The Science of Family Guy with Seth MacFarlane

Neil Tyson and his friend Seth MacFarlane delve into the science of “Family Guy”, from the Big Bang to the multiverse. Chuck Nice and Charles Liu join Neil in studio, Simon Singh calls in about math in “The Simpsons”, and Bill Nye gets super-heroic.

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.

• 0:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to the Hall of the Universe of the American Museum of Natural History. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And tonight, we're going to talk about the science of Family Guy. Family Guy, an animated series on television, one of the funniest, most successful series ever. And it is loaded with pop science. Its creator Seth MacFarlane came through New York, visited me in my office, and I was not going to let that go by without nabbing a StarTalk interview. So let's do this.

• 0:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I can't do this alone. I never can do this alone. I went out and reached and found Chuck Nice. Chuck, welcome back to StarTalk. Always a pleasure. How are you? Excellent, man. How you doing? I'm doing really well. Yeah? Glad you reached out.

• 1:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So thanks for coming back. And my friend and colleague Charles Liu, professor of physics and astronomy at the College of Staten Island of the City University of New York.

• 1:19Charles Liu?

  Neil, my heart overflows with joy that I'm here with you today.

• 1:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you have to say that, it meant you didn't otherwise emote it.

• 1:31Charles Liu?

  Hi, Neil.

• 1:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I finally know now what an overflowing heart looks like.

• 1:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we're going to find out, you know, how... You wouldn't expect animation to be filled with science. And it doesn't come out of nowhere. It's got to come from people who think about it, care about it. So it would be among the writers. It would have to be among the creators. And Family Guy, if you're unfamiliar with it, some of its interesting features is that it has a diabolical infant.

• 2:01Charles Liu?

  Stewie.

• 2:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Stewie. Diabolical. Brilliant diabolical infant. Still in diapers, but is the smartest character on the program. And then there's a talking dog.

• 2:12Charles Liu?

  Brian.

• 2:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's a very realistic show.

• 2:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so it's infused with science. In many wa- not every show, but when it's there, they go there. Yeah. And you want some evidence of this? I'm just.

• 2:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just a little bit.

• 2:33Speaker 02

  Do you know what the Big Bang Theory is?

• 2:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, the theory that the universe started with a massive outward explosion from a singularity of infinite mass and infinite density.

• 2:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. They went there.

• 2:44Charles Liu?

  Wow.

• 2:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They really went there. They so went there.

• 2:47Charles Liu?

  But it wasn't infinite mass back then. Infinite density perhaps, but not infinite mass.

• 2:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So he's complaining about an error in their explication of the Big Bang, but not worried that the dog is talking, right?

• 3:01Charles Liu?

  Or that a baby figures that out.

• 3:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what I wanted to know was, where does this science come from? From what thing does it emanate? Is it Seth MacFarlane's writers? Is it him? Is it, is he a fanboy, but this is the only way he gets to show it? I just came out and had to ask him. Where does this come from? Let's check it out. Seth, I called you into my office.

• 3:31Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 3:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I gotta talk to-

• 3:33Speaker 03

  Because you want me to help you clean up.

• 3:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I cleaned up the office.

• 3:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, I got, at some point I had to find you and talk to you about the science in Family Guy.

• 3:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You just have to watch a few shows and it's in there. It's in there deep.

• 3:50Speaker 03

  When I was a kid, I was, you know, I was, I, I was in a church choir. I went to Sunday School and I went to a regular school. And, you know, my parents believed in exposing me to everything and letting me figure it out for myself. And eventually I said, oh, well, these guys are- You know, making these assertions and these guys are making these assertions, but these guys are backing it up with something. These guys are offering evidence and so that seems a little more trustworthy.

• 4:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 4:19Speaker 03

  And, and so I was kind of drawn to, to, to science because it seemed that...

• 4:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You arrived there derived from your own curiosity?

• 4:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 4:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Interesting.

• 4:29Speaker 03

  I actually wasn't a great science student in school.

• 4:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think you don't, it's not that, you don't have to be, you just have to enjoy it.

• 4:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whether or not you're good at it and people try to equate the two, but I don't think that's a prerequisite.

• 4:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, it, it's, it's, and then, you know, obviously I discovered the original Cosmos and Carl Sagan and, and, uh...

• 4:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At the time you saw the original Cosmos, did you have any idea that you would one day be executive producer on the next Cosmos?

• 4:54Speaker 03

  Didn't, didn't occur to me, didn't occur to me. It was, was, was not something that, that, that ever crossed my mind.

• 5:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  During your early flatulence humor with Peter Griffin, you're not thinking, "I'm gonna executive produce Cosmos one day."

• 5:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:09Charles Liu?

  That's wonderful.

• 5:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so Seth MacFarlane, so he's created Family Guy, which started as like a college project that wrote out in the School of Design and also he's the creator of Ted 1 and 2. And many people don't otherwise know, or it's hard for them to imagine, that he was co-executive producer of Cosmos, a space-time odyssey.

• 5:29Charles Liu?

  What Seth was saying there is just a perfect example of how we should approach life and knowledge in general.

• 5:36Speaker 03

  Fart jokes?

• 5:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fart jokes.

• 5:38Charles Liu?

  There is a scientific paper written by someone at the University of Michigan that claims that farts make everything funnier.

• 5:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, Charles, why do you know this? How does you, how?

• 5:47Speaker 03

  And by the way, that's wrong. Cause I've been to dinner with some people.

• 5:54Charles Liu?

  Well, but look, Seth, as he described in that, understands the difference between scientific and non-scientific knowledge because he was exposed to it and he uses it all. Both the scientific part and the non-scientific artistic part, it's the best way to live life.

• 6:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, here's, here's how, here's his transition from... Infusing his creativity with science and becoming executive producer of Cosmos. I met him for the first time at a new opening of a branch of the National Academy of Sciences. A rather kind of stuffy organization who realized that we gotta get science out there. Otherwise, we're going, you know, science is not going to serve the country the way it should. How do we get science out there? Let's partner with Hollywood. So they opened an actual office with actual people who have actual salaries in Los Angeles. And it's called the Science and Entertainment Exchange. And I was at the kickoff meeting and there's Seth MacFarlane. He's right there and I knew about Family Guy. I said, please, an honor to meet you.

• 6:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He said, oh, let's exchange numbers and we'll do lunch. It's like, yeah, right. This is Hollywood. No, no, that'll never happen ever.

• 7:04Chuck Nice?

  You're right, because he said the same thing to me. I haven't heard from him since. He hasn't called me yet.

• 7:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so we exchanged numbers and, you know, a few months later, there's a phone call. I said, Neil, I'm in town, like, let's do lunch. It actually happened. And I said, let me, I was like, okay. I didn't tell him I had to like move 20 things on my calendar. I said, yeah, I'm wide open, but I had to like seriously, seriously move this stuff around. And so we had lunch and I was ready to talk about whatever. But it was really different from what I thought would happen. Let's check out. You spent the whole lunch asking me informed questions about cosmology. Well, how long ago was the Big Bang and what was the temperature back then? And, and there's a signature of the Big Bang afterwards. Can you describe more about that?

• 7:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And this is a fully, it's like you were a cosmology student. And this is like office hours that you were tightening up some of the information you had already researched. Okay. So I said, wow, that was, that was kind of interesting lunch. So he's really getting into this. So six months later, all this information is contained within an episode where Stewie goes back to the Big Bang.

• 8:19Chuck Nice?

  You're saying I owe you money?

• 8:22Speaker 03

  It was basically like going to lunch with a doctor and saying, "Hey, can you check me for, you know, hernia?"

• 8:30Speaker 03

  And I did that too, as I recall, so sorry.

• 8:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was charmed.

• 8:34Speaker 03

  That's what this is all about. This is pretense of an interview. There's no star talk. This is just your very diplomatic way of...

• 8:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The door is now locked.

• 8:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I got an entire, like, card at the end, the card of the credit, was science consultant Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 8:50Speaker 03

  Did that help her hurt?

• 8:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I was, I was charmed that, remember, as an educator, it's one of my personal missions to stimulate curiosity in people so that I don't have to keep educating them, they can educate themselves. Like, this is, that's the world you want to be in.

• 9:07Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 9:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right, right. And so, for you to come to me with that level of curiosity, I, it wouldn't matter what you used it for. This is good. This is a good thing, alright? It is good.

• 9:20Speaker 03

  Wow, I learned two things from that clip.

• 9:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's that?

• 9:23Speaker 03

  One, Seth MacFarlane ripped you off.

• 9:27Speaker 03

  And two, you want people to stop being lazy and learn something.

• 9:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Learn your own damn stuff.

• 9:32Speaker 03

  Learn your own damn stuff.

• 9:35Charles Liu?

  It's a great example, again, why science shows up in artistic works. One, science inspires art. Two, science is inherently funny.

• 9:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  See what you just did?

• 9:49Charles Liu?

  The rest, Mike.

• 9:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, Charles, when he says I'm here, nobody, there was like not a peep in the audience.

• 9:59Charles Liu?

  Sorry.

• 9:59Speaker 03

  Now that was fun.

• 10:00Charles Liu?

  There you go.

• 10:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, so, let's, I have the clip that he used where they went back to the Big Bang. So let's see how he took all this lunch information and turned it into product.

• 10:12Speaker 03

  Nice, check it out.

• 10:14Speaker 02

  Stewie, I know you've been going back in time to embarrass me. Oh, what, what, that, come on! Oh, okay, then, then where are you going now? Well, I have a, a very important mission. Uh huh, let me see that panel. No, no, don't touch that! Come on, let me see that. Move out of the way. No, you can't! I'm not gonna let you do this. You just touched my boob, I'm gonna tell mom.

• 10:54Speaker 02

  What happened? Where are we? I don't know. It's like... We're not anywhere. Stewie, what the hell did your machine do? Just calm down, calm down, Brian. I've got the return pad.

• 11:07Speaker 02

  Alright, step on.

• 11:10Speaker 02

  What happened? Good lord! This is impossible! What? Well, the return pad works by first locking on to our coordinates along the curve of the spacetime continuum. But it can't. Why not? Well, the only explanation is... We've somehow been transported outside the spacetime continuum.

• 11:30Charles Liu?

  See, I told you science is funny.

• 11:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As told by Seth MacFarlane.

• 11:35Charles Liu?

  Yes, indeed.

• 11:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right. And he's the proper delivery.

• 11:37Charles Liu?

  That's right.

• 11:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To Chuck, is that right?

• 11:39Charles Liu?

  Yes, exactly, yeah.

• 11:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Charles, I assume, as I do, you celebrate this kind of fact?

• 11:44Charles Liu?

  Oh, it's wonderful. We have to understand, as scientists, we are not keepers of some secret formula that no one else is privy to and thus that makes us superior human beings. Well, we are our conduits. We have the privilege of learning cool stuff, and then the greater privilege of sharing it with people.

• 12:02Chuck Nice?

  See, that's your mistake. You share the stuff that you learn instead of elevating yourself to godlike status to people who are stupid.

• 12:12Charles Liu?

  Well, you know, the ancient...

• 12:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, that rolled off your mouth way too smoothly.

• 12:17Chuck Nice?

  See, you can tell I've been thinking about it.

• 12:20Chuck Nice?

  How can I become a god?

• 12:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, now I'm a little worried about you, Chuck. When StarTalk returns, more of my interview with Seth MacFarlane, discussing the science of Family Guy.

• 12:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back. StarTalk. The American Museum of Natural History. Chuck Nice, Charles Liu. Always great to have you guys.

• 12:46Chuck Nice?

  Pleasure.

• 12:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're talking about science in animation.

• 12:49Charles Liu?

  Yes.

• 12:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Science in Family Guy. Featuring my interview with Seth MacFarlane. The guy's a crazy genius.

• 12:55Chuck Nice?

  That is true.

• 12:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In many dimensions.

• 12:58Charles Liu?

  Who can mix art and science together, knowing the difference between the two, and effectively, too.

• 13:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so with shows as popular as Family Guy, there's some obligation to wield that power with responsibility, would you say?

• 13:14Charles Liu?

  Like Spider-Man?

• 13:17Chuck Nice?

  Everybody gets one.

• 13:20Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, well, no, because you're reaching such a massive audience, it would behoove you to bring them some real information.

• 13:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But he doesn't mind being either offensive or politically incorrect in so doing. But he can use that as a vehicle to convey some other point.

• 13:37Charles Liu?

  Yes.

• 13:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Shock you into an exposure to something he thinks you ought to know about.

• 13:43Chuck Nice?

  Well, that's comedy. I mean, you know, comedy works the same way.

• 13:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 13:47Chuck Nice?

  You know, you say things that people see as offensive, but really, what's underneath is the message that you're trying to convey.

• 13:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, in this next clip, he did exactly that. One of my favorite Family Guy clips.

• 14:04Charles Liu?

  We now return to Carl Sagan's Cosmos. Edited for Rednecks.

• 14:09Speaker 02

  I'm Carl Sagan. Just how old is our planet? Scientists believe it's four- Hundreds and hundreds of years old. Scientists have determined that the universe was created by a- God. Big Bang. If you look at the bones of a- Jesus. Anosaurus Rex, it's clear by the use of carbon dating that- Mountain Dew is the best soda ever made.

• 14:35Speaker 03

  I knew you were gonna pick that one, Neil. How did I know you were gonna pick that one?

• 14:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, that's, that's being extremely politically incorrect to make a whole other point. And so, so comedy can do that, and he's mixing a little bit of science, because he's referencing the original Cosmos from 1980.

• 14:52Speaker 03

  Which is very cool. And what's even more cool is, I believe I heard the word Jesusaurus in there.

• 15:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I had to, I, I have Seth MacFarlane in my office. I had to ask him directly about that Carl Saganic clique. Let's check it out. Was that, you, you voicing Carl?

• 15:16Speaker 03

  That was me, that was me doing Carl.

• 15:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got me hearing little Carl.

• 15:18Speaker 03

  That was me doing Carl Sagan.

• 15:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Carl Sagan. And he gave a little turtleneck, so yeah, it was.

• 15:24Speaker 03

  What we're looking at is the fossil of a Jesusaurus Rex. So they dubbed over.

• 15:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 15:31Speaker 03

  They dubbed over.

• 15:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the beginning, there was the big.

• 15:35Speaker 03

  God. Ig bang.

• 15:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that, I mean, I was on the floor. So it meant you knew Cosmos, you cared about Carl Sagan, you cared about sort of scientific truths, of course. And so, and that didn't have to be in there. It's a frickin' cartoon, you know, but it was there. And so there were statements being made. And, and you, you must be aware of the sort of the, the political weight that you're, that you're voting in these scenes, right?

• 16:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's, that's difficult, I think, for, for both of us to, to walk that line, because you, you have, you know, you're servicing an audience, and at the same time, you, you kind of have a duty to the truth. So, you know, it's that, it's that balance. But it's at a certain point, I think, you know, the truth has to win out. You just have to say, you know what, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm just gonna tell it like it is.

• 16:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, tell it like it is. I mean, that's a-

• 16:31Charles Liu?

  It takes some courage.

• 16:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It takes some courage.

• 16:33Charles Liu?

  But in a sense, it's almost coming back full circle. Anime, animation, cartoons, years ago, decades ago, in the early days, Bambi, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, very much talked about uncomfortable social issues in ways that challenged the audience. Then somewhere along the line in America, they became the stuff of children. And they kind of lost that edge.

• 16:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Except the NRA still hates the movie Bambi.

• 16:59Charles Liu?

  That's okay. Yes.

• 17:01Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, really?

• 17:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 17:02Charles Liu?

  Oh, for sure.

• 17:03Chuck Nice?

  I would think they would love the movie Bambi. Oh.

• 17:06Charles Liu?

  Great public relations for owning firearms.

• 17:09Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 17:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bambi's mommy got shot.

• 17:11Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, well, listen, the only thing that can stop a bad deer from getting shot is a good deer with a gun.

• 17:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, when we come back, we're gonna have more of my interview with Seth MacFarlane, talking about the science of Family Guy. And in that segment, we'll get to Cosmic Queries, where we'll take your questions on the science of Family Guy when we return.

• 17:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back at the American Museum of Natural History in the Hall of the Universe beneath the Hayden Sphere. I, I, this is, that's my title. I'm Director of the Hayden Planetarium.

• 17:58Charles Liu?

  Yes, you are.

• 17:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Pretty cool. I got keys to the universe.

• 18:00Charles Liu?

  Yes, you do.

• 18:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's just cool. So, we're talking about animation here.

• 18:04Charles Liu?

  Yes.

• 18:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And some earliest, some of the earliest concepts of animation, there's a drawing on a, isn't it an urn in Iran, where it shows several images that in sequence is a-

• 18:20Charles Liu?

  Moving animal.

• 18:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's, it's a leaping animal. It's, it's, so we've been thinking about this.

• 18:25Charles Liu?

  From long-

• 18:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that maybe the first movie, 5,200 years ago?

• 18:28Chuck Nice?

  And I'm sure that before that, there is a piece of pottery with some porn on it.

• 18:35Chuck Nice?

  Because that's the first thing that people go to whenever any new technology is made.

• 18:40Charles Liu?

  Reproduction is a powerful motivation.

• 18:42Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely.

• 18:44Charles Liu?

  Yeah, that kind of motion science went on later in photography. When people took stop motion in numerous pictures to try to see whether when a horse was running, it would actually have all of its feet off the ground at once, and the answer was it did. And it's gone since then. Nowadays, with movies, we can't even tell that they're separate frames.

• 19:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So in fact, animation, film.

• 19:06Charles Liu?

  Yes.

• 19:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This whole industry requires that you cannot resolve in time the images that are going by your eyes.

• 19:16Charles Liu?

  That's right.

• 19:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Your brain blurs them. So now, there's some fun facts in here. For example, Charles, you must know about this. It's on the internet and it's old. It was one of the first things sort of transferred into an inter- into digital form.

• 19:28Charles Liu?

  Yes.

• 19:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Was the physics of cartoons, cartoon physics.

• 19:34Charles Liu?

  Yes.

• 19:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The cartoon laws of physics.

• 19:36Charles Liu?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, for example, one of them is if you're running off a cliff, you will not fall until you realize that you're no longer standing on a cliff.

• 19:45Chuck Nice?

  That makes perfect sense.

• 19:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's like the first law of physics. And it's a whole, there's like tw- there's a whole page of them.

• 19:51Chuck Nice?

  I'm sure there's gotta be a law that if you see a very attractive woman, your eyes pop out of your eye, very large, and then go back.

• 19:59Charles Liu?

  And there's a honking sound, too.

• 20:02Charles Liu?

  Well, what is the famous ultimate rule? Uh, you have to follow the laws of physics unless it's funnier, not too?

• 20:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so now it's time for cosmic queries.

• 20:16Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 20:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cosmic queries. These are questions from our fanbase.

• 20:21Charles Liu?

  Yes.

• 20:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they're about the, the physics, the science of Family Guy, to the extent that I can even know to answer this. And if I, if I don't know the answer, I'll just tell you.

• 20:30Chuck Nice?

  Right, here we go. Uh, our first question is from John Roberts of Denver, Colorado. And John asks, "A time machine, like Stewie's, must also be a space machine, or you land badly. How hard is it to tell where the Earth was in the past?"

• 20:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So this is a brilliant.

• 20:47Chuck Nice?

  That's a really good.

• 20:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Perceptive question.

• 20:49Chuck Nice?

  Space and time?

• 20:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, exactly. Because if I'm here in a time machine and I wanna go six hours into the future. And that's all I do.

• 20:59Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 21:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, when I reappear six hours from now, Earth is farther along in its orbit. Earth has rotated six hours out of where I used to be.

• 21:08Chuck Nice?

  So you're not gonna end up in this spot.

• 21:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I will not end up in this chair. So if you want a time machine, it better be a spacetime machine. Because you've never been at a place unless it was at a time. Nor have you ever noticed a time unless you were at a place. So the two are forever intertwined. And one cannot think of one without the other. Without manipulating them both to achieve your goals.

• 21:33Chuck Nice?

  Sounds like a love story. I like it.

• 21:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Space and time are one. And we've known this intuitively. Coming to the theater near you.

• 21:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Space and time. And no, but we know it intuitively. When you cross the street, that's the same street the trucks are on. How come you don't get hit by a truck? Because you were in the same place at different times. It's only when you're in the same place at the same time, you get hit by the truck.

• 22:05Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 22:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, so we know this intuitively. That's all I'm saying. So Einstein formalized this in Special Theory of Relativity, generalized it in the General Theory of Relativity. And so, so now it is built into our understanding of what you do in physics. So really, any time machine has to be a spacetime machine. Otherwise, you're gonna be landing in the wrong place.

• 22:23Chuck Nice?

  Well, John Roberts, that was a brilliant question. And the answer is, look both ways before you cross the street.

• 22:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When Star Talk comes back, we will learn how geeky the writers and other staff of Family Guy really are. When we return.

• 22:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Star Talk. We're back. We're picking up my interview with Seth MacFarlane. And if you've watched the show, you know they parody many movies, many TV shows. They parody actors. They parody all elements of pop culture. And, but in particular, they give a special, they give a special attention to Star Wars and Star Trek.

• 23:14Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 23:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so I just had to ask him, what's up with that?

• 23:20Speaker 03

  There's the parody law, the whole Larry Flynt thing, you know, if you're commenting on, I think it's Larry Flynt, if you're commenting on something, if you're making a statement in some way.

• 23:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Criticism.

• 23:30Speaker 03

  You can pretty much, yeah, you can pretty much utilize any character you want. You don't have to get permission. If you're, and it's, it also depends on if it's a brief thing. We were doing so many Star Wars gags that our lawyers said, "You gotta call Lucas." And we thought, "Oh, that's it, we're done." And, and we called and they were like, "Yeah, sure, do it, go for it, we love it." And, and so we, we made three whole episodes.

• 23:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Also, the, the parodies of Star Trek are in there. Uh, one of them was Stewie inventing a particle transporter.

• 24:02Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 24:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This was, this was interesting because that, you got the entire cast, essentially, the lead cast of Star Trek: Next Generation, to be characters in this.

• 24:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Basically controlled by Stewie.

• 24:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 24:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is, and how'd you get them all to date? It's, it's fun?

• 24:19Speaker 03

  I think Patrick was sort of the, the key.

• 24:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sir Patrick Stewart, yeah?

• 24:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, and once, once he signed on, they, they, they were like, "All right."

• 24:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To do silly lines. Yeah, if he can do silly lines, no one else has an excuse. Right. Any competition to do Captain Kirk?

• 24:32Speaker 03

  Not really.

• 24:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. You win that one.

• 24:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, they, they leave that up to.

• 24:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Can I hear some Captain Kirk?

• 24:38Speaker 03

  "This is my chicken sandwich and coffee. Mrs. Spock, I want these things off the ship. I don't care what it takes, I want them off the ship." That's a trouble with troubles.

• 24:47Charles Liu?

  "I cannot hold my laughter any longer, Captain."

• 24:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We actually have a clip of that episode.

• 24:56Speaker 03

  No.

• 24:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where the entire cast of Star Trek: Next Generation appears as voices on Family Guy. Let's check it out.

• 25:09Charles Liu?

  "All right, let's try this again."

• 25:16Speaker 02

  It's them. I did it. The cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation is here to answer my questions. What the hell? Where am I? What's going on? Greetings, everyone. My name is Stewie Griffin. I've transported you all here against your will. I'm a huge fan, and you're going to answer all my questions. But you're a baby. Yes, that's right, Denise Crosby. That was a warning. Please do not speak unless you're spoken to. Now, question number one. What's it like on the set? The show's been off the air for 15 years.

• 25:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Although I will say, it was an awful lot of fun. You know, when Patrick wasn't hogging the limelight.

• 25:50Speaker 02

  Oh, you, Michael. 15 years later, you've still got that attitude. Oh, my god, I am already having a fantastic time. Ooh, hey, let's spend the day together. Hey, that sounds like fun. Ow! Shut up, Will. Stop it, Patrick. You know, I think you should all be nicer to Will Wheaton. The way I treat my colleagues... Wait, what? I said you ought to be nicer to Will Wheaton. You mean Will Wheaton? Yes, Will Wheaton. Why are you saying it like that? Well, I'm just saying you should be nicer to Will Wheaton. Will Wheaton seems like a nice guy. Say wheat. Wheat. Now, say Will Wheaton. Will Wheaton. Will Wheaton. Will Wheaton. Will Wheaton. Will Wheaton. Will Wheaton. Will Wheaton. Will Wheaton. Hey, did you hook up with Whoopi Goldberg on the show? All the time.

• 26:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whoopi Goldberg was a recurring character. She was the bartender. I guess. The wise bartender on it. So they got all of those were the real voices of the entire cast. And Stewie designed the particle beam transporter.

• 26:44Chuck Nice?

  What kills me, though, is that he actually killed off one of the characters the same way that character was killed off in Star Trek.

• 26:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 26:51Chuck Nice?

  Which is the one...

• 26:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I didn't get that bit.

• 26:53Charles Liu?

  Season one, Skin of Evil, Star Trek: The Next Generation.

• 26:59Charles Liu?

  Sorry. Denise Crosby as Tasha Yar tries to go past this pool of weird tar. The pool of weird tar blasts her, and she just dies. But she comes back in the third season in an Enterprise, a Star Trek: The Next Generation, episode called Yesterday's Enterprise. She winds up saving the future.

• 27:21Chuck Nice?

  Because of a spacetime temporal rift, right?

• 27:24Charles Liu?

  Yes.

• 27:24Chuck Nice?

  Yes, exactly. You know, I'm sure right now, people are amazed that either one of us actually have a woman at home.

• 27:35Chuck Nice?

  Put it there, keep it there.

• 27:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're both married with children, by the way.

• 27:41Chuck Nice?

  We have had some.

• 27:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When StarTalk returns, we pick up my conversation with Seth MacFarlane, and we talk about why aliens have yet to visit us on Earth. Check it out when we get back.

• 28:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk. Chuck Nice, Charles Liu.

• 28:06Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 28:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Friend and colleague from way back. Great to have you guys on here. A combination of expertise, you know, this is rare, right here. So we've been geeking out with Seth MacFarlane over the science of Family Guy, and the brilliance and diabolical genius of Stewie the baby. And it got to a point where we had a whole discussion about why Earth might not have yet been visited by aliens, okay? Yeah, we're just chewing fat right now.

• 28:34Speaker 03

  Nice.

• 28:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, let's find out how that went down.

• 28:36Speaker 03

  Because Stephen Hawking went on record saying, "I don't think we should be broadcasting our presence to the universe."

• 28:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so it is true that you don't give your home address to other people of your own species who you've never met. Yet, we're telegraphing our address to aliens.

• 28:56Speaker 03

  But that's because it's other humans. Isn't there something to the idea that, you know, as we've become more technologically advanced and more scientifically literate, we've also kind of become more moral? We're a little bit more high-minded?

• 29:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The moral arc.

• 29:12Speaker 03

  The moral arc. And would it not stand to reason that if...

• 29:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You want to extrapolate to the aliens.

• 29:18Speaker 03

  If an alien race can figure out how to get here, they've obviously figured out a lot of [BLEEP] that we haven't figured out. Sorry, National Geographic. Would they not have reached the point where they would be so morally evolved that we needn't worry?

• 29:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's helpful. And I'm wondering whether worms are thinking that about humans.

• 29:39Speaker 03

  Right, well, that's the other side, yeah.

• 29:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Those humans, they're so evolved, I wonder if they won't step on me.

• 29:44Speaker 03

  Look at you, you're doing James Woods in Contact.

• 29:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My hope is that they're so far beyond us that we are of no interest to them.

• 29:53Speaker 03

  Right.

• 29:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so they don't even come visit. That's my best example for why they haven't. My best argument for why they haven't, haven't visited. Now, you haven't really treated aliens much in, in Family Guy, is that right?

• 30:03Speaker 03

  You know, the, the, the main reason that we haven't is that those, those two aliens on The Simpsons are so memorable and identifiable that, you know, you don't really wanna try and compete with that.

• 30:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so that's the answer. He doesn't have aliens on Family Guy because The Simpsons did it.

• 30:18Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 30:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, the, the, the, the Simpsons aliens, what are their names here? It's Kang and Kodos.

• 30:23Speaker 03

  And they're diabolical?

• 30:24Chuck Nice?

  Yes, well, you know.

• 30:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, wait.

• 30:26Chuck Nice?

  So, how do I know who's who? Um, you know, Kang's the girl.

• 30:34Chuck Nice?

  I don't know. I have no idea how you tell them apart.

• 30:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, The Simpsons, it started in like 1989. It's the longest-running and most successful sitcom of all time. Many of their writers have like advanced degrees in math and science, and so, well, once again, we have this occasion where the animation universe is infused with the actual universe. And, and the series has hundreds of instances of this. And so, people are thinking, their writers are thinking about math, they're thinking about science.

• 31:09Chuck Nice?

  Oh, yes.

• 31:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's infused, okay. So, this fact did not go unnoticed by others, okay? In fact, we have here a book, a whole book, called The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets, written by Simon Singh. This, this, so, so, so this is, people are getting into this.

• 31:35Chuck Nice?

  Oh, yeah.

• 31:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe a little too much.

• 31:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We've got Simon standing by live on a video call right now. And we're gonna talk to him about all these deep intersections of math and animation that he's thought about. Guys, can you put him up on the screen? Simon, welcome to StarTalk.

• 31:56Speaker 05

  Nice to talk to you.

• 31:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, and so we were just intrigued. We were talking about the math of The Simpsons, and we realized like you spent time and wrote a whole freaking book on it. And so, what compelled you to do that?

• 32:12Speaker 05

  Well, the first book I'd ever written was a book called Fermat's Last Theorem. In America, it was called Fermat's Enigma. And it's all about the most notorious problem in the history of mathematics. And I was watching The Simpsons one day. It was an episode called "The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace", where Homer wants to become an inventor. And there in the background, on the blackboard, is an equation. And the equation relates to Fermat's Last Theorem. And there's also an equation that relates to the Higgs boson, funnily enough. But it was the Fermat's Last Theorem equation that jumped out at me. And so, when you see Homer Simpson playing around with Fermat's Last Theorem, you realize there's somebody on the show that loves math. And I started digging a bit deeper. I started contacting the writers.

• 32:54Speaker 05

  And it turns out that many of the writers have very strong mathematical backgrounds. People with degrees in math, master's degrees in math, PhDs in math. One guy, Jeff Westbrook, was even a professor at Yale. So they love math. They're not mathematicians anymore. They're comedy writers. But the way they express their ongoing love of math is to hide these equations in the show.

• 33:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's not only that. You have a PhD in physics, correct?

• 33:23Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 33:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. So one of the episodes shows Homer Simpson about to fall into a black hole.

• 33:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, and in that episode, okay, there's tons of physics, but there's also tons of maths. There's allusions to Cartesian coordinates, Mercenne prime numbers, you've got narcissistic numbers, you've got Euler's identity.

• 33:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's a narcissistic number?

• 33:46Speaker 05

  Okay, the one that appears in The Simpsons, there's a scoreboard, and one of the numbers on the scoreboard is eight two oh eight, eight two oh eight. Now, eight two oh eight has got four digits, so you raise each digit to the fourth power. So you have eight to the power four, plus two to the power four, plus zero to the power four, plus eight to the power four. You know, add all of that together and you get back to eight two oh eight. So it's a number that regenerates itself from its own digits. It's kind of in love with itself, so they get called narcissistic numbers. And they're very, very rare, very, very special, and that's why they get to be in The Simpsons.

• 34:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So would this be a way to infuse math back into our culture? Possibly make people a little more comfortable with it?

• 34:29Speaker 05

  I think the stuff in the show appeals to people who already like maths. And so I think if you're a teenage kid, it can be kind of daunting to know that you're not necessarily the coolest kid in the class. And what I think the show says to those kids is it says, look, you know, the writers of The Simpsons, the writers of the Futurama, they love maths as much as you do, and they're pretty cool, so you should kind of really go on this ambition to be a mathematician or an engineer or a scientist. I think that's the core thing behind it. But for me to write a book, I suppose what I am saying is that if you want to get interested in maths and having Homer Simpson and Lisa hold your hand and take you to the mathematical landscape is kind of a gentle introduction to mathematics, yeah.

• 35:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's encouraging to know that there's that much infusion of science and math, especially math in the case of your book, in animated series. And this might signal sort of a new frontier that pop culture is going, where we have PhD scientists, physicists and mathematicians participating in pop culture in such a deep way. So congratulations for this piquing your interest and for calling it to all of our attention.

• 35:34Speaker 05

  Nice to talk to you.

• 35:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Simon, let's all thank Simon for coming on for this. All right, Simon.

• 35:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So when we come back to StarTalk, we'll catch up with my friend, Bill Nye the Science Guy, now a New York City resident.

• 35:51Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 35:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we'll see what next dispatch he has submitted. I know it'll be on the topic of animation, but we'll have to wait till we come back to find out what that'll be on StarTalk.

• 36:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  StarTalk! We are back, talking about science and animation. We've got my interview with Seth MacFarlane, and I'm loving it. I'm just loving, because that's what StarTalk is about, the intersection of science and pop culture. There's nothing more pop culture than TV animation.

• 36:28Chuck Nice?

  That's true.

• 36:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we're there. And we, you know, talking to Simon Singh, who's writing a whole book on the mathematics of The Simpsons. I mean, this is good stuff. And I got Bill Nye sending in a dispatch. Let's check it out.

• 36:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow. It's so realistic. The thing about animated characters and cartoons is they're so much like us. I admit, some of them are a little odd-looking, but deep down, they're all human. They have fears, they fall in love. They have trouble communicating. And with the possible exception of Batman and the occasional girlfriend, they've all got superpowers. They can fly. I mean, how cool is that? When I was a kid, and you wanted to be a superhero and you wanted to fly, all you needed was a towel for a cape. Just put one of these on.

• 37:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Clip it in place, and you're ready to go.

• 37:48Speaker 06

  I'm okay.

• 37:51Speaker 06

  I'm okay.

• 37:56Charles Liu?

  Bill is saying that imagination matters more than reality sometimes.

• 37:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 38:00Charles Liu?

  That's what he's saying.

• 38:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there's no, there's no more fertile vessel to convey the imagination than animation.

• 38:09Charles Liu?

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:10Chuck Nice?

  True.

• 38:10Charles Liu?

  Because you're not tied to reality.

• 38:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, but.

• 38:14Chuck Nice?

  Well, I'm not tied to reality. And that's got nothing to do with animation.

• 38:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it's funny, not being tied to reality doesn't necessarily diminish the, the potency of that message you're delivering.

• 38:28Charles Liu?

  Precisely, quite so.

• 38:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what's, to me, most intriguing. And there, there's a Family Guy clip where, it, it's from the episode, "The Road to the Multiverse."

• 38:40Charles Liu?

  Oh, that one, yes.

• 38:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, you know, the multiverse is a, you know, it's a frontier idea in physics that maybe our universe is not the only one. And that there could be an infinite number of other universes. Literally infinite number of other universes. And so, he bases an entire episode on this. "The Road to the Multiverse." And in it, it contains deep, social commentary. Let's check it out.

• 39:10Speaker 02

  You ever heard of a multiverse theory, Brian? Well, of course I have, but I'm wondering if you have. Oh my God, so transparent. The theory states that there are an infinite number of universes coexisting with ours on parallel dimensional planes. Dimensional planes, right. Don't, don't do that. Don't, don't, don't repeat the last two words like you already kinda knew what I was talking about. You have no idea what I'm talking about. Now, in each of these alternate universes, the reality is different than our own. Sometimes only slightly, sometimes quite radically. The point is, every possible eventuality exists. Prepare yourself, Brian, and I'll show you.

• 39:56Speaker 02

  Where are we? This is Cohog, Brian. Same year, same time. But in this universe, Christianity never existed, which means the Dark Ages of scientific repression never occurred, and thus humanity is a thousand years more advanced.

• 40:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He went there! No, no, no. So I came back to Seth to get him to comment on that multiverse episode. Because that episode goes to many other kinds of universes. Yes, it does. That was just one of them. We picked that one. I had to ask him about that. Let's find out what he says. This is present-day Cohog.

• 40:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 40:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But in a universe where... what was it?

• 40:34Speaker 03

  Where Christianity had never been, had never come to power. Christianity had never evolved into a major, a major religion, because...

• 40:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and science then took hold a thousand years earlier.

• 40:44Speaker 03

  Because, right, the ancient Ionians knew much of the science that had to be rediscovered during the Renaissance.

• 40:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, a lot of rediscovery.

• 40:52Speaker 03

  But it was squelched for, what, a thousand years?

• 40:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Essentially, essentially, yeah.

• 40:56Speaker 03

  And what I always wonder about that is, is, is that, is that a thousand years that we needed to morally evolve ourselves to be ready for the technology that we have? Or would we...

• 41:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That implies we are morally ready for the technology we have.

• 41:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, right, right.

• 41:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It comes with that implication.

• 41:11Speaker 03

  But or would we have gotten there much sooner?

• 41:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think often...

• 41:15Speaker 03

  Both technologically and ethically.

• 41:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, I said, I ask myself often, in the timeline of history, subtract the Dark Ages. Would we have landed on the moon in the year 1500?

• 41:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 41:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And is that even a conceivable thing?

• 41:28Speaker 03

  Right, right, right.

• 41:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A year 1500, would we have landed on the moon? Now, a lot of other fields of science have to progress alongside it.

• 41:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You need the chemistry for the, you need material science.

• 41:38Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 41:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You need all of this. But in principle... 500 years, you know, you have the technology earlier, so you drive it.

• 41:47Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 41:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, but we would have gotten rid of slavery earlier, you know? How does that, how does that play out?

• 41:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's the question. Is it, is it, does that go hand in hand?

• 41:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I don't know.

• 41:58Speaker 03

  It seems to me, I mean, I'm, what do I, I got an art school degree, what do I know? It seems to me it would be more likely that it would have to go hand in hand. Because I think, I think that with, with a greater knowledge of science goes a greater wisdom. When we start to figure out how things work.

• 42:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then the wisdom comes along.

• 42:15Speaker 03

  You can't help but be more rational.

• 42:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lest you self-destruct.

• 42:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or, for that ignorance. That's a potent argument for which I have no rebuttal.

• 42:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, when I, when I see these clips in, in my conversation with Seth, I'm, as I said, I am enchanted. Anytime I see an artist reach for the fruits of science and massage it, blend it, weave it into their trade, into their craft. And in fact, I am convinced that science cannot deeply matter in our world until and unless it has been embraced by artists. Because that becomes the true measure of science becoming mainstream. Without it, it's a, it's an edifice off to the side that people think they can just walk around

• 43:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  or climb over or ignore or chuckle about how badly they did in it in school. But when the science manifests all around them, even in the comedy of animated sitcoms, people will recognize that science is with us, it is in us, it is around us. Science is life. You've been watching StarTalk.

• 43:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've been your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And as always, I bid you to keep looking up.