Science Fiction on TV, with Bill Nye

Who better to answer questions about science fiction in TV and movies than Bill Nye? Bill and Chuck Nice flip channels between “StarTrek,” “Star Wars,” “Lost in Space,” “Back to the Future” and more!

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

• 0:01Chuck Nice?

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

• 0:14Bill Nye?

  Greetings, greetings, greetings, welcome to StarTalk Radio. I'm your host, Bill Nye, here with wide world, citizen of the worldwide world Chuck Nice.

• 0:24Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 0:25Bill Nye?

  And this is a special All-Star edition, and Chuck, here's the interesting thing. I am the All-Star.

• 0:30Chuck Nice?

  You are the All-Star.

• 0:31Bill Nye?

  I'm the, I'm starring all-wise here. It's, it's good. No, it's really fun. I really, I really appreciate you guys including me. Now, this is a cosmic query.

• 0:41Chuck Nice?

  Yes, it is.

• 0:42Bill Nye?

  We have, I see you have stacks of Quirical queries.

• 0:45Chuck Nice?

  Yes, I do, from all over the

• 0:47Bill Nye?

  Inquiries.

• 0:48Chuck Nice?

  interwebs, uh, Twitter.

• 0:50Bill Nye?

  That electric thing the kids use, their, their electric machines.

• 0:53Chuck Nice?

  I hear that thing's catching on.

• 0:54Bill Nye?

  Uh, yeah.

• 0:55Chuck Nice?

  Oh, I don't know what's going on with that.

• 0:56Bill Nye?

  No, this is cool. Thank you all for sending in questions. Chuck, let's read one.

• 1:00Chuck Nice?

  Let's get right to it, okay? And, um, this is from Dan Gomez. Dan says, "What exactly is inside of a vacuum? If not matter, then some sort of cosmic energy? The fabric of reality?"

• 1:18Bill Nye?

  Well, there's, there's energy passes through a vacuum.

• 1:21Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 1:22Bill Nye?

  So, we love that. We're talking about light, heat, all these exciting things. Uh, then you ask a good question. Uh, you know, people talk about spacetime, using it as one word, spacetime. And it's generally agreed that not only is the universe expanding, but space itself is expanding. So, most of space has what we reckon is no matter, nothing in it. So, perhaps the, any vacuum you have Is also expanding along with space, if it's away from a gravity field or away from a local gravity field.

• 1:56Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 1:56Bill Nye?

  Maybe it's expanding and we just can't, can't sense it. It's one of the rules. It's crazy. It's crazy.

• 2:02Chuck Nice?

  It's pretty wild.

• 2:03Bill Nye?

  It is wild. It really is profound.

• 2:05Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, all right. Actually, Dan, very good question.

• 2:08Bill Nye?

  Enough to sound so surprised. He's a Star Trek listener. Star talk listener. Which brings me to this next thing. This, these questions are generally about science fiction, right?

• 2:18Chuck Nice?

  Yes, that's right.

• 2:19Bill Nye?

  Star Trek will probably come up.

• 2:20Chuck Nice?

  Star Trek is definitely gonna come up because this is sci-fi and scientists on TV. These are the, uh, what, what the inquiries are about. Uh, let's go to Sam, uh, THFC.

• 2:33Bill Nye?

  All right, I have no problem with that.

• 2:34Chuck Nice?

  I don't know what THFC means, but, um, but he's, uh, coming to us from Twitter, uh, Twitter. Twitter. I just made up a whole new social media. Look for it. Twitter, coming to a phone near you.

• 2:46Bill Nye?

  Twitter, sweeter. So, give us a tweet from the twit.

• 2:51Chuck Nice?

  Here's what he says. What fictional scientist?

• 2:54Bill Nye?

  That didn't sound right. I apologize. Give us a tweet from the Twitter.

• 2:58Chuck Nice?

  What fictional scientist do you think would, if he or her, uh, and his or her science were, were real, would benefit mankind the most? Do you have somebody that you like, uh, as a fictional scientist that you believe, if they were real, they would actually be a huge benefit to mankind?

• 3:19Bill Nye?

  Uh, the person, the man or woman who invents a way to filter salt water and make it into fresh water.

• 3:25Chuck Nice?

  Oh, wow.

• 3:26Bill Nye?

  And that person may exist right now, but this is a hypothetical thing.

• 3:30Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 3:31Bill Nye?

  And it may not be one person. It may be a corporation who continually dinks around with materials to make this possible, but that would be great. If you could make seawater economically into fresh water.

• 3:40Chuck Nice?

  So now what is the big deal of, uh, not big deal? What's the big obstacle for capturing fresh water from salt water or desalinating?

• 3:49Bill Nye?

  E- energy. It takes energy, right?

• 3:50Chuck Nice?

  It's too much.

• 3:51Bill Nye?

  You either have to boil it, often in a partial vacuum, so called partial flash distillation, or, uh, you push it through a osmotic filter, a filter that filters molecules, and get the fresh water to come out the other side, but it takes a lot of pressure. That's what they do on cruise ships and submarines.

• 4:09Chuck Nice?

  Oh, really?

• 4:10Bill Nye?

  Yeah, so. One can't help but wonder if there isn't some trick to make that easier.

• 4:16Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 4:17Bill Nye?

  One's hopeful.

• 4:18Chuck Nice?

  And is it, is it going to be necessary one day? I mean, are we going to be in a position where we're out of fresh water?

• 4:24Bill Nye?

  Well, yeah, people talk about it all the time, but it would enable so much. It just, it would be so cool if you could take seawater and make it into fresh water. Along the coast. Most people in the world live along coastlines. So, um, it would be really a terrific thing if you could do it economically, especially for the developing world.

• 4:43Chuck Nice?

  Nice. I love it. So you, I mean, what's funny is that they were talking about a character, but you went with an actual scientific thing.

• 4:51Bill Nye?

  That some humans can invent.

• 4:53Chuck Nice?

  Actually do at some point, you know? Love it.

• 4:56Bill Nye?

  Happen right now while we're talking starwise.

• 4:59Chuck Nice?

  There may be somebody out there doing it as we speak. All right, here we go. Um. Wow, this person, oh, nope.

• 5:07Bill Nye?

  You stumped yourself.

• 5:08Chuck Nice?

  It's Kelly Klemenko.

• 5:10Bill Nye?

  Kelly Klemenko.

• 5:11Chuck Nice?

  Kelly Klemenko wants to know this. Doc Brown and the DeLorean.

• 5:16Bill Nye?

  Yes, Doc Brown.

• 5:19Chuck Nice?

  The good, the bad, and what do you think? A flux capacitor really is, or could be.

• 5:27Bill Nye?

  Let's start with the following thing. We just did, uh, for those of you watched our talk on the TV. We just did a time travel bit where I was in one of the DeLoreans that's used, was used in the movie. There's a company in New Jersey that maintains these movie cars, Batmobiles and Green Hornet, uh, cars.

• 5:46Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:46Bill Nye?

  And the door, so I was in it and I threw a switch and it was funny and charming. Uh, so, uh, the flux capacitor, you may recall, was running on banana peels and stuff.

• 5:56Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:56Bill Nye?

  And then, as far as we know, you can't travel through time, but science fiction writers love that.

• 6:01Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 6:02Bill Nye?

  And can you go back in time? The big question is, can you go back in time and change history? Would you just get the the captain of the Titanic to slow down, man?

• 6:11Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 6:11Bill Nye?

  Gee whiz.

• 6:12Chuck Nice?

  See, the thing is, he would slow down. And somehow, the Titanic would still sink.

• 6:19Bill Nye?

  Well, that's it if you're interpretation of of time travel, but you know, on what is generally regarded as the very best of the original Star Trek series, City on the Edge of Forever.

• 6:30Chuck Nice?

  Mm hmm.

• 6:31Bill Nye?

  You go back in time and somehow Hitler takes over the world because the passivism from Edith Keaur uh keeps the United States from entering the wars.

• 6:41Chuck Nice?

  Because Kurt actually saves her from getting hit by a car.

• 6:45Bill Nye?

  So you're familiar and then they change and then

• 6:48Chuck Nice?

  And that changes the outcome of everything.

• 6:49Bill Nye?

  More modern viewers, uh, young people uh, may wonder if you can send an emissary back in time to have sex with a waitress who then turns out to be your own mother.

• 7:03Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:03Bill Nye?

  Can you do that the way that we did in uh?

• 7:05Chuck Nice?

  That's the Terminator. That's that's the entire premise of the Terminator.

• 7:08Bill Nye?

  But traveling in time is quite difficult unless, like Chuck and myself, you are happy with traveling just one way.

• 7:17Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:17Bill Nye?

  Forward, older, closer to death.

• 7:20Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 7:22Bill Nye?

  And that's where we're going right now.

• 7:26Chuck Nice?

  I I started off laughing, I ended up crying.

• 7:29Bill Nye?

  Chuck's an artist. He's an artist. But it is this troubling thing. After you reach adulthood, your adulthood, heavens bill.

• 7:37Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 7:38Bill Nye?

  After you reach adulthood, your head is headed toward death.

• 7:41Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 7:42Bill Nye?

  Very troubling, but nevertheless apparently true fact as opposed to a false fact.

• 7:47Chuck Nice?

  Well, this question took a decidedly morbid turn.

• 7:49Bill Nye?

  Well, or either that or deal. Okay? We're only going one way. You can't go back in time. So play the hand you're dealt. All right?

• 7:59Chuck Nice?

  There you have it.

• 8:00Bill Nye?

  Quit pining for something that's not possible.

• 8:03Chuck Nice?

  Yes, you're never going back to win that big game at state. Okay?

• 8:08Bill Nye?

  Take that as a learning experience for your next big game.

• 8:10Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 8:11Bill Nye?

  Also furthermore to continue, there is a very, which I say for comedic effect. There's a very reasonable theory in physics that you could build a time machine, but you could only go back to when the machine was built.

• 8:23Chuck Nice?

  Couldn't go any further.

• 8:24Bill Nye?

  No. And furthermore, further back in time more. You can only, you have to travel at relativistic speeds to get there, which would be akin to falling into a black hole, which would tear you apart from its own gravity. So it's just not that easy.

• 8:39Chuck Nice?

  God.

• 8:40Bill Nye?

  So everybody, I don't mean to be dismissive of time travel, but don't count on it to solve your problems.

• 8:45Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:46Bill Nye?

  Let's say you live on a planet, uh, that is, uh, where a certain species is burning so much ancient fuel that they're accelerating the rate of warming by about a factor of a million.

• 8:57Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 8:58Bill Nye?

  Let's just say.

• 8:59Chuck Nice?

  Let's just say.

• 8:59Bill Nye?

  You can't pine for the day.

• 9:01Chuck Nice?

  What kind of planet this.

• 9:02Bill Nye?

  You can't pine for the day when you could have done something about it at the turn of a couple centuries ago. You gotta play the hand we're dealt right now and address climate change.

• 9:10Chuck Nice?

  Right, right. Which, you know, I'd like to believe is going to happen.

• 9:15Bill Nye?

  Yes.

• 9:15Chuck Nice?

  But I also believe that people are stupid. And none of you listening?

• 9:20Bill Nye?

  No, yes. No, no, no.

• 9:22Chuck Nice?

  Hearing our voices right now, but.

• 9:24Bill Nye?

  Other people.

• 9:24Chuck Nice?

  There are other people who are quite frankly stupid, and they don't believe anything you just said. As a matter of fact, one of them is a senator. His name is Inhofe, and he actually wrote a book called, um, "The Biggest Hoax Ever," or something like that.

• 9:40Bill Nye?

  You're, you're digressing a bit, Chuck, but I appreciate it.

• 9:43Chuck Nice?

  He's a senator, Bill.

• 9:44Bill Nye?

  I know. He gets re-elected all the time.

• 9:47Chuck Nice?

  He represents. There's only two of them for his state.

• 9:50Bill Nye?

  I know.

• 9:51Chuck Nice?

  He represents half of a state.

• 9:53Bill Nye?

  I know.

• 9:53Chuck Nice?

  And he says it's a hoax. Guys like you who do this so they can get money. So because that's what happens when you say that the.

• 10:01Bill Nye?

  Chuck, you're going kind of Bill Cosby on me there.

• 10:03Chuck Nice?

  (laughing).

• 10:04Bill Nye?

  You're in your speech pattern.

• 10:06Chuck Nice?

  I would like to invite you over for some cappuccino, Bill.

• 10:09Bill Nye?

  (laughing). Thank you, Doctor Huck.

• 10:12Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 10:13Bill Nye?

  But this said, Chuck, your digression is worthy. It's just something to think about, you know, we. Time travel is a cool idea in science fiction, but let's keep an eye on the prize. We almost certainly cannot travel through time. We cannot go back in time and fix things.

• 10:28Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:29Bill Nye?

  So we gotta play the hand we're dealt. Lead on.

• 10:32Chuck Nice?

  There you go. Let's move on to another query and, and keep those very grave words in mind.

• 10:38Bill Nye?

  Well, they're also empowering. They're also empowering.

• 10:40Chuck Nice?

  They are empowering.

• 10:41Bill Nye?

  Constraints are empowering.

• 10:43Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely.

• 10:44Bill Nye?

  You gotta solve this problem. Let's go.

• 10:45Chuck Nice?

  Okay, here we go. Jonathan B. East, uh, at Becca Meest. I like that. From Twitter says, "If you could interview any fictional scientist."

• 10:55Bill Nye?

  Fictional scientist.

• 10:56Chuck Nice?

  Fictional scientist. Somebody from the movies or a book or anything like that. Who would it be and why? And, uh, he's coming to us from Indiana, the state.

• 11:04Bill Nye?

  It's fictional.

• 11:05Chuck Nice?

  Fictional. So like, is there any fictional character that, uh, you, uh, admire whatever they embody? The character embodies certain values?

• 11:14Bill Nye?

  Your first cut is you'd say Mr. Spock, right? You'd, would you like to chat it up with Mr. Spock?

• 11:19Chuck Nice?

  I have to tell you that, uh, I've often fantasized about that.

• 11:22Bill Nye?

  Uh, but then, uh, fictional scientist, the guy who invents the time machine in the H G Wells, the time machine.

• 11:29Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 11:30Bill Nye?

  That might be, how did you do that?

• 11:32Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that's a pretty, yeah, especially how did you do it out of bubble gum and a pinwheel?

• 11:37Bill Nye?

  Yeah, whatever.

• 11:38Chuck Nice?

  Basically, that's, it was a tear with a big fan on it.

• 11:41Bill Nye?

  He oiled something and he's able to try, yeah, that would be a good couple of questions.

• 11:46Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 11:47Bill Nye?

  But I will say, uh, as charming as all that is, there's some real people I'd love to know.

• 11:51Chuck Nice?

  Ah, I was about to go there.

• 11:52Bill Nye?

  Yeah, yeah, I mean.

• 11:53Chuck Nice?

  I was about to say.

• 11:54Bill Nye?

  Yeah.

• 11:54Chuck Nice?

  Is, are there?

• 11:55Bill Nye?

  Wouldn't like to talk to, uh...

• 11:57Chuck Nice?

  Would, would you, now, would, would you rather speak to?

• 12:02Bill Nye?

  Rosalind Franklin or?

• 12:03Chuck Nice?

  Franklin or Albert Einstein.

• 12:06Bill Nye?

  Oh, man.

• 12:07Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, buddy.

• 12:08Bill Nye?

  I'd like to talk to Rosalind. Cause she doesn't, you don't hear that much about her.

• 12:11Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 12:11Bill Nye?

  People write books now, but I would like to know what her life was like.

• 12:14Chuck Nice?

  Sweet, sweet.

• 12:15Bill Nye?

  She had to play, she had a tough road to hoe there. She was the only woman in the thing.

• 12:19Chuck Nice?

  I was gonna say, when you're a female, I mean.

• 12:21Bill Nye?

  Back in the 1950s.

• 12:23Chuck Nice?

  It's not gonna be.

• 12:23Bill Nye?

  For those of you who are down, not hip, not down, she took the picture that enabled Watson and Crick to envision DNA.

• 12:31Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:32Bill Nye?

  The spiral, the, the double helix. But did she envision it first?

• 12:37Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 12:37Bill Nye?

  Cause she looked at the picture and then the men took credit.

• 12:39Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:40Bill Nye?

  Arguments have ensued.

• 12:41Chuck Nice?

  Uh-huh.

• 12:42Bill Nye?

  There've been, uh, the whole radio shows devoted to this argument. I can't resolve it right now, but it is intriguing.

• 12:48Chuck Nice?

  And, uh, clearly still having ramifications to this day. We are probably one of the most important discoveries ever.

• 12:55Bill Nye?

  Yeah. By the way, Darwin. And Russell discovered evolution without any knowledge of DNA. It's amazing.

• 13:02Chuck Nice?

  That is amazing.

• 13:02Bill Nye?

  It is amazing.

• 13:03Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 13:03Bill Nye?

  Talk about discipline, scientific method.

• 13:06Chuck Nice?

  Just straight observation.

• 13:08Bill Nye?

  Observing and thinking.

• 13:10Chuck Nice?

  Exactly. Sweet!

• 13:11Bill Nye?

  So, don't forget, if you ever read Origin of Species, Darwin did all kinds of very diligent naturalist experiments. He's a really impressive guy. I mean, I know everybody says that, but he really was quite the experimentalist as well as the observationalist naturalist.

• 13:28Chuck Nice?

  Right. Alright, cool.

• 13:30Bill Nye?

  Lead on.

• 13:31Chuck Nice?

  So, there you go, there you go, there you go. Good, good question. I like that. Alright, let me move on to another query. This is Denard Springle, coming to, I like that name, coming to us from Google Plus. He says, "How much more interesting would Lost in Space have been if they'd elaborated more on Dr. Maureen Robinson's biochemical background, instead of having her be the typical housewife in space, preparing meals, tending to the garden, etc., etc.?"

• 14:03Bill Nye?

  Well, it sounds like, from your point of view, Mr. and Ms. Springle, it would be a lot better. And notice that, uh, compare and contrast the contemporary show Lost in Space with Star Trek.

• 14:16Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:16Bill Nye?

  Star Trek, the women were empowered. Yes, there was a lot of legs. Yes, there were a lot of

• 14:21Chuck Nice?

  Mini skirts.

• 14:22Bill Nye?

  A lot of nice uniforms.

• 14:24Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:24Bill Nye?

  But ultimately

• 14:25Chuck Nice?

  Green women.

• 14:26Bill Nye?

  Green women, uh, who were strangely hot.

• 14:29Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 14:30Bill Nye?

  Uh, but ultimately, right there in the middle of the whole thing was Lieutenant Uhura.

• 14:34Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 14:35Bill Nye?

  Who was an empowered woman.

• 14:36Chuck Nice?

  Yes, she was.

• 14:37Bill Nye?

  Who ran things. And then you'd come across your woman Romulan, who was in charge of a ship and so on.

• 14:42Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:43Bill Nye?

  And so

• 14:43Chuck Nice?

  And then you go forward into the Star Trek series, you have, oh, I'm sorry, go ahead.

• 14:48Bill Nye?

  No, bring, no, Chuck, take it.

• 14:49Chuck Nice?

  Of course, there's Captain Janeway.

• 14:51Bill Nye?

  Right there, running a whole freaking starship.

• 14:53Chuck Nice?

  A whole starship, who became Admiral Janeway.

• 14:55Bill Nye?

  That's right. And notice, but that shows that, like, the women's movement, at least here in the United States, uh, was reflected in science fiction.

• 15:04Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 15:05Bill Nye?

  Uh, you know what I mean? That, you know what I mean?

• 15:08Chuck Nice?

  So it's

• 15:09Bill Nye?

  I can't hear you. I don't know why I would say such a thing, but you see that the evolution right there. And by the way, Nichelle Nichols came to the 35th anniversary of the Planetary Society, October 2015. And she told the story again, Chuck.

• 15:23Chuck Nice?

  Um.

• 15:23Bill Nye?

  She's told the story countless times. She was very gracious about it.

• 15:26Chuck Nice?

  About what?

• 15:27Bill Nye?

  Martin Luther King called her.

• 15:29Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 15:30Bill Nye?

  Apparently on the phone.

• 15:31Chuck Nice?

  I have a dream.

• 15:33Bill Nye?

  Yeah, and he said, you can't quit this job. She was gonna quit. She wanted to go back to Broadway or whatever she was as a big time actress, not pretending to be in the 23rd century.

• 15:41Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 15:42Bill Nye?

  And he said, you can't quit this job.

• 15:44Chuck Nice?

  As he saw the value.

• 15:45Bill Nye?

  Yeah.

• 15:46Chuck Nice?

  And her being on the bridge of a starship in the future.

• 15:50Bill Nye?

  And being

• 15:51Chuck Nice?

  As a ranking officer, a lieutenant.

• 15:53Bill Nye?

  Who, who was responsible for all kinds of important things.

• 15:56Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 15:56Bill Nye?

  And so, uh, it was a, a really a moving moment for me. It was just a few months ago and he says, wow.

• 16:02Chuck Nice?

  You know what's funny about Lieutenant O'Hore is a lot of people say, well, she was the, she was nothing but an operator. You know, she was the, and the truth of the matter was, she was the first contact for anyone that they

• 16:11Bill Nye?

  She was Capcom.

• 16:12Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 16:13Bill Nye?

  Oh, but really Capcom's a big job.

• 16:15Chuck Nice?

  There you go. So.

• 16:16Bill Nye?

  No, she was a big deal and she made decisions and she, uh, had to remain calm in some pretty stressful situations, albeit fictional ones.

• 16:24Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:25Bill Nye?

  But it was to the point where Martin Luther King himself.

• 16:28Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 16:29Bill Nye?

  Says, my friend, uh, Ms. Nichols, you can't quit this gig. Cause you're a role model for, uh, African American people and women especially.

• 16:39Chuck Nice?

  I do believe you are a future.

• 16:41Bill Nye?

  It was really, it was

• 16:42Chuck Nice?

  Well, it makes sense.

• 16:43Bill Nye?

  Quite a story that she told, I gotta say.

• 16:45Chuck Nice?

  I was completely unaware of that story and that's a great.

• 16:48Bill Nye?

  Yeah, but she's told it a lot of times, but she was very nice about it.

• 16:51Chuck Nice?

  Nah, it's very cool. That's very cool. Then it kinda goes to show you the importance of

• 16:56Bill Nye?

  Television.

• 16:57Chuck Nice?

  Television, science fiction.

• 16:58Bill Nye?

  Fiction. And by the way, the thing about Star Trek, as a Trekkie.

• 17:01Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 17:02Bill Nye?

  It's an optimistic view of the future through science. It is not an apocalyptic view of the future. It is not, science is bad and leads to disaster. It's science is good and leads to all material needs. Being taken care of and any conflict we have is when we encounter new cultures who are not totally hip to.

• 17:23Chuck Nice?

  Right. They don't get it the way we do.

• 17:25Bill Nye?

  Well, they haven't had a chance. Yeah.

• 17:26Chuck Nice?

  There you go. All right. Super cool.

• 17:39Bill Nye?

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

• 17:52Chuck Nice?

  Alright, here we go. This is, uh, Corre Killabitch.

• 17:57Bill Nye?

  Oh heavens. Chuck, you gotta edit before you read.

• 18:00Chuck Nice?

  Corre Killabitch who said on Instagram, "How far are we from force fields and inertial dampers?"

• 18:06Bill Nye?

  So let me just say, in the, in the biggest picture, you live in a force field. Gravity is a force field. And it's can be thought of as a field and recently it was proven that it also apparently travels in waves. Gravity does. And so this was predicted or very reasonable to physicists and now we had an instrument that measured that. But I think I know what, at which you drive. And plus, we also have dampers, inertial dampers. The old, the British term was dampener, but in American English, the middle syllable got dropped. And this is a shock absorber in a car. And it, a damper generally means something that goes at the rate.

• 18:46Bill Nye?

  The faster you move the car axle, the more damping you get, the more damping retard, retarding force you get.

• 18:53Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 18:54Bill Nye?

  It's a little bit out of your mathematical experience for most people, but it's out of your every, it is out of your everyday experience. And you know this when you, um, when you try to bounce a car up and down, which you can do, you can make the, with the cars in park, everybody perfectly safe. Push it up and down, you'll find the faster you try to make it go, the more difficult it is. Now with that said.

• 19:15Chuck Nice?

  Just flip your switch on your lowrider. That's all.

• 19:17Bill Nye?

  Oh yeah, with you, for our lowrider listeners, the many StarTalk lowrider listeners that are out there. I'm sure there are a few of you. Thank you for your good work.

• 19:26Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 19:27Bill Nye?

  Now, but I think what she's driving at is tractor beam.

• 19:31Chuck Nice?

  You know it.

• 19:31Bill Nye?

  In fact, I heard a pundit, I believe on Meet the Press.

• 19:37Bill Nye?

  Use the term tractor beam talking about the current presidential election.

• 19:42Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 19:42Bill Nye?

  A tractor beam is so far not a real thing.

• 19:46Chuck Nice?

  Of course.

• 19:46Bill Nye?

  Wouldn't it be great instead of a tugboat having to throw a line out to the barge it's towing, you could just do it with some sort of electromagnetic beam with the accompanying sound effect that would bring the barge up the river or through deep space easily. So it's a cool idea. I don't know. I think we're pretty far away from that.

• 20:07Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 20:08Bill Nye?

  So I think we're pretty far away.

• 20:09Chuck Nice?

  Pretty far away.

• 20:10Bill Nye?

  We do have force fields.

• 20:11Chuck Nice?

  We do have force fields?

• 20:12Bill Nye?

  We're living in one. You may rub your hair in a balloon and feel your hair stand on end on your forearm. And then you also

• 20:22Bill Nye?

  uh may get a beam of light that pushes the spacecraft through space.

• 20:27Chuck Nice?

  Ah, I wonder.

• 20:28Bill Nye?

  From the Planetary Society, for example.

• 20:31Chuck Nice?

  Hmm, sounds vaguely familiar to me.

• 20:34Bill Nye?

  Planetary.org, consider joining. Yes, so you were saying.

• 20:38Chuck Nice?

  Light sailing.

• 20:38Bill Nye?

  Give me another query.

• 20:40Chuck Nice?

  Novel idea, light sailing.

• 20:42Bill Nye?

  No, it is cool. It was really good and we're gonna fly again. This was scheduled for September, but it will probably ship, ship, slip to November.

• 20:50Chuck Nice?

  Uh huh.

• 20:51Bill Nye?

  Be a ride on the Falcon Heavy.

• 20:53Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 20:53Bill Nye?

  SpaceX rocket with 27 engines instead of nine.

• 20:57Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 20:58Bill Nye?

  Be cool.

• 20:58Chuck Nice?

  All right, man. Well, good luck, good luck, uh, for the next flight. Here we go. Walter Vinci wants to know this in sci-fi. If one were to have a laser gun capable of producing a visible shot, what would the effects on the shooter, the target, and those in the vicinity be?

• 21:21Bill Nye?

  So, uh.

• 21:22Chuck Nice?

  So he's basically talking about a phaser or?

• 21:25Bill Nye?

  Well, there are laser weapons.

• 21:27Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 21:27Bill Nye?

  We had a laser weapon flying around on a 747. And the idea is the momentum, what you're talking like the recoil from a conventional bullet type gun, shotgun, whatever, is very small with a laser because all you're doing is reacting the photon pressure. But what the deal is, is you're sending heat at the target.

• 21:50Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 21:50Bill Nye?

  And so the heat can damage the target in a new way. That's not momentum. It's not recoil. It's burning stuff up.

• 21:57Chuck Nice?

  Burning stuff up.

• 21:58Bill Nye?

  And then if you tune it, you can have a mazer, a microwave beam that messes up the enemy's radar.

• 22:05Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:06Bill Nye?

  That's a, not that anybody would spend tax dollars doing that in our

• 22:11Chuck Nice?

  Oh, sure, no.

• 22:12Bill Nye?

  peaceful way of life, but I've heard of it.

• 22:14Chuck Nice?

  And wouldn't make the pew sound? I mean, would it?

• 22:17Bill Nye?

  I hope so.

• 22:17Chuck Nice?

  Would we ever make a laser?

• 22:18Bill Nye?

  You know how we produce that pew sound?

• 22:20Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 22:21Bill Nye?

  They got a guy wire, you know what I mean? A real long wire that holds up an antenna.

• 22:25Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:26Bill Nye?

  And tapped it.

• 22:27Chuck Nice?

  Okay, and that's the

• 22:29Bill Nye?

  Pew, pew.

• 22:30Chuck Nice?

  Going in.

• 22:30Bill Nye?

  And it's a, so it's a conventional mechanical resonance, just like a violin or guitar string.

• 22:35Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 22:35Bill Nye?

  It has a certain tightness. Very cool.

• 22:38Chuck Nice?

  Nice. All right.

• 22:40Bill Nye?

  Pew, pew. And we all know that's the sound of blasters.

• 22:44Chuck Nice?

  That's a blaster.

• 22:45Bill Nye?

  Gotta say, saw the new Star Wars movie?

• 22:49Chuck Nice?

  Speaking of pew.

• 22:50Bill Nye?

  Yeah, that, the, the, um, stormtrooper armor.

• 22:54Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 22:55Bill Nye?

  It's not very good.

• 22:56Chuck Nice?

  No, it isn't.

• 22:56Bill Nye?

  People burn right through it.

• 22:58Chuck Nice?

  Well, yeah, I, you know, I, I don't know why they, uh, you would think it would be somewhat protective, but every stormtrooper that gets hit by a blaster goes down and goes down pretty easily, too.

• 23:07Bill Nye?

  Yeah.

• 23:08Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 23:08Bill Nye?

  Yeah, it's, it's bad.

• 23:09Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go.

• 23:11Bill Nye?

  Another fiction problem that I can't really, no one, I wasn't consulted.

• 23:16Chuck Nice?

  Okay, do you think, okay, this is from, uh, A U T.

• 23:20Bill Nye?

  A U.

• 23:21Chuck Nice?

  A U T K D. Mm-hmm. Do you think something such as the death of the planet Krypton could ever happen to Earth?

• 23:32Bill Nye?

  No.

• 23:33Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:34Bill Nye?

  Any other question? Just exploding planets don't.

• 23:37Chuck Nice?

  That doesn't happen.

• 23:38Bill Nye?

  With that said, the Earth's moon apparently was created by a pretty big thing hitting the proto-Earth.

• 23:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:47Bill Nye?

  The Earth in its early days.

• 23:49Chuck Nice?

  Earth wasn't fully formed the way it is right now.

• 23:52Bill Nye?

  So it did destroy a planet, but maybe it formed a new planet and a moon. But that's not the same as the way it's depicted in Superman where stuff just blows up.

• 24:01Chuck Nice?

  Yes, it just blows and that's it and completely falls apart.

• 24:06Bill Nye?

  Yeah, so I, I don't see any way for that to happen. Stars.

• 24:10Chuck Nice?

  Ah.

• 24:10Bill Nye?

  They, they do that. They supernova.

• 24:13Chuck Nice?

  They do both, right?

• 24:14Bill Nye?

  Supernovae.

• 24:14Chuck Nice?

  They blow up and they implode, right?

• 24:16Bill Nye?

  Yeah, they do all that. But this, we're talking about a planet and so. If you like to worry about things, that's, I wouldn't put that up high.

• 24:22Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 24:23Bill Nye?

  I'd put climate change way up higher.

• 24:25Chuck Nice?

  Way up higher than, than, than, than Krypton like death?

• 24:27Bill Nye?

  Yes, yes.

• 24:28Chuck Nice?

  Okay, gotcha. So no need to put any kids inside of a little, uh, escape pod or?

• 24:34Bill Nye?

  Probably not.

• 24:35Chuck Nice?

  You know, send them off to a distant galaxy.

• 24:37Bill Nye?

  To improve the, the, the environment we have. Much better.

• 24:40Chuck Nice?

  So.

• 24:41Bill Nye?

  Make an Incluso pod.

• 24:43Chuck Nice?

  There you go. So I guess there's an Incluso pod.

• 24:47Bill Nye?

  Rather than an, yeah.

• 24:49Chuck Nice?

  Pardon me?

• 24:50Bill Nye?

  A Stay on Earth pod.

• 24:51Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, uh, which is called Earth.

• 24:54Bill Nye?

  Yes.

• 24:54Chuck Nice?

  So we should probably take care of this place.

• 24:56Bill Nye?

  Should.

• 24:57Chuck Nice?

  Here we go. Uh, yes, this is Scott.

• 25:01Bill Nye?

  That's his title? That's pretty good.

• 25:02Chuck Nice?

  Yes, this is Scott.

• 25:04Bill Nye?

  Yes, this is Scott. What's your query?

• 25:05Chuck Nice?

  Here's what, yes, this is Scott wants to know. Thoughts on our country's education system, particularly as it pertains to the scientific ignorance of the average US citizen? Could I have some of that from you, Mr. Nye?

• 25:17Bill Nye?

  Well, we got, we have a big concern. So, for example, I was at the science teacher convention.

• 25:23Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 25:24Bill Nye?

  And one of the fights that the Science Teachers Association fights is this current opposition to Common Core standards.

• 25:32Chuck Nice?

  Yes, I hear that's a big, big deal.

• 25:35Bill Nye?

  No, it's, you wouldn't think it would be. Why not have a set of ideas that we agree everybody should know? Everybody should learn the alphabet.

• 25:45Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:45Bill Nye?

  For example.

• 25:46Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:46Bill Nye?

  It'd be hard to read and conduct your life without memorizing the order of the letters.

• 25:51Chuck Nice?

  Kinda.

• 25:52Bill Nye?

  Yeah.

• 25:52Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 25:53Bill Nye?

  So, uh, along that line, there's some other things. We want people to know about certain plays and certain poems and certain pieces of art.

• 26:03Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 26:04Bill Nye?

  We also want people to know certain facts and discoveries in the process of science and the process of science. But, right now,

• 26:14Bill Nye?

  uh, so, so then educators around the US got together and came up with this Common Core of standards.

• 26:20Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 26:21Bill Nye?

  C-O-R-E of standards. But then, it came to be, uh, opposed by certain states who don't want to teach evolution.

• 26:30Chuck Nice?

  Ah, okay, now see.

• 26:33Bill Nye?

  And this is being, this, the Common Core is being opposed in the name of states' rights.

• 26:37Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 26:38Bill Nye?

  But it's being opposed, really, by people who are not aware of the fundamental idea in all of biology.

• 26:44Chuck Nice?

  See, I have to tell you that, uh, they're quite insidious, the way they make their argument, because they never let you know that there's an actual opposition to something so specific as evolution.

• 26:57Bill Nye?

  Um, it's states' rights.

• 26:58Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, states' rights. They never broach the issue of evolution in the fight for Common Core. And I've always, oh, the fight against Common Core. And I've always wondered, why is it, uh, that it's just, you know, one particular, uh, a group of people who are always decrying Common Core? And then I thought-

• 27:18Bill Nye?

  First, everybody thought it was a great idea.

• 27:20Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 27:20Bill Nye?

  Conservatives and progressives.

• 27:22Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:22Bill Nye?

  But then, when people realized that if you had science teachers, including the basic idea in all of life science- Evolution, they started to like totally freak. And so, there's a basic idea in geology, plate tectonics.

• 27:36Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:36Bill Nye?

  Right? There's a basic idea in physics, energy can either be created or destroyed.

• 27:42Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:42Bill Nye?

  Okay, and so, we love that. So, there's a basic idea in life science, that, uh, things change as they reproduce, which we call the process of evolution.

• 27:53Chuck Nice?

  Evolution, right.

• 27:54Bill Nye?

  My goodness, people.

• 27:55Chuck Nice?

  Wow, I, you know what, I, this is why I love co-hosting these shows. Because, certain things just pop up on these shows.

• 28:03Bill Nye?

  Oh, yes.

• 28:04Chuck Nice?

  Never realize.

• 28:05Bill Nye?

  This is my little business.

• 28:05Chuck Nice?

  This is it, man.

• 28:07Bill Nye?

  This is why we answer these queries.

• 28:08Chuck Nice?

  Exactly, and this is super cool, because that's the real deal. The real deal is, it's evolution.

• 28:14Bill Nye?

  They don't wanna.

• 28:15Chuck Nice?

  The big problem is evolution.

• 28:16Bill Nye?

  They're afraid of it. There are some people who are empow- uh, Neil.

• 28:21Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 28:22Bill Nye?

  Tyson.

• 28:22Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 28:22Bill Nye?

  Myself, you, I presume.

• 28:24Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 28:25Bill Nye?

  Are excited and empowered by the idea that we don't have all the answers.

• 28:29Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 28:30Bill Nye?

  Other people are deeply troubled.

• 28:33Chuck Nice?

  Never understood.

• 28:33Bill Nye?

  They want all the answers, everything spelled out, right now, we wanna know everything there is to know about the universe, right now. And when you challenge that, uh, they get, they get unsettled.

• 28:43Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 28:44Bill Nye?

  And that's, I consider that entirely my fault, as a science educator. Instead of getting people excited about it, they just grow up afraid of it.

• 28:51Chuck Nice?

  Don't blame yourself. You know, that's, wow, so there you have it. Hey, listen, this is, uh, yes, this is Scott, thank you for that question, that was, uh, that was quite enlightening.

• 29:01Bill Nye?

  It's really good.

• 29:02Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, alright, let's move on, uh, let's get to, uh, Spenny46.

• 29:07Bill Nye?

  Spenny.

• 29:08Chuck Nice?

  Spenny! Spenny wants to know this, in order to achieve warp speed.

• 29:12Bill Nye?

  Oh, yeah.

• 29:13Chuck Nice?

  Like in Star Trek.

• 29:14Bill Nye?

  The way you do.

• 29:14Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, you know the way you do in Star Trek, right? You know?

• 29:16Bill Nye?

  Sure.

• 29:17Chuck Nice?

  Number one, engage. That's how you achieve it, by the way, Spenny, number one, engage. Um, what would the ship have to be made out of? So, uh.

• 29:28Bill Nye?

  Well, it generally agreed that you'd start with some sort of unobtanium.

• 29:34Bill Nye?

  And build out from there. Keep in mind, there is no evidence that you can actually travel at warp speed. It's a science fiction device to enable, uh, interactions between people. You know, what makes any good story is what's happening between people. Yes, there can be Andorians, and Romulans, and Klingons, there can be Xenonians, and, um...

• 29:59Bill Nye?

  So on, but they're really any science fiction story has to do with us humans interacting.

• 30:04Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:05Bill Nye?

  And yeah, there's some issues about what's possible technologically in the future or the past. But it's really about what people are doing to each other. So. Uh.

• 30:16Bill Nye?

  There's no, there's no evidence that there really is a warp drive and I don't know what the ship would be made of.

• 30:21Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Okay. There you have it.

• 30:22Bill Nye?

  Be really strong.

• 30:23Chuck Nice?

  It would be because you're warping space to travel through it, which means whatever it is, is getting stretched out through space.

• 30:31Bill Nye?

  Sure it is.

• 30:31Chuck Nice?

  Showing up someplace else.

• 30:32Bill Nye?

  Artificial gravity and everybody speaks English when you get there.

• 30:35Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 30:39Bill Nye?

  That's key. Big time.

• 30:41Chuck Nice?

  That's awesome. Yes. How did that happen? Here we are halfway across the galaxy, but yet somehow these guys speak English.

• 30:48Bill Nye?

  It's crazy.

• 30:49Chuck Nice?

  Oh, man.

• 30:49Bill Nye?

  Unexpected.

• 30:50Chuck Nice?

  Ah, yes.

• 30:50Bill Nye?

  Well, it's a remarkable example of Hodgkin's laws of parallel planetary development. Boy, I am, I'm an old geek.

• 30:58Chuck Nice?

  I love it.

• 30:59Bill Nye?

  Take it, take it.

• 31:00Chuck Nice?

  Love it. Here we go. Here we go. Oh my God. Hmm. Uh. Here we go from Ethan Bottoms. Ethan says, Bill, what's your favorite sci-fi technology? And what would be its real life equivalent?

• 31:20Bill Nye?

  Uh, two things.

• 31:21Chuck Nice?

  Things.

• 31:21Bill Nye?

  First of all, I'd love to have a transporter.

• 31:23Chuck Nice?

  Oh God, so would I.

• 31:26Bill Nye?

  But people have done analysis on the information theory involved and taking a few trillion cells and putting them back together.

• 31:33Chuck Nice?

  Reassembling them.

• 31:34Bill Nye?

  Huge amount of energy required, but the other one that we'd all like is subspace radio.

• 31:39Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 31:39Bill Nye?

  Where no matter where the other person is, no matter how fast he or she is traveling, no matter what's going on, you can talk to him or her.

• 31:46Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 31:46Bill Nye?

  We've almost got it.

• 31:48Chuck Nice?

  For real.

• 31:49Bill Nye?

  I mean, you had, take out your mobile phone, you can talk to pretty much anybody in the world. Once in a while.

• 31:53Chuck Nice?

  It's true.

• 31:54Bill Nye?

  The uh, transmission is not as good as it might be. Once in a while it's breaking up. Once in a while you have to move near the window.

• 32:00Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 32:01Bill Nye?

  Once in a while the phone goes dead.

• 32:02Chuck Nice?

  In my own apartment for no reason.

• 32:03Bill Nye?

  Yes. Your data costs more than your voice and so on, but we're getting close where you can talk to anybody, anywhere, anytime. Now, you can fly on planes. Six miles above the earth.

• 32:17Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 32:17Bill Nye?

  And be on the internet. Communicating, taking care of things. It's not going to be long before. People will be able to talk routinely. I'm sure there'll be phone booths on planes again. Do you know if you remember the radio phones that were 10 bucks a minute or something?

• 32:34Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 32:34Bill Nye?

  Airplanes.

• 32:35Chuck Nice?

  Ah.

• 32:36Bill Nye?

  But this, uh, this will come back around. We'll have the equivalent of subspace radio.

• 32:40Chuck Nice?

  Right. Okay. So subspace radio, uh, that's a-

• 32:43Bill Nye?

  That's what I'd like.

• 32:44Chuck Nice?

  Be nice.

• 32:45Bill Nye?

  Yeah. Be nice, like you, Chuck.

• 32:47Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm. Yeah, I like that. I like that. I like what we did there.

• 32:51Bill Nye?

  That's brilliant.

• 32:51Chuck Nice?

  It's very cool.

• 32:52Bill Nye?

  No one's ever thought of it before.

• 33:05Chuck Nice?

  Here, Kaylee, uh, Kaylee.

• 33:07Bill Nye?

  Who else could sell, say Kaylee, except you?

• 33:10Chuck Nice?

  Hehehe.

• 33:10Bill Nye?

  Besides you.

• 33:11Chuck Nice?

  Who else could butcher the name Kaylee?

• 33:13Bill Nye?

  Yeah, take it.

• 33:14Chuck Nice?

  Better than you, Chuck. Here we go. Kaylee Bush wants to know this. In many science fiction movies, hypersleep is used by astronauts.

• 33:21Bill Nye?

  Hypersleep.

• 33:21Chuck Nice?

  Hypersleep is used by astronauts on long voyages to make their trips seem shorter. Is hypersleep possible? If so, would it be a valid method to keep future astronauts sane during long trips in space?

• 33:34Bill Nye?

  A couple of things about that.

• 33:36Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 33:36Bill Nye?

  We, you may have met, uh, a bear. Or squirrels. These kids hibernate.

• 33:43Chuck Nice?

  They do a little something called hibernation.

• 33:44Bill Nye?

  Yeah, and so it's very reasonable. They're mammals.

• 33:47Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:47Bill Nye?

  We're mammals. It's very reasonable that you could figure out how they do it.

• 33:51Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:51Bill Nye?

  And, uh, then you would enable astronauts to do that. It's not, I don't think it's to entertain, to keep astronauts from going crazy so much as to keep astronauts from aging too much, right? You go on these long trips and then, uh, it seems reasonable to do that. However, with that said, Mark Kelly.

• 34:13Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 34:13Bill Nye?

  Just finished a, almost a year in space, 340 days in space, and he remarked- You know, you could go two years. I could go two years.

• 34:21Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 34:21Bill Nye?

  Uh, astronauts are anything but bored.

• 34:24Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 34:24Bill Nye?

  They have, if anything, too much to do.

• 34:26Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that's what he's.

• 34:27Bill Nye?

  To keep the things going, yeah.

• 34:28Chuck Nice?

  One of the things he said is that there's so much to do. There's so many things all day long that he's doing that he doesn't think about it like, like that.

• 34:36Bill Nye?

  He doesn't, he doesn't run out of mental stuff to do. So, uh, this is a great question, but very reasonable to, to enable astronauts to make this long journey without having to eat as much.

• 34:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 34:48Bill Nye?

  And process the waste as much.

• 34:50Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 34:50Bill Nye?

  Having as much time, seriously, in sleep cycles. Uh, it's very reasonable to have people in suspended animation. And in science fiction movies, what you generally do

• 35:00Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:01Bill Nye?

  is have the people in suspended animation kill each other or die.

• 35:04Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, or wait, one of the chambers malfunctions.

• 35:07Bill Nye?

  That's right.

• 35:08Chuck Nice?

  And when they get to wherever they're going, it's a corpse.

• 35:11Bill Nye?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 35:11Chuck Nice?

  A dried up corpse.

• 35:12Bill Nye?

  Yeah, and he didn't even know it, or she, because they were, he or she was asleep during this traumatic, uh, time. But this is, uh, it's a fine idea in science fiction, but it goes way back because we observe bears.

• 35:25Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 35:25Bill Nye?

  Who hibernate. Why couldn't we do that? With the right hormones or berry and bark diet?

• 35:32Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 35:34Bill Nye?

  It's a good question.

• 35:35Chuck Nice?

  There you go. Good question. Oh, wait, way to go, Kaylee. Uh, Ethan, the cool guy, Smith.

• 35:40Bill Nye?

  That's quite a claim.

• 35:41Chuck Nice?

  What a claim. Yes, he says, "Why does it seem that with every new generation, there is a new level of both scientific acceptance and scientific ignorance?" Which is a wonderful question, especially when you're thinking about science fiction. I mean, he's absolutely right. When you think back from the time of Galileo till now, Jesus, man, the leaps and bounds we've made, but yet when you look at where we are right now, you can't believe the people are such idiots that they believe some of the things they believe.

• 36:14Bill Nye?

  For example.

• 36:14Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 36:15Bill Nye?

  Give me an example.

• 36:16Chuck Nice?

  Like, like, for example, that, um, human activity may, uh, be creating uh, climate change that is deleterious to the entire ecosystem of this planet upon which we live.

• 36:29Bill Nye?

  And denying that.

• 36:30Chuck Nice?

  And denying that.

• 36:31Bill Nye?

  Yes, with the face of evidence.

• 36:32Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 36:33Bill Nye?

  Or denying that, uh, organisms change through the process of evolution.

• 36:36Chuck Nice?

  How about that?

• 36:37Bill Nye?

  Yes, or.

• 36:38Chuck Nice?

  Even though we have clear, clear evidence.

• 36:40Bill Nye?

  Fundamental idea in life science. So, uh, you're asking a great question. I think people. There's an expression, I think, in almost every culture, the good old days.

• 36:50Chuck Nice?

  Good old days.

• 36:51Bill Nye?

  People have a way, we, I think it's a survival mechanism, we have a way of suppressing the really traumatic times.

• 36:57Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 36:57Bill Nye?

  And embracing the happy times.

• 36:59Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 36:59Bill Nye?

  And these are the good old days, and so the ultimate manifestation of that is, if only things were the way they were when I understood everything.

• 37:08Chuck Nice?

  Uh-huh.

• 37:08Bill Nye?

  Now, uh, it gets away from me as these changes around us are happening in technology, culture, uh, the speed of things, but you gotta get over, and it's back to this deal that I talk about all the time. Some people are greatly troubled by change.

• 37:24Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 37:24Bill Nye?

  Other people accept it as part of the excitement of being alive.

• 37:27Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 37:28Bill Nye?

  So, uh, this is a great question, but we are working very hard here at StarTalk to empower the world's citizens to know science.

• 37:37Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:38Bill Nye?

  And that planetary society to know the cosmos and our place within it. That's why we want to know the cosmos and realize that we don't know everything. And pursue truth in nature, to find out nature's rules so that we know where we fit in, in the great scheme of things.

• 37:55Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 37:56Bill Nye?

  Where did we come from? Are we alone? These are deep questions, answers with science. Some people think it's cool, other people are troubled. And the troubled people are the ones living in the past.

• 38:06Chuck Nice?

  There you have it.

• 38:07Bill Nye?

  So far.

• 38:08Chuck Nice?

  Hey, uh, I have to say that, um, um, that was a very cool question, Ethan Cool Guy Smith.

• 38:15Bill Nye?

  Thank you, Ethan Smith, the cool guy.

• 38:19Bill Nye?

  Lead on.

• 38:19Chuck Nice?

  Here we go. Uh, BTU, oh one oh five.

• 38:24Bill Nye?

  British Thermal Unit, oh one oh five, yes.

• 38:26Chuck Nice?

  One oh five, wants to know this. The professor on Gilligan's Island always seemed to be using seawater and coconuts to power gadgets like radios. First of all, is that feasible?

• 38:38Bill Nye?

  Uh, depends. If you have enough dissimilar metals, by the classics you might be familiar with are copper and zinc.

• 38:47Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:47Bill Nye?

  Then you can make a battery. But I don't know that you can power a coconut radio.

• 38:52Chuck Nice?

  Right, I was gonna say.

• 38:53Bill Nye?

  But I remind you, a lot of the stuff that hap-

• 38:55Chuck Nice?

  I think the coconut was there just for, uh, aesthetics.

• 38:56Bill Nye?

  Give it the tropical island feel.

• 38:58Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 38:59Bill Nye?

  I remind you, a lot of the stuff the professor did on Gilligan's Island was not real.

• 39:05Bill Nye?

  And so this enabled the, it enabled the plot to be advanced and you'll notice generally in Gilligan's Island, he'd get it almost working.

• 39:14Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 39:15Bill Nye?

  For a few seconds.

• 39:16Chuck Nice?

  Seconds and then.

• 39:17Bill Nye?

  Ah, and then doggone it. And so, uh, with that said, changing the subject to a more recent, more desperate situation on Lost.

• 39:28Chuck Nice?

  Ah.

• 39:29Bill Nye?

  What I say as a, I was a pretty good Boy Scout.

• 39:32Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 39:33Bill Nye?

  Get off the island. What's wrong with you people?

• 39:36Chuck Nice?

  Cause all they cared about was what was happening on the island.

• 39:39Bill Nye?

  That's just gotta say, when I watched the, the, um, was it the Blair Witch Project?

• 39:44Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 39:45Bill Nye?

  Get out of the woods. What's wrong with you? We lost the map. Follow the stream, you clowns.

• 39:52Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 39:53Bill Nye?

  I had no sympathy for those people. Maybe somebody will kill them and we can move on. Yes.

• 39:59Bill Nye?

  Oh, Bill, Bill, you're so harsh. I'm just telling you, these are, through the process of science, you would find a way. You would find a way to get off the, out of the woods, off the island.

• 40:12Chuck Nice?

  That's.

• 40:12Bill Nye?

  Especially, how long was that on? Five years?

• 40:15Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 40:15Bill Nye?

  Three and a half years?

• 40:16Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 40:17Bill Nye?

  Somebody would get something done, people.

• 40:19Chuck Nice?

  All right, there you have it, uh, BTU. Uh, the professor was a fraud.

• 40:24Bill Nye?

  Not a, he was a fictional character.

• 40:26Chuck Nice?

  Fictional character. Uh, I think he never had anything that worked because he was secretly doing something with Ginger.

• 40:32Bill Nye?

  So I don't need to know Chuck.

• 40:34Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 40:35Bill Nye?

  But are you Ginger or Mary Ann?

• 40:36Chuck Nice?

  Uh, you know, I gotta tell the truth, I'm more of a Mary Ann.

• 40:39Bill Nye?

  I'm total Mary Ann.

• 40:40Chuck Nice?

  I'm a Mary Ann guy.

• 40:41Bill Nye?

  I am.

• 40:42Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 40:42Bill Nye?

  I'm sympathetic to the Ginger thing.

• 40:43Chuck Nice?

  I'm sympathetic to the Ginger too, but you know, that was a little, that looked a little high maintenance and.

• 40:47Bill Nye?

  It did. A lot of work.

• 40:48Chuck Nice?

  Honestly, a lot of work going in there.

• 40:50Bill Nye?

  Yeah.

• 40:51Chuck Nice?

  And, and, and didn't, you know, didn't look like it would be worth it. Whereas Mary Ann.

• 40:54Bill Nye?

  That's it. She was accessible.

• 40:56Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. And also felt like when it, you know, when, when my pursuits were achieved, that I may wanna spend some time with Mary Ann.

• 41:04Bill Nye?

  Uh, yeah. So everybody, if you're not familiar with this, these references, a lot of the reason young men watch television is to look at women. And if you look at the cover of any ma, I, I walk by here in New York, you walk by newsstands continually.

• 41:21Chuck Nice?

  All the time.

• 41:22Bill Nye?

  So many of the magazines feature women rather than.

• 41:25Chuck Nice?

  On the cover, not men.

• 41:26Bill Nye?

  No problem with that. I gotta say, if it ain't broke. So on this show, Gilligan's Island. Uh, we can all ask ourselves, which of these contrasting personalities would you prefer?

• 41:36Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:36Bill Nye?

  And I think this is a good moment Chuck, with that important digression resolved.

• 41:40Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 41:40Bill Nye?

  To get at last to the lightning round.

• 41:43Chuck Nice?

  Ah, yes, and that is where we will speed things up and take as many questions as we can in the remaining time. So let us move on and say from, ooh, um, ooh, Seba Films wants to know this. Hi Bill, are you happy?

• 42:03Bill Nye?

  I'm happy because you're at, you're sending questions or queries to StarTalk.

• 42:09Chuck Nice?

  There you go. That was simple enough. We're off to a, uh, very good start. Um, uh, this is from Andres Gamma O7. Andres Gamma O7 wants to know this. In Star Trek, are you really, when you're teleported to another place, are you really being teleported or is it a copy of you?

• 42:29Bill Nye?

  Oh no, you're really being teleported.

• 42:30Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 42:30Bill Nye?

  I've seen it.

• 42:35Chuck Nice?

  Easy enough. Uh, Jay Shipka wants to know this. Is it, is it possible to convert sound waves into an energy source?

• 42:45Bill Nye?

  Energy source?

• 42:46Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 42:46Bill Nye?

  Has to be really loud. Uh, think about how little energy it takes to make a big cymbal crash. I mean, really compared to something else. You know, if you have stereo speakers, they might be a hundred watts. Just think how loud that gets. So yeah, we turn electrical energy into sound all the time.

• 43:04Chuck Nice?

  Wow, there you go.

• 43:05Bill Nye?

  Doing it right now. It's a radio podcast.

• 43:08Chuck Nice?

  Yes, there's your answer, Jay Shipka. It's happening right before you. You're soaking it.

• 43:13Bill Nye?

  He wants to go the other way. He wants to take some.

• 43:15Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, he wants to take some. Like a sonic boom.

• 43:17Bill Nye?

  Moderation.

• 43:18Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm. Okay, here we go. Uh, duh, duh, duh, duh. Uh.

• 43:23Bill Nye?

  It's still ringing.

• 43:24Chuck Nice?

  Alphabetize wants to know this. What are the chances of humanity recovering after a catastrophic extinction event? The subject of many, many movies.

• 43:34Bill Nye?

  They're pretty good. Humans are said to be extinction proof. That is to say, there's so many us living on so many continents that even in a.

• 43:43Chuck Nice?

  It's gonna be a remnant.

• 43:44Bill Nye?

  Somebody will be around and they'll be doing it. They'll be making more humans. I'm just, if you're like to worry about things, that one, I'd set that one aside.

• 43:52Chuck Nice?

  Okay, there you go. Uh.

• 43:56Chuck Nice?

  Benjamin and Luria. Benjamin and Luria. That's, uh, he wants to know this. Could Rick's portal gun from Rick and Morty ever exist? In other words, could we ever have a means of creating a dimensional portal?

• 44:09Bill Nye?

  Oh, yeah, it's easy enough.

• 44:12Bill Nye?

  No. You think you feel better? No. But it's good. It's, it enables the plot.

• 44:22Chuck Nice?

  Okay. Um, DJ Pure Logic wants to know this. Will humanity survive long enough to achieve a type two or three civilization?

• 44:32Bill Nye?

  We'll see, won't we? If we can live on pure energy and become electrovores. It's not gonna happen this weekend.

• 44:38Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 44:39Bill Nye?

  Climate change is gonna be a problem before then. These are great questions, maybe something worth achieving. But bear in mind, the type one, two, and three civilizations are human constructs. Who knows if there are any of them and what they think of us?

• 44:53Chuck Nice?

  Very nice. Chris Showdrom.

• 44:58Bill Nye?

  Last name.

• 44:58Chuck Nice?

  Showdrom.

• 45:00Bill Nye?

  Showdrom.

• 45:01Chuck Nice?

  Showdrom. Chris Showdrom wants to know this. What did you learn today, Bill?

• 45:05Bill Nye?

  Uh, I learned how Chuck feels about climate change. She's concerned. He's got three kids.

• 45:10Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I, I, I have to tell you, I just, oh, God, I'm not gonna get back on my little thing here because, yeah, I'm very concerned. Um, Adam Bomb Baby wants to know this. If you could show one thing, be it a photograph, a painting, or a piece of music, a book, or a movie, or something completely different to an intelligent species from somewhere outside of our solar system, what would it be and why?

• 45:33Bill Nye?

  Uh, that's a great question.

• 45:34Chuck Nice?

  That is a great question.

• 45:36Bill Nye?

  And if it's one thing?

• 45:38Chuck Nice?

  One thing that you could show them, would it, would it be art? Would it be literature? Would it be a photograph? Would it be, you know, a mathematical equation, uh?

• 45:47Bill Nye?

  I might show him a rocket. I might show him a spacecraft.

• 45:49Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 45:50Bill Nye?

  But, phew, that's a tough one.

• 45:52Chuck Nice?

  That's a tough one.

• 45:53Bill Nye?

  It's a tough one.

• 45:54Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 45:54Bill Nye?

  I think I might, I might show him.

• 45:57Chuck Nice?

  I would just give him the internet and say, have at it.

• 46:00Bill Nye?

  Have at it.

• 46:03Bill Nye?

  One thing.

• 46:04Chuck Nice?

  Just one thing, it's the internet, here you go. Alright, so this is Davy Jones from San Bernardino, California. Wants to know, what's your opinion on how science is overall depicted in Futurama? And Professor Farnsworth, a great scientist or the greatest scientist on TV?

• 46:19Bill Nye?

  It's just, it's just fun, you guys, just fun. Don't put, don't put too much voracious, true facts. There aren't that many facts in Futurama. With that said, Chuck, we've come to the end of our show.

• 46:32Chuck Nice?

  We have indeed.

• 46:33Bill Nye?

  Cosmic Queries on StarTalk. It's been my worldwide citizen of the world, Chuck Nice.

• 46:38Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 46:39Bill Nye?

  And I've been your host, Bill Nye. Please keep looking up.