space between the two of them, then you might call that a double planet. But if the object is not so massive that it pulls the center of mass out in space and it's deep inside the larger object, then it's doing most of the motion around. And so, such is the case with our moon and us and all the other moons of all the other planets. Pluto has a moon that's so big that it does this, and the center of mass is in space, so it's more like a double object. You thought I would say double planet, didn't you? No.
39:38 Speaker 01 That's what I thought. That's what I saw coming.
39:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, no, no, yeah. Pluto got demoted. We're keeping it that way.
39:44 Speaker 01 I know, I'm so sad about that.
39:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We aided and abetted that in this institution.
39:47 Speaker 01 You did? You didn't care for it to be a planet?
39:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No.
39:51 Speaker 01 Huh.
39:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, yeah, we did it first.
39:53 Speaker 01 If I had known that, I'm not sure I would've come here.
39:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, more moon, you got more moon questions?
39:58 Speaker 01 I do. Matt Wolfson on Facebook wants to know, because Matt doesn't waste time, he wants to know, why does the Earth only have one moon, but Jupiter gets 30? And does the Earth have moon envy?
40:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Chuck?
40:13 Charles Liu? Well, Jupiter has now, as far as we can tell, way more than 30 moons. The reason, basically, that Jupiter has so many moons is because there's so much gravity that it can hold on to more moons. And there's more material, more objects, in the orbit of Jupiter for it to capture. It had more material to start with to make moons in situ as well. In situ means at the same time, in the same place.
40:38 Speaker 01 You don't have to tell that to me, Charles.
40:40 Charles Liu? Okay, sorry. Does the Earth have moon envy? I don't know, Neil. Should we be envious of the moons?
40:46 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I'll tell you why not.
40:47 Charles Liu? Okay.
40:47 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Because we have, like, the fifth biggest moon in the solar system. And so...
40:51 Speaker 01 Tim Kardashian?
40:53 Charles Liu? But we're the fifth biggest planet in the solar system, so it kind of matches, right?
40:58 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, Titan, I think, is a little bigger.
41:00 Charles Liu? Yes.
41:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And Ganymede is bigger.
41:01 Charles Liu? Ganymede is bigger.
41:02 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That might be it. We're in the top five moons of the hundreds of moons in the solar system. So I think we're... I don't have moon envy. We have beautiful eclipses that no other planet has, because its moons are so tiny compared to the size of the sun. Our moon is nice and fat, and it perfectly covers the sun. We get beautiful eclipses. I'm rocking our moon.
41:22 Charles Liu? All right.
41:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? All right.
41:23 Charles Liu? Good.
41:25 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Up next, Bill Nye the Science Guy takes a trip to the moon when StarTalk returns.
41:45 Speaker 06 We'd like to acknowledge the following Patreon patrons for supporting StarTalk Radio: Calvin Mitchell and Sinai Kuns. Thanks for helping us make our trek through the cosmos, guys, because without you it would be a lot more difficult. And if you would like to have your Patreon shout-out, go to patreon.com/starTalkRadio and support us.
42:05 Speaker 04 Bringing space and science down to Earth. You're listening to StarTalk.
42:22 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Welcome back to StarTalk. We're featuring my interview with surreal film director Darren Aronofsky. His blockbuster film, Noah, reimagines the story of the great flood from the Bible. And I asked about the challenge of creating fiction from a source that some people take literally. Let's check it out.
42:45 Speaker 03 I think the whole fight over did it happen or didn't happen is really a bad fight to have. I think the power of those stories is in there that they are stories. A good example is like Icarus. You know, we all know he didn't fly with a pair of wings, yet I say the word Icarus, you understand exactly what I'm getting at and what the morals of that story is. So to have an argument about did the whole world flood or did it just the Black Sea get filled in? Did we actually collect all these animals? It doesn't really matter. The power of that and how it could inspire us and the reason that we should, you know, respect those stories, they're part of our culture. They're part of all of human culture. They don't belong to one group. They belong to everyone. And
43:30 Speaker 03 out of that literature, we can really learn things about ourselves. The same way you can read Shakespeare and learn. The way you could look at the Greek myths, the way you could look at Gilgamesh, the way, you know, you can look at your Maya myths, all of them. They're all part of human culture. They're all our stories and they all have that power.
43:48 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Paula, can a story be truly powerful if it's not actually true?
43:53 Speaker 01 I think so. The first time I tried stand-up, I bombed. But my best friend lied and said that I was really great. And so I continued to work and that helped keep me performing. And that's how I became, I don't know if you'd call it successful, but you know, whatever.
44:10 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So had your friend told you the truth,
44:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? where would you be today?
44:14 Speaker 01 I don't know, but the original story wasn't true either. But it was powerful, wasn't it?
44:20 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It was powerful.
44:20 Speaker 01 It was very moving. Any number of people here thought, I'll be a stand-up.
44:25 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So Charles, as a scientist, are you tempted, because I am occasionally, to investigate stories like Noah's flood to see if it was actually be possible?
44:35 Charles Liu? Absolutely. And like, say, did Icarus's wings might have the lift actually to carry him up high? Yeah, things like that. They're always fun to think about.
44:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? How much lift do you think he'd need?
44:45 Charles Liu? He didn't have enough.
44:46 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, clearly.
44:47 Charles Liu? Yeah. For size, I mean, his wings would have had to been like the size of this building.
44:51 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah.
44:51 Charles Liu? Yeah.
44:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Do you know, how much rain is needed for Noah's flood? Did you ever calculate?
44:55 Charles Liu? Yeah, if you go 40 days and 40 nights without stopping, you assume that, say, a good thunderstorm gives you about an inch per hour. So you multiply that, 40 days, 24 times 40, you get about 80 feet of rain. Okay, and if you imagine eighty feet of rain, that's enough to sink a lot of buildings back in biblical times. So that seems reasonable to me. Now, did the rains come down like that? I don't know. You'd have to think a lot harder about the meteorological situation in order for that to occur.
45:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So I thought a lot about the weight of Thor's hammer.
45:31 Charles Liu? Yes.
45:32 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And, you know, he can lift it, but nobody else can lift it. And I found a clue in one of the Thor movies about how much it would weigh. And I did the calculation. And it would, the density of that hammer is equivalent to cramming a herd of three hundred million elephants into a chapstick casing.
45:51 Charles Liu? Oh, like a neutron star?
45:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Basically a neutron star, precisely.
45:54 Charles Liu? Well, except for...
45:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But then I was later corrected, and they said, no, it weighs forty-two point three pounds.
46:00 Charles Liu? I don't think...
46:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And it's made of a fictional material...
46:02 Charles Liu? Uru metal.
46:03 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Uru metal. So he knew that. He's good, he's good. And, and so, I had to concede, but I liked my answer better.
46:10 Charles Liu? Your answer is better. Uru metal supposedly changes its density depending on who picks it up.
46:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh.
46:16 Charles Liu? You have to be so-called worthy in order to pick it up, see? So if you're not worthy, then all of a sudden, it's like three hundred million elephants in chapstick.
46:24 Speaker 01 I think my vacuum cleaner is made of uru metal. Because I'm apparently the only one in the house that can lift it.
46:32 Charles Liu? You are worthy, Paula.
46:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You're worthy. Paula is worthy. Well, before we wrap things up tonight, we have a dispatch from my good friend Bill Nye. I love his dispatches, and this one is on the science of telling stories through film. Let's check it out.
46:49 Speaker 07 We all love movies, Neil, because we love stories. We don't just like the story, though, we like how the story is being told. Think of a picture. If it was created by an artist, we hope it brings out some emotion. You want to know what the artist is driving at. But when it comes to a picture or still image, you, the viewer, have to provide the transition from beginning to middle and end. But with a moving image, a moving picture, the transitions are built in. It's always changing with time. The creator, the artist or director, can change locations, change characters, even change events in history in the blink of an eye. And then with your eye and brain,
47:34 Speaker 07 you merge those moving images together into a seamless story. No matter how the story is told, though, if it's a good story, you want to know what happens next. That's why I love this part. See, this is where the ballerina in the black tutu...
47:52 Speaker 07 Back to you, Neil.
48:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We all love stories. One of the first tapestries for stories were constellations of the night sky. Characters interacting, no matter where we were in the history of civilization on this planet. There were cultures with stories on the night sky. And fiction has value, whether or not it's true, because there are lessons there to be learned. There are lessons in Bible stories. Some people take them literally. Those people tend to not be scientifically literate. If they take them metaphorically, there are lessons to be drawn from it.
48:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Fairy tales. You don't evaluate fairy tales for whether or not it's true. You sit back and say, "What did that mean? What's the lesson? And why?" And so when I think of storytelling, I think of the potency of communicating lessons. Not factual information, not data, but lessons. And boy, do we as humans need lessons. And these lessons, if they're good, they will transcend the moment. They will transcend time. They will be passed down through cultures, through the present and into the future. Because those are the lessons that matter
49:31 Neil deGrasse Tyson? for civilization to survive itself. So that's what I think of when I think of stories. When I look up at night,
49:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I imagine that I'd be one of those storytellers to carry knowledge, wisdom, and insight from one generation to the next. And that, for me, is my cosmic perspective.
49:59 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I want to thank Charles Wu,
50:02 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Paula Pasto. I've been your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And as always, I bid you to keep looking up.
Previous Cosmic Queries – Between Planets and Stars, with Jackie Faherty Next Cosmic Queries – Edge of the Universe Page updated September 29, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
