The Geekiverse, with Kevin Smith

“In fact, it is the geek that shall inherit the Earth.” Explore the geekiverse with Neil deGrasse Tyson, filmmaker and superfan Kevin Smith, comic co-host Chuck Nice, astrophysicist Charles Liu, and physicist James Kakalios, author of The Physics of Superheroes. NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/the-geekiverse-with-kevin-smith/ Photo Credit: Brandon Royal.

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

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 0:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to the hall of the universe. I'm your host Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And tonight, we are going to explore the farthest reaches of the geekiverse. Featuring my interview with filmmaker, comic book fanatic, and basically all-around geek ambassador, Kevin Smith. So let's do this.

• 0:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Co-host tonight Chuck Nice. Chuck? Hey Neil, how are you? Chuck your baby. Always good to be here. Tweeting at ChuckNiceComic, I love you man. I love you too. Love you man. And Charles Lu, you're old timer now. StarTalk All-Star, that's the whole spin-off thing we do. And this is like your 100th time as an expert witness on the show.

• 1:07Charles Liu?

  Happy to be here today. You are totally tickling my geek underbelly.

• 1:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, for this particular episode, we have you on because you are our resident geek-in-chief. So we'll be relying heavily on the sort of the geek expertise of the table.

• 1:22Chuck Nice?

  I like that geek expertise.

• 1:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, that just felt good saying it. Yeah, because we're featuring my interview with Kevin Smith. He's director of the cult classics Clerks, remember that one? That was an interesting one. Mallrats and the movie Dogma. He's a lifelong science fiction and comic book fan. And he stopped by my office recently. I said, "Let me snatch him." Put him in the chair and talk to that man. Right here at the American Museum of Natural History. Let's check it out.

• 1:51Speaker 03

  I'm gonna dive into it by saying this, I've never been here. I grew up in New Jersey, so I grew up a hop, skip and a jump away from Manhattan. You're telling me you never came? I've never been to the Museum of Natural History. I literally had to ask the lady who brought me in, I was telling her, I was like, I've never been here. And she goes, really? That's the end of this interview. I'm sorry, but this is, this is a chance to convert someone to science. So, I said, is this the place where they hang the big whale? I've seen it in movies? And she goes, this is that movie place. So, I've, that's my way of saying, I'm an ignorant man, Neil. Like, I never pretend to erudition that's not mine. And science and math were always my weakest subjects in school. My wife is a massive science buff.

• 2:35Speaker 03

  I, I, like, like I said, I've never been here and I grew up so close. That tells you that science is the last thing on my mind. Now- Not even on a school trip? Never. Can you believe it? Like, I went to eight years of a Catholic school, so, there you go. There's your problem, right there. There's no, there's no science in my life because when I was a kid, and this is absolutely true, everything could be explained by faith. So, you know, and, and it wasn't like, it wasn't like a TV movie where my young child soul in school was, you know, being pulled toward God or science. But, there was no natural curiosity stirred in me. I think because I went to Catholic school, because I was raised Catholic and every Sunday I was in church and I was an altar boy.

• 3:21Speaker 03

  The mysteries of the universe to me were just like, well, God, and that's it. And so, I, you know, that was good enough. I'm a lazy man, so, and I was a lazy kid. So, I never really went beyond that. Science entered my life only through the fictional realm. Like, the only science I cared about was like, oh, they've got spaceships in space and that's where the empire fights the rebellion and they have lightsabers and laser pistols and phasers and stuff like that, communicators. So, my interest in science was always kind of based in pop culture. But, I realized that when they, I mean, honestly, I've been ducking you for a while because people are like, you should talk to Neil. And I'm like, I, I can't because I'll be revealed as utterly ignorant.

• 4:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This dude was avoiding me.

• 4:09Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 4:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But turning pop culture into science interest?

• 4:15Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 4:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what we do here on StarTalk.

• 4:17Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 4:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just saying.

• 4:18Chuck Nice?

  He's the perfect StarTalk candidate.

• 4:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that's right. So what do you think of his excuse for not having interest in science?

• 4:26Charles Liu?

  Not to be harsh to him, but actually...

• 4:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That means he's about to be harsh.

• 4:30Charles Liu?

  Yes, exactly.

• 4:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, okay.

• 4:31Chuck Nice?

  Right. That's like, that's the classic, just like, "Look, I'm not racist, bud."

• 4:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know he's right, but go on.

• 4:41Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 4:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, go on.

• 4:43Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead, do your thing, Charles.

• 4:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go. You got the floor.

• 4:45Charles Liu?

  The professor that taught me theoretical cosmology was a Jesuit priest. So Catholicism has nothing to do with a lack of curiosity. But I do note that what he said was that math and science were his weakest subjects. And therefore, he didn't have an interest or a curiosity in it because he didn't think he was any good at it. And so in that sense, I give Kevin a lot of credit. Because now, he has bypassed that challenge, the expectation of others that he's not any good at it, and instead embraced it through what he liked and enjoyed, which is fiction and pop culture and comedy.

• 5:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So he took what he knew was a product of something and assigned the wrong cause?

• 5:22Charles Liu?

  Yes. I think that's what it was. At its core, science is not in conflict with religion. It's only a matter of if people use it as an excuse or as an idea that make it a conflict with religion. Does that make sense to you? That's how I feel strongly about him, and as a result, I think Kevin is really cool.

• 5:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. Cool dude. So maybe he's best recognized for playing a recurring character called Silent Bob in his films alongside his stoner buddy named Jay. I think we have an image of this.

• 5:53Chuck Nice?

  Silent Bob and Jay. Oh, there they are.

• 5:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 5:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they're in a comic book store.

• 6:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, even though Kevin Smith is a huge pop culture fan.

• 6:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And science fiction fan. He remains science curiosity challenged.

• 6:12Speaker 03

  No.

• 6:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. I have evidence of that. Let's check it out.

• 6:18Speaker 03

  You're talking to a man who, at age forty-six, is still not quite sure how the water works when I turn on the spigot. So, the mysteries of the universe.

• 6:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got one for you, ready? The refrigerator light.

• 6:33Speaker 03

  Not what I'd get. A little button that pushes off.

• 6:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, you found the button.

• 6:36Speaker 03

  That's where my science begins and ends.

• 6:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Takes some curiosity.

• 6:40Speaker 03

  The faucet, like, it's not plugged into anything, and like, so wait, this pressure's just waiting at all times? Like, isn't this a ticking time bomb waiting to go off? I realize I'm not smart enough. I was smart about one thing. Things that don't exist. Comic books, movies, TV. I wasn't even smart about it, I just liked it. That's where I invested all my time. Not even in sports, another unreal thing. I invested my life, the early life, in cartoons and comics and movies and TV and fun things, in sci-fi. And so, it just worked out. I don't know what I'd be doing right now if the world didn't fall the way it did, but it just worked out that right now, people are interested in those things. Culturally. It's no longer pop culture, it is the culture. And because I was raised in it, I'm well-versed in it.

• 7:24Speaker 03

  Suddenly, there's this weird, you know, the universal lines, as you know, in some time, in some moments. And it has given me a path that's like, so I could literally just be a fan of things for a living? This is a job? And so, that's, that's kind of what I've, I've, you know, I love making films and stuff, but really, that's only one half of my career. The rest of it is just spent mostly celebrating things that I enjoy. Largely, of course, a lot of it centered around the unreal sci-fi. That's where my sci ends with a phi. You've made a brilliant career out of the sci.

• 7:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I have used people such as yourself. Communities that you represent.

• 8:03Speaker 03

  Right.

• 8:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And explored ways to attach real science to it. And I have found that if you, if you identify a fanbase that has rabid interest in a thing. And I find a way to attach something real to it. Oh my god. Give me, give me all of that that you can. So Charles, do you do some of that?

• 8:23Charles Liu?

  I do. This is fun stuff and again-

• 8:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's quite potent when it-

• 8:27Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 8:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The ball rolls down a hill and doesn't stop.

• 8:29Charles Liu?

  That's right. I must dispute Kevin when he says that he's not scientifically curious. He is, just in his own way, for sure.

• 8:36Chuck Nice?

  Well, it's pretty clear that he doesn't think that he is. Anytime you say, "Even me, at forty-six years old, how does a spigot work?"

• 8:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Charles, do you know how a spigot works?

• 8:45Charles Liu?

  Absolutely. There's water pressure-

• 8:47Chuck Nice?

  Okay, wait a minute. Now, let's make this really interesting.

• 8:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 8:50Chuck Nice?

  Because I know that Charles actually loves comic books-

• 8:53Charles Liu?

  Yes, I do.

• 8:54Chuck Nice?

  On a really intense level. Can you explain to Kevin Smith how a spigot works, but in a comic book story?

• 9:04Charles Liu?

  It's already been done.

• 9:05Chuck Nice?

  What?

• 9:06Charles Liu?

  In the Marvel Universe-

• 9:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why would anyone do that?

• 9:09Chuck Nice?

  Exactly. I had never heard of Spigot Man.

• 9:11Charles Liu?

  No, no, no, you didn't.

• 9:15Chuck Nice?

  I'm Spigot Man. I am here representing the waterworks.

• 9:20Charles Liu?

  Actually, in the Marvel-

• 9:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You turn on the water and Spigot Man comes out. Oh my gosh!

• 9:24Chuck Nice?

  That is scary. I love that.

• 9:27Charles Liu?

  In the Marvel Universe, there was a villain in the olden days called Hydro-Man.

• 9:32Chuck Nice?

  Hydro.

• 9:32Charles Liu?

  Who turned himself into water at will and would attack, like Spider-Man and so forth, by turning liquid so his punches would be ineffective and then swarm all over him. He would attack secretly by going through the water pipes and so forth. And the moment you turned on the water, he would pop out and start kicking your butt.

• 9:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So this is real?

• 9:49Charles Liu?

  This is real.

• 9:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was just making this shit up.

• 9:51Charles Liu?

  The whole universe was real.

• 9:52Chuck Nice?

  Oh my god. That's amazing.

• 9:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait. You turn on a spigot and only half of him comes out and you quickly turn it off?

• 9:57Charles Liu?

  Mm-hmm.

• 9:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You cut him in half?

• 9:58Charles Liu?

  That's right.

• 9:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 9:59Charles Liu?

  That's right. But then the one arm comes and turns the spigot, and then the other half comes out.

• 10:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so like in Terminator 2?

• 10:05Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 10:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The liquid metal could reassemble into shapes.

• 10:09Chuck Nice?

  Maybe that's where they got that from.

• 10:10Charles Liu?

  Shay, that's a nice bike.

• 10:12Chuck Nice?

  From Hydro-Man. Excellent.

• 10:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Kevin Smith, we know he's curious, but why isn't he more scientifically curious? Let's find out.

• 10:22Speaker 03

  You're an astrophysicist.

• 10:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 10:24Speaker 03

  So let me ask you this. Why aren't I more curious about science? Like, why didn't it ever hook me? Why, you know, it's... There's more interesting stuff going on in the real world than there is in someone's imagination in a movie and a comic book. And I was so close, you know what I'm saying? With everything that I love. But why, why do I have my head so far up my own ass, Neil? That I don't care? You know, that's weird. I should care more.

• 10:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, are you curious

• 10:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  how much Thor's hammer weighs?

• 10:55Speaker 03

  No.

• 10:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are you curi... See...

• 10:57Speaker 03

  I know, I know, I'm sorry, I know. But that to me, I know.

• 11:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What, no, no, you can't, so, so...

• 11:03Speaker 03

  But to me, that goes back to like, well, it's magic.

• 11:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is curiosity 101.

• 11:07Speaker 03

  I know.

• 11:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That, that's not, you know, gee, I wonder what would happen if the black hole intersected the center? No, it is Thor's, he's got a hammer.

• 11:14Speaker 03

  Right.

• 11:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? Um, why might the Hulk turn green? Is there something about?

• 11:20Speaker 03

  Gamma rays.

• 11:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gamma rays.

• 11:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, but I didn't even know those were real until like two years ago.

• 11:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What are these?

• 11:26Speaker 03

  I'm sorry. Somebody was like, gamma rays are actually real. I'm like, no, they're not. Marvel created that.

• 11:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know what else is real? Anti-matter is real.

• 11:33Speaker 03

  Is that real?

• 11:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, completely real.

• 11:35Speaker 03

  Did you see my legit expression where I'm like, are you serious?

• 11:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we, we, my scientific brethren.

• 11:41Speaker 03

  Right.

• 11:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Proposed it, discovered it long before it ever entered science fiction lexicon.

• 11:46Speaker 03

  Really? Anti-matter?

• 11:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 11:48Speaker 03

  What is it exactly?

• 11:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, so, it is... It's amazing that it exists, first of all. And it's even more amazing that we knew enough about the universe to predict its existence. So, if you take a particle like an electron.

• 12:02Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 12:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Has a negative charge.

• 12:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So...

• 12:05Speaker 03

  This I remember.

• 12:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Anti-matter

• 12:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  is an electron in every way except it has a positive charge. So we called it a positron, a positron.

• 12:14Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 12:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it turns out every particle has an anti-matter counterpart. And the fun part about it is if you bring them together, they will annihilate and become pure energy. They annihilate. And then they, both particles disappear. It is a stunning fact of nature.

• 12:32Speaker 03

  Can it be, can it be weaponized?

• 12:35Speaker 03

  Because that's where we gotta worry about Darkseid or Thanos getting their hands on it.

• 12:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly, so you're worried about the nemesis, the superhero nemesis. So here's the problem.

• 12:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you have antimatter, what are you gonna carry it around then? It's gonna be touching your suitcase, which is made of matter.

• 12:53Speaker 03

  Eating this, so how do you hold it?

• 12:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But that, that, that, see, you're curious, you're being curious. Hold my hand here.

• 13:00Speaker 03

  Is this how the journey to science begins? That feeling that I feel right now is scientific curiosity?

• 13:12Charles Liu?

  You brought him to the side of the lights.

• 13:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, he's seen the light. So Charles, what does scientific curiosity feel like?

• 13:19Charles Liu?

  It's really great. I mean, you start, you work hard, you know it just as well as I do, Neil. You're working hard, spending a lot of effort. You sometimes don't feel like you're getting there, you're heading towards something, you're not sure. But as the unknown slowly becomes known, your excitement builds, things move forward. And then you reach something that's really cool and you're like, this is awesome!

• 13:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I've felt that many times.

• 13:43Charles Liu?

  Yeah, that's exactly what it feels like.

• 13:44Chuck Nice?

  It's a psychasm.

• 13:49Chuck Nice?

  Basically.

• 13:49Charles Liu?

  Um, sure.

• 13:51Chuck Nice?

  That's what I'm calling it.

• 13:51Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 13:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A psychasm.

• 13:53Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 13:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, Charles, have you ever faked a psychasm?

• 13:58Chuck Nice?

  Are there any tools in your lab that help you achieve a psychasm?

• 14:03Charles Liu?

  There was, look, look, look. Okay, okay. All right. Now that you mention it, there was this one time in graduate school.

• 14:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there was, there was a premature psychasm?

• 14:17Charles Liu?

  Absolutely. But fortunately, nowadays I teach not just astronomy classes, but also various research methods classes that include sciences like biology, chemistry, biochemistry, physics, psychology. So really, these days, I can achieve multiple psychasms.

• 14:36Chuck Nice?

  Nice!

• 14:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh!

• 14:39Chuck Nice?

  Very nice.

• 14:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Coming up, we'll take your questions about the science of superheroes when StarTalk returns.

• 15:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk. We're featuring my interview with comic book writer and superhero superfan Kevin Smith. Check it out. I don't know if you know, I have participated a little bit in this with Superman.

• 15:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, you were in the comic book?

• 15:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 15:22Speaker 03

  I remember you in the Superman comic.

• 15:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know about this?

• 15:24Speaker 03

  Of course, of course. And also the movie too, Batman v Superman.

• 15:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, for me, it wasn't simply that I was portrayed in the comic, which was an honor and a privilege. And Superman, after all he's done for New York, after all he's done for Gotham City Metropolis. Excuse me, Metropolis.

• 15:43Speaker 03

  They're gonna yank you out of that Superman book.

• 15:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  After all he's done for Metropolis, the least I could do is help the guy out.

• 15:50Speaker 03

  No doubt.

• 15:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He visited right here the Hayden Planetarium.

• 15:52Speaker 03

  How awesome.

• 15:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But for me, what mattered most was, I was able to tell them, the creators of this story, that I can find a real star in the sky that would be red.

• 16:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would be the right distance, given his travel time. And I said, "Do you want me to do that?" They said, "Yeah!"

• 16:14Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 16:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, so it wasn't, it took a few hours. You know, I have catalogs and access to data. So I found him the star. I gave him two stars to choose from. And they said, "We'll pick that one, in the constellation Corvus." And I said, "Well, why that one?" Corvus, we in the north don't know about Corvus. It's mostly seen from the southern hemisphere.

• 16:35Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 16:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's Corvus the crow. And they said, "Smallville crows."

• 16:38Speaker 03

  That's what they said!

• 16:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 16:40Speaker 03

  They knew this!

• 16:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They said, "A Smallville High mascot was the crow."

• 16:47Speaker 03

  So they were like, "We'll pick that one."

• 16:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  "We'll pick that one." And I said, "There it is." So I gave them the coordinates on the sky, gave them a photo of it. And I felt privileged to contribute real science to a lore.

• 17:00Speaker 03

  Never mind. Privileged, dude, you're a part of the Superman universe from now and all time. Because DC can literally point to the sky and be like, "Well, that's..."

• 17:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We got it. The star is real. It's got a name, it's got a coordinate, it's real. And so...

• 17:12Speaker 03

  So wait, as an astrophysicist, what in your expert opinion happened to Krypton?

• 17:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, their explanation is-

• 17:20Speaker 03

  Never mind them. What about, what would you think? It was proximity to red sun doesn't have much to it. The red sun helps Superman get powers.

• 17:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, what, I know, I know. So what you can do-

• 17:29Speaker 03

  What blows up that planet?

• 17:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can, the host, the home star, when it's ready to die, it will expand. And it can expand so large that it'll mostly fill the orbit of the home planet. Now, if that happens, it's very hot on the home planet. The home planet could be made, I'm inventing this up-

• 17:48Speaker 03

  Taking it.

• 17:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In this moment.

• 17:50Speaker 03

  This is jazz, dude. It's what's between the notes that's gonna be the magic go-

• 17:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, if krypton were made of a mixture of materials and, and ores that pass through its structure, where different materials respond differently to the same amount of heat.

• 18:11Speaker 03

  Right.

• 18:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, for example, um, iron will expand more when heated than a diamond will. Okay? Just for example. Okay? Well, if you have ores moving through your planet, the planet starts getting hot. Pieces of the planet will expand more than other parts. So, so the planet will not just uniformly grow, different pieces will wanna bust out. And you can destabilize an entire planet that way. If you have particular ores of minerals that go through it, or metals and minerals that, where this expands more than that, then you've basically lost all structural integrity of your planet. And then you could basically take it apart.

• 18:55Speaker 03

  See, man, if somebody had done that to me in high school, explain the science of how krypton might have exploded, I could be a scientist today.

• 19:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Charles, is this a big secret here? Should we be teaching superhero physics?

• 19:13Charles Liu?

  Duh, of course.

• 19:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay.

• 19:15Charles Liu?

  Absolutely, I do it all the time. Superheroes are just an exaggeration of what real physics does.

• 19:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, good point.

• 19:22Charles Liu?

  Because Superman lifts mountains. We lift little rocks, right? We can imagine us lifting mountains. So, let's just ask, if we were to try to lift a mountain, what would happen to it? By the way, your explanation of krypton exploding sucked.

• 19:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 19:38Charles Liu?

  But that's okay. It was a good try, and that's what matters.

• 19:43Charles Liu?

  All right, let me, let me just say...

• 19:45Chuck Nice?

  No, but he was saying, how, how could it possibly happen? We know that it couldn't.

• 19:50Charles Liu?

  Right, no, no.

• 19:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, now that I rehear that explanation, I agree.

• 19:53Charles Liu?

  You understand the problems. You need volatiles inside your things.

• 19:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I give it a C minus.

• 19:56Charles Liu?

  Yeah, well, a passing grade for sure.

• 19:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 19:59Charles Liu?

  But you need something that actually heats up in such a way that it creates an explosion.

• 20:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 20:03Charles Liu?

  Right? But never minding that, that's really okay. The point is, when we imagine that exaggerated physics of a superhero, taking it to the extreme gives us a chance to distill the coolness factor, the really special part of the science that can be explained to everyone regardless of their background.

• 20:22Chuck Nice?

  But here's a coolness factor that really is not exaggerated at all, which is, basically, the Corvus constellation actually exists.

• 20:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 20:33Chuck Nice?

  You actually made Superman live in the Corvus constellation.

• 20:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 20:38Chuck Nice?

  That is a real thing now.

• 20:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 20:39Chuck Nice?

  Anybody who picks up a Superman comic book is going to know that they can...

• 20:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They gotta deal with it.

• 20:44Chuck Nice?

  They gotta deal with it. They can actually go and look up the Corvus constellation.

• 20:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's there. Now Chuck, you and I, one of our most viewed videos...

• 20:52Charles Liu?

  Yes.

• 20:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From a StarTalk from back when we were just in the radio.

• 20:55Charles Liu?

  Yes.

• 20:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we had like a camera sort of parked on the side.

• 20:58Charles Liu?

  Yes.

• 20:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Our most viewed videos, we had a deep and intellectual conversation about Superman.

• 21:05Charles Liu?

  Yes.

• 21:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, I have that clip.

• 21:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here's something Superman would be cool if he could do this. You know his breath can freeze things.

• 21:14Charles Liu?

  Yes.

• 21:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've seen that. But I've never seen his breath turn things on fire.

• 21:18Charles Liu?

  No, it hasn't.

• 21:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whereas.

• 21:19Charles Liu?

  His eyes do that.

• 21:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The methane, well, because he focuses a laser.

• 21:22Charles Liu?

  Laser.

• 21:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The methane that comes out, out of, uh, out of, uh, butt effluences. Methane is actually flammable.

• 21:30Charles Liu?

  Yes, it is.

• 21:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So he can use his laser to light the fart and turn it into a flamethrower.

• 21:42Charles Liu?

  No one can unthink that thought anymore.

• 21:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can't unthink that.

• 21:47Charles Liu?

  That bell has been rung.

• 21:48Chuck Nice?

  Here's the thing that he just, as you'll see, is.

• 21:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the rest of the clip.

• 21:51Chuck Nice?

  The rest of the clip, Neil goes into great detail about Superman. First of all, he has, he can't just wear his tights. He has to wear these tights with these two buttons where you can pull a flap.

• 22:06Chuck Nice?

  He's got this panel in the back and he's gotta pull his butt down. Now it's bare ass Superman.

• 22:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Pointing is behind.

• 22:15Chuck Nice?

  But then he's gotta turn around and look at his own ass. And then when he, when he emits his gases, he then like makes his laser be, and then.

• 22:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's a flamethrower.

• 22:30Chuck Nice?

  Makes a flamethrower.

• 22:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Out of his ass.

• 22:33Chuck Nice?

  And I'm like, if I was Superman, that's the only way I would defeat any enemy.

• 22:39Chuck Nice?

  Never again would I fight.

• 22:43Chuck Nice?

  Lex Luthor would show up and like, hold on for a second.

• 22:47Chuck Nice?

  Hey Lex.

• 22:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So right now we move on to a part of our show called Cosmic Queries.

• 22:54Charles Liu?

  Yes.

• 22:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We take your questions about the science of superheroes. These have been solicited from our fan base, uh, on the internet and elsewhere. And we have a resident super.

• 23:07Chuck Nice?

  Geek Spurt, Charles Liu, to help us out. So Chuck, what questions you have? We haven't seen them before. Here we go. This is Chris Ryu or Ryu from Newton, England. And he says, Captain America's shield is made of a fictional material named vibranium, capable of absorbing any vibrations or kinetic energy. Ignoring the laws of physics, what do you think would be the best usage of such a material?

• 23:32Charles Liu?

  Well, first of all, his shield is not pure vibranium. It's an adamantium-vibranium mixture.

• 23:38Chuck Nice?

  Stupid. I know. What's your problem, Chris?

• 23:43Charles Liu?

  Thus, as an alloy, it's even stronger than pure adamantium, which is what Wolverine's claws are made out of. Okay. But the vibranium, it absorbs any impact. So imagine this, put it under a rocket or a space shuttle or something, all right? And if this thing is taking off, all that thrust has to go somewhere. You see this huge space underneath, right? Which you can't be near because all that thrust, all that heat is going away. Imagine it absorbing all that wonderful impact so that we could launch spacecraft from pretty much anywhere, our backyard, anywhere, and we would not have to worry about having to go only to this place or that place.

• 24:19Chuck Nice?

  Wait, is that your only use of this material?

• 24:21Charles Liu?

  This is my favorite use of the material. I can send stuff into space, man, from my backyard. That would be so cool.

• 24:29Chuck Nice?

  Okay. I'm gonna hit you in the face with a shield. That's what I'm gonna do. That's what I'm saying. I'm gonna hit somebody. I'm hitting somebody, right? Right, right. Yeah. That's okay. All right. All right, we'll give it to you, Charles. There you go. All right, next one? There you go. You gotta ring the bell. Oh, I gotta ring. Okay, go. Okay. All right. At Nicolas2404, uh, from Asabruk, Germany, says, if Ant-Man shrinks so much that his density reaches a high enough point, would he transform?

• 24:59Chuck Nice?

  Into a black hole.

• 25:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There is such a size for which that will happen. But the, he has to be much, much smaller than the ant that he becomes, given the weight that he started with, the mass he started to become a black hole. Charles, have you done a calculation in your head?

• 25:14Charles Liu?

  I'm doing it right now. Assuming that he's about, say, 150 pounds, reasonably muscular, and he shrinks down, the sorshul radius of an object of 150 pounds is smaller than an atomic nucleus.

• 25:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 25:27Charles Liu?

  So he would not be able to become a black hole because he can't get smaller than even the smallest particles.

• 25:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All the nuclei would gather together and he's gotta get smaller than the sum of his nuclei.

• 25:35Chuck Nice?

  Suppose he was a big fat mess when he started?

• 25:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That helps. So the bigger he is when he begins, the bigger is the black hole he can become, and that increases the chance of that happening. But you're right, but Paul Rudd, who is actually, we've had him on StarTalk before, his size would not do this.

• 25:51Charles Liu?

  Unfortunately, no.

• 25:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. So the answer is no. No black hole.

• 25:55Chuck Nice?

  That's disappointing.

• 25:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus, by the way, you don't want him to become a black hole, because then that's kind of the end of all things.

• 26:00Charles Liu?

  Right.

• 26:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. Coming up, we try to explain the stunning rise in comic book culture in America when StarTalk returns.

• 26:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk from the American Museum of Natural History. We are featuring my interview with filmmaker and geek hero, geek saint Kevin Smith. And I asked him about the rise of comic book fandom in pop culture today, especially among adults. Check it out. When did it become okay for grownups to like comics?

• 26:49Speaker 03

  I remember in my childhood.

• 26:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's gotta be the recent past.

• 26:53Speaker 03

  I would say it's gotta be the last. Marvelization of our culture, starting with Iron Man. Like, when I loved this stuff as a kid, it was easy. When you went to high school, I want to meet girls. Like, I'm not gonna read this comic book stuff. Nobody else does. There was one guy in my class, James Byrne, who did. And I respected the hell out of that man. He would sit there and draw. And I'd be like, "You're drawing the Falcon." Like, he would draw deep cuts characters from Marvel. Now, two decades later, there's a cultural shift where the things that most people are like, "Ugh, that's for garage bands." I mean, garage bands break big. And like, comics were just a garage band that broke very big. And into this very natural world that everybody's familiar with, come these unnatural creatures built out of science.

• 27:38Speaker 03

  In the Marvel case, like, in the DC case, you got Sorrow builds their characters. Krypton explodes. Superman loses everybody he ever knows. And then comes to Earth, becomes Superman. Batman loses parents, and that's what makes it. The orphan motif. Orphan motif, big way. Recurring. But Marvel is all about, you know, the age of the atom. Like, when science started capturing people's imagination. They're like, they didn't know enough about it. They split an atom, and you can sell somebody in the suburbs. Science. You can tell someone in the suburbs, like, they split the atom. Like, "I... Well, that's big." And they don't even know what it meant. But, you know, that sounds sciency. And so the folks at Marvel were like, "Let's build our stories around that." So, this kid, he gets bitten by a radioactive spider, and these... Radioactivity. These cats are up in space, and they go through,

• 28:22Speaker 03

  you know, a negative zone of some sort, and get battered by cosmic rays. This guy, they become the Fantastic Four. This guy here, gamma rays turn him into the Hulk. Captain America, it isn't even like, "I've done it through wholesome training." They give him a needle, super serum. So Marvel's characters are all based in science. And right at the time when people were awakening to it, and I think in the age of the atom, post-Second World War. But these cats, when they were building this world, they weren't thinking of building a world. Now that has become a world. Like, the fandom, it's weird, the science, if you will, of fandom, turns something disposable into something indisposable, just by their passion for it.

• 29:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, so superheroes are the bedrock of pop culture, okay? Today.

• 29:09Charles Liu?

  Yes.

• 29:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thanks to super fans like Kevin Smith. But Charles, I want to ask, shouldn't we also thank science for giving comic book writers such rich material to work with?

• 29:22Charles Liu?

  Well, that's an easy one, of course. But remember that everything inspires everything else, right? Scientists are inspired by fiction, and fiction writers are inspired by science. And it's been a give and take for a long time. Remember that Superman and Batman have been around for almost 80 years now, right? So it's not that they suddenly appeared. Right now, we have this proliferation of this media, but it's a long time coming.

• 29:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we share a ladder, alternating rungs?

• 29:49Charles Liu?

  Absolutely.

• 29:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's beautiful.

• 29:53Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, but you know what? Here's the thing. It's the good stuff in science that causes the inspiration, you know what I mean? So gamma rays give us the Hulk, and then we have particle accelerators, and you know, that might be the Flash, you know? But what about the stuff that isn't sexy? Like, for instance-

• 30:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Science that nobody would write a story about.

• 30:17Chuck Nice?

  Nobody would write a story about, okay? Like, for instance, you know, all these developments in the microbiome? Every one of us now, we know we have a microbiome.

• 30:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 30:26Chuck Nice?

  Right? I touch you, your biome becomes a part of my biome.

• 30:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And vice versa.

• 30:30Chuck Nice?

  Right? I give you bacteriosa!

• 30:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So she is not a bacterium. Her power is the transmission of bacteria.

• 30:43Chuck Nice?

  Yes, exactly.

• 30:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's nasty.

• 30:46Chuck Nice?

  That's what I just-

• 30:46Charles Liu?

  Or it could be awesome if you have digestive issues.

• 30:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it could help.

• 30:51Charles Liu?

  Yeah, probiotics.

• 30:53Chuck Nice?

  Oh my god!

• 30:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Could we adjust your-

• 30:54Chuck Nice?

  She's Jamie Lee Curtis!

• 30:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Digest-

• 30:58Charles Liu?

  My lactose intolerance is cured!

• 31:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because you're absent certain bacteria that she could just supply you.

• 31:04Charles Liu?

  Give me some time to digest this one, it might work out.

• 31:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Moving along.

• 31:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes. Next up, I want to bring in via video call, one of my favorite people, a guy named James Kakalios. He's a professor of physics, and this is a book he wrote maybe 10 years ago, The Physics of Superheroes. Super cool. A physicist writes a book, The Physics of Superheroes. So James, to have you on the line. There you go, James.

• 31:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So James, you have quite the resume you've put together. You're also, you are now a resource to filmmakers who have superhero stories because they don't want to mess up and have you talking smack about them on the internet. Is that what's going on there?

• 31:54Speaker 04

  Right. So the National Academy of Sciences has this program, the Science and Entertainment Exchange, and they have academics consult with the Hollywood creators to try to get their science just right enough that it doesn't take people out of the movie.

• 32:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so let me ask you, what is your favorite bit of imagined science in all the superhero stories you've seen?

• 32:22Speaker 04

  Well, I have to get a little personal. And Neil, you are the science advisor for the DC Universe. I'm actually a consultant in the Marvel Universe. So one of my favorite examples is from Indestructible Hulk number 10 a few years ago, where Bruce Banner was describing, discussing why only worthy people can lift Thor's hammer. It's not that it's heavy. If you're worthy, you could lift the hammer. And in the comics, Captain America has wielded it at times.

• 32:59Speaker 04

  In the comic book, in that comic book, Indestructible Hulk number 10, written by Mark Wabbe, he says, Bruce Banner says, physicist James Kakalios has my favorite science-based theory. When you try to lift the hammer and it detects that you're not worthy, the uru metal in the hammer emits excess gravitons.

• 33:24Speaker 04

  And that would increase the mass and the weight of the hammer to exactly balance out the upward lifting force. And if there's no net force, there's no motion. If someone who is worthy tries to lift the hammer, no gravitons, normal weight, you can lift the hammer up.

• 33:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whoa, so it's a source of its own capacity to change its mass?

• 33:51Speaker 04

  You know, it, since Uru metal doesn't exist, who's gonna say I'm wrong?

• 33:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I, I like that hypothesis. Um, were you aware of a calculation I did to establish the mass of Thor's hammer?

• 34:06Speaker 04

  I, I am, and there I have to disagree with that because...

• 34:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got raked over the coals for that.

• 34:12Speaker 04

  We all, we all sometimes step off the wrong curve sometimes.

• 34:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so what, what can you tell us, any insight on to the powers of Wonder Woman?

• 34:23Speaker 04

  Wonder Woman. Um, so Wonder Woman is an Amazonian goddess. Uh, she has great strength and reflexes. And she also has these bracelets that enable her to deflect bullets. And she has the reflexes and her wrists are strong enough to deflect a bullet. But what is the metal that it's made of that can easily deflect the bullet? In the comics, in the Wonder Woman comics, it is said that her bracelets are made of Amazonian metal. And we can actually do a calculation of, uh, how the mass of a bullet, if it's going,

• 35:03Speaker 04

  say, a thousand feet per second, 680 miles per hour, ricochets in a millisecond, how much force does it exert? It's about 2,700 pounds over point oh four inch squared. So that's a pressure of about 70,000 PSI, 70,000 pounds per square inch.

• 35:24Speaker 04

  What kind of metal can withstand that compressive pressure? Pretty much all of them. Um, high strength alloy steel uh can withstand seventy-five thousand PSI. So apparently, Amazonian metal is nothing more exotic than cold-rolled steel.

• 35:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But there's still the matter of having reflexes fast enough to deflect the bullet.

• 35:49Speaker 04

  In all of these cases, you have to grant a one-time miracle exemption from the laws of nature. Otherwise, you're not getting anywhere. Um, even characters without superpowers, you have to uh grant them a suspension of disbelief. The number of times that Batman has been knocked unconscious in his eighty-year crime-fighting career, he should be permanently brain damaged at this point. He apparently has a superpower, some sort of Homer Simpson extra-thick padding that protects his brain.

• 36:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so James, uh, you have a book that just came out that continues this kind of dialogue. Uh, remind me of the title?

• 36:29Speaker 04

  Right. It's called, thank you, it's called The Physics of Everyday Things: The Extraordinary Science Behind an Ordinary Day. It follows you as you get up in the morning and you make breakfast, you drive into work, you use your GPS and an EZ Pass on the expressway, uh, you go to the doctor for a checkup, you go to the airport, you pass through TSA, you fly to another city, you give a business presentation, and you wind, close out the day in a hotel. And at every step where you check your Fitbit, when you um use a touchscreen, when you're taking a digital photograph with your smartphone, I explain the science of how that works.

• 37:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, James, thanks for being on StarTalk. It's not your first time. Excellent. Moving on, we're gonna take an inside look at the geek mecca known as Comic-Con on StarTalk.

• 37:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to Scott Talk from the American Museum of Natural History, right here in New York City. We are tracing the expansion of the Geekiverse, featuring my interview with geek culture superstar Kevin Smith. I asked him about the Mecca for comic book and pop culture fans known as Comic-Con. Check it out.

• 37:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not more than a couple of decades ago, Comic-Con conventions, what is it, a few thousand people, they were kinda nerdy, if you were lucky, kinda nerdy, maybe you get one celebrity person, and that was it. Now there are hundreds of thousands of people in multiple cities. So who are these people that are being touched by this culture?

• 38:15Speaker 03

  I think what's happening is, most people who grew up with this stuff are now looking closer to the end than the beginning. You know what I'm saying? Like, when you use the conundrum of when you're a kid, you can't wait to be an adult, and when you're an adult, you're like, "Man, it was so much easier back then." But I think it comes down to, nearest I could figure, unscientific, is the older one gets, the more one wants to be close to the best time of their life.

• 38:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Longing for times of simplicity.

• 38:41Speaker 03

  Totally, and sometimes, like, you know, there is no, we, look, you tell me you're the astrophysicist, there is no time travel that we know of yet.

• 38:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not, not, not anytime soon.

• 38:49Speaker 03

  Really? God damn it. But closest thing we get is, you know, you're driving, and somebody plays a song, and you're like, "Oh, man." Like, it takes you right back to that moment. I think that works the same for everybody. So when you're a 40-year-old parent, and you got kids, and somebody's like, "Hey, you wanna go see a Thor movie?" You're like, "I loved Thor when I was a kid." Are you kidding me? They're making these movies now?

• 39:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That could be why. I just learned that in San Diego, during Comic-Con... Crime rate drops in the city.

• 39:19Speaker 03

  Really?

• 39:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That the Comic Con audience, the Comic Con community is the most peace-loving community that ever descends on a city for any reason at all. All other conventions, there's a rowdy thing, the cops have to check the bars at 2 o'clock.

• 39:35Speaker 03

  That's true. You don't have that at a Comic Con. Oh my lord, you're right.

• 39:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, why would it be peaceful unless, in fact, people are channeling their childhood?

• 39:46Speaker 03

  And also, they're channeling-

• 39:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm putting spitball in there.

• 39:49Speaker 03

  It's awesome, I love that.

• 39:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe that's-

• 39:50Speaker 03

  They're also channeling a morality, you know what I'm saying? Like, if you're reading comic books, what are you reading about?

• 39:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a good and evil.

• 39:58Speaker 03

  Good people versus bad people.

• 39:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well-defined, good and evil.

• 40:01Speaker 03

  And at the end, good, it's usually proven that, hey, it's better to be good. Sometimes being bad looks fun, but being good is the right path.

• 40:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 40:07Speaker 03

  If these people are fundamentally fans of crime fighters in costumes, you gotta imagine they're probably peace-loving people in real life, to some degree.

• 40:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or if they're not, some other superhero costume person is gonna take you out. Cosplay 'em down to the ground. You're making this look bad, shut up!

• 40:28Chuck Nice?

  Are they really peace-loving people, or is it that nerd fights are just awful?

• 40:35Charles Liu?

  Nerd fights are awesome, man.

• 40:37Chuck Nice?

  No, no.

• 40:37Charles Liu?

  Nerd fights are great. Nerd fights are good. Nerd fights are awesome.

• 40:43Chuck Nice?

  See, never nerd fight with an Asian guy.

• 40:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is a new hypothesis.

• 40:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So have you guys been to a Comic Con?

• 40:53Charles Liu?

  Of course.

• 40:53Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 40:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, you have? Okay.

• 40:54Charles Liu?

  Yes.

• 40:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I've been to a few, but not as a thing. I mean, I just-

• 40:58Chuck Nice?

  I can't even ima- you probably have to put on a mask to go to Comic Con.

• 41:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, Phil, I'm just saying-

• 41:03Chuck Nice?

  Could you imagine Neil at a Comic Con, "Our god is here"?

• 41:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 41:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, so what's interesting at Comic Con is they, to that point, they will value people who are content creators no less than the movie stars that descend from Hollywood.

• 41:22Charles Liu?

  Oh, yeah.

• 41:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To attend. And that tells you that they're really thinking about the content.

• 41:27Charles Liu?

  Right.

• 41:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's not just the celebrity thing that's going on. They want to know the content creators, the writers, the producers, the original comic book illustrators. So you know who the real god is? It's the, um, the guy who's 100,000 years old and still alive.

• 41:40Charles Liu?

  Stan Lee?

• 41:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Stan Lee. Boo, Stan Lee.

• 41:43Charles Liu?

  Well, yes, that is true. Well. You know, and, and.

• 41:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When he walks the comic, there's a, there's a glow halo around him.

• 41:50Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 41:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As he walks through.

• 41:51Charles Liu?

  There is an idealism in the Comic Con world.

• 41:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the point Kevin, Kevin was making. Coming up next, director Kevin Smith reveals what superpower he'd want to have when StarTalk returns.

• 42:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk from the American Museum of Natural History. We're featuring my interview with superhero, superfan, super geek Kevin Smith. And I asked what superpower he would most likely want to have. Here's his answer.

• 42:31Speaker 03

  You know, I mean, it sounds dopey, man. I wouldn't have said this in my twenties. In fact, 20-year-old me is about to make fun of me for 46-year-old me saying this, but like, the power to change a person's heart? Take out the bad, stick in the good, and not my idea of good, but just like whatever rails them, whatever funnels all that negativity in their life and just flip it. Like, you wouldn't need to fight super criminals because you'd just be like, give me your hand. You know, like, don't you feel better? But even, but you can kind of accomplish that in life with conversation. You just have to care.

• 43:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Kevin.

• 43:04Speaker 03

  To sometimes tell somebody like, hey, it's not that bad.

• 43:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Kevin, what you just said is profound.

• 43:08Speaker 03

  No.

• 43:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, let me tell you why it's profound. Think about it. There's Superman trying to capture Lex Luthor. And then when he captures him, what does he do? Brings him to prison.

• 43:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What does that do? But you want to change his heart.

• 43:27Speaker 03

  Be nice.

• 43:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You change his heart. You don't need prisons.

• 43:29Speaker 03

  Lex Luthor, you need to change his heart because he's a guy who's just like fundamentally, the only thing really wrong with him, he hates Superman.

• 43:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 43:36Speaker 03

  Like, if he could just get over that, he could do so much good for people.

• 43:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So much good for, so you change people's hearts instead of locking them up in prison?

• 43:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, this is deep.

• 43:43Speaker 03

  This is kinda deep.

• 43:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is the greatest power. Because it is, they're not acts of punishment, they're acts of rehabilitation.

• 43:50Speaker 03

  But it's also coming from a guy who just doesn't want to get in a fight. You know what I'm saying? Like, if I could just shake hands with them, they'd feel better. Like, okay, go along your merry way.

• 44:03Chuck Nice?

  No, it sounds to me like his real power is killing comic books.

• 44:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It would be a half a page long.

• 44:10Chuck Nice?

  Right, it'd be one like page, you know what I mean?

• 44:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The end of everything.

• 44:12Chuck Nice?

  With Empathy Man. Like, frickin' Empathy Man shows up in the comic book, the comic book is over. "I am destructive. You shall all near before me, or you shall perish."

• 44:24Charles Liu?

  Chuck, don't you feel better now?

• 44:28Chuck Nice?

  Oh, God, jeez.

• 44:30Chuck Nice?

  My father never loved me.

• 44:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not your fault.

• 44:34Chuck Nice?

  It's my fault.

• 44:34Charles Liu?

  Empathy Man.

• 44:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not your fault.

• 44:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I made one last attempt to extract some scientific curiosity out of Kevin Smith before he left my office. I gotta believe that there's some science in you somehow, somewhere.

• 44:56Speaker 03

  I mean, aside from, of course, like, the sci-fi curiosity that, you know, that comes along with being a sci-fi fan that leads you to science.

• 45:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The phi in the sci-fi.

• 45:03Speaker 03

  The phi in the sci, if you will. I, you know, for me, like, if I was practicing any science, and I've only become practicing it later in life, I think it's something you, only occurs to you with age. Now I'm kind of into the science of positivity. I realize-

• 45:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's neuroscience.

• 45:21Speaker 03

  Is it?

• 45:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The psychology, what it is to feel- Positive and good about yourself and the world and others.

• 45:27Speaker 03

  It's an absolute choice. Like, I meet so many people in my life who are, "I feel bad, I feel bad." And I've felt bad at times too, but sometimes, middle age, you just wake up and you're like, "Ugh, am I doing my life? I feel old. What am I gonna do next? What, am I making a difference? Am I making an impact?" All those self-downs. It's literally just kind of turning it on and just being like, "No." Like, just be happy. Like, it's a good day. You woke up, nothing wrong with the world, and you're gonna see people, you're gonna do some things, might make you excited, you might learn a thing or two and stuff. It sounds stupid, you have to say it out loud to yourself, but sometimes that's the easiest way to conquer what is the droning voice of negativity. Like, we have that on blast for our entire lives. That way, when you have a good idea, there's a voice shouts it right down going, "Somebody's done that already."

• 46:12Speaker 03

  "Why do you think you can do that? Why you, man?" And that's Science of positivity is more about, "Well, why not me?"

• 46:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know what it is? We live in a time, especially the modern way people use the internet, where we have multiple channels of critical anger opened to us. You said, "What? Oh, you're an idiot, you're this, you're that." And they're gonna, "Oh, let's attack them because they don't agree with what..." And what's go- what the hell's going on out there?

• 46:42Speaker 03

  Yeah. There's two paths in life, I always felt. You got your creation and you got your destruction. And the destruction path is packed. You can't move because that's the easiest lane to take. Everybody can knock something or be like, "Yeah, it's stupid," or take it down or lobby against it. Once you're on the path of creation, you don't sit around in that destruction path. You look around, you're like, "I hate all these people, I hate everything." When you're on the move, you love everything, man. World looks wholly different.

• 47:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is the essence of positivity.

• 47:14Speaker 03

  Is that science?

• 47:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are we close?

• 47:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Carl Sagan once worried that if we embrace the superhero culture too deeply, that we might use them as an excuse to solve our problems rather than take those tasks upon ourselves. And there may be some truth in that, but for me, what really matters here is the community. We've got a sense of what that community is, the anthropology of that community, the fact that crime rates drop, the fact that everyone that's a participant in that community is a champion of good over evil.

• 48:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, I mean, how many communities are like that while simultaneously not standing in judgment of others? Perhaps the Bible is a mistranslation of that famous phrase. In fact, it is the geek that shall inherit the earth. You've been watching StarTalk. Ivan Neilgrass, Tyson, your personal astro physicist, Charles Liu, Chuck Nice. As always, until next time, I bid you to keep looking up.