Things You Thought You Knew – Kicked into Orbit

How do bikes and motorcycles stay up? Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-hosts Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly explain escape velocity, what’s going on with cricket, and the physics of bicycles.

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

• 0:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so the high wire, the reason why they carry this big stick that's left and right. Okay, it's not to balance them.

• 0:09Gary O'Reilly?

  No.

• 0:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's not what it's doing.

• 0:11Gary O'Reilly?

  Really?

• 0:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 0:12Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay.

• 0:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 0:13Gary O'Reilly?

  Now you've got me.

• 0:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 0:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  StarTalk begins right now. Gary, what have you got lined up today?

• 0:30Gary O'Reilly?

  Right, so we've had some questions and one of them landed right in my backyard. It's how hard would you have to kick a soccer ball, or if you want a football, to get it into orbit now? Right? Okay.

• 0:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  People are dreaming, people dreaming superpowers on this one.

• 0:49Gary O'Reilly?

  Aren't they just? So now, just so as you, just so as you understand, here on planet Earth, the highest recorded kick in the professional game, and this might surprise people, 131 miles per hour. So.

• 1:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I didn't see that coming.

• 1:06Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh man, neither did the goalkeeper.

• 1:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's pretty high.

• 1:11Gary O'Reilly?

  Gone in an instant.

• 1:12Chuck Nice?

  And who, and who did it kill?

• 1:15Gary O'Reilly?

  Uh, nobody. This, this record is owned.

• 1:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It knocked, it was like a bowling ball knocked everybody down.

• 1:20Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, you know, no surprise. This is a Brazilian guy called Ronnie Hebberson. And he's, he's done it a couple of times. He wasn't a one and done on this, uh, this sort of speed. So he's, uh, he's got previous for it. So it's, uh, it's interesting that the design of the new balls has enabled them to travel faster, which is speeding the game up, which is exactly what everyone was after.

• 1:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What I wonder is, uh, cause I don't study soccer balls. I know it's a big deal, you know, before every, every World Cup. But the, the amount that the ball compresses.

• 1:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that when it's coming off your foot, there's not only the speed of your foot that's translated to the ball, there's the recoil of the ball off your toe for you having compressed it.

• 2:07Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, there's the deformation and then the.

• 2:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The deformation, but it's not just a deformation because you can deform something that doesn't bounce back and then it's no good, right? It's got, it's got to have that sort of.

• 2:18Chuck Nice?

  That's the Tempur-Pedic ball.

• 2:20Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes. Memory, memory ball.

• 2:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That'd be a really slow game.

• 2:27Chuck Nice?

  Yes, slow, slow game.

• 2:30Chuck Nice?

  Very comfortable, very comfortable, slow game.

• 2:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It wraps your toes and your toes don't want to leave.

• 2:34Gary O'Reilly?

  Exactly. But no, it's, it's interesting because you're now starting to roll this out. Is it an American football you want to kick into orbit? Do you want to go away from inflated balls and then get, you know, what, what's it going to take to get a baseball into space, a golf ball into space? You know, where does your mind take you as to the sort of projectile aspect of it? But I was surprised because I didn't think the top speed of a soccer ball would be anywhere near 130 miles an hour.

• 3:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, neither did I. Plus, when I played Little League, and I have to think about why this is true, but I could always hit a, a spalding pink ball way farther than a baseball.

• 3:14Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 3:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that's obviously an air-filled ball that responds quickly. But I also unraveled the baseball. Have you ever done that? Maybe not, not you, Gary.

• 3:24Gary O'Reilly?

  No, not lately.

• 3:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, American, Chuck, have you ever done that?

• 3:29Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, by mistake, I, I hit one so hard.

• 3:34Chuck Nice?

  You know, I think they call it tearing the cover off the ball. I think that's what they refer to it as.

• 3:42Gary O'Reilly?

  Does anyone?

• 3:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then you, then you woke up and then what happened?

• 3:45Gary O'Reilly?

  This adds an awful lot like a Robert Redford movie.

• 3:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, I saw that movie. Yeah, so you so you unstitch it and remove the leather and then there's basically rubber bands. That are just, it's a continuous sort of rubber, it's like rubber bands. And you keep doing that and then there's this like little.

• 4:03Chuck Nice?

  String.

• 4:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's basically stringy rubber. And then there's a little pink ball, last I did this, I don't know if it's different today. Little pink ball, and my pink ball had liquid in it. And I thought, what, what, what's up with that? It's like the size of a marble, a little bigger than a marble. Mini planet in the middle, little magma, right over the center. It is, it's the, it's the core. It's the core of the baseball. Okay, so here's the thing. Yeah. So you want to know a cool fact? Please. It's a cool, stupid, geeky fact. All right. Um, the escape velocity for any object. So for Earth, it's, it's uh, seven miles per second.

• 4:46Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 4:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a lot.

• 4:47Chuck Nice?

  That's a lot more than a hundred and thirty-one miles.

• 4:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way. Yeah, so he ain't kicking it in orbit here.

• 4:53Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I was gonna say, maybe Superman could kick a ball that hard.

• 4:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 4:58Chuck Nice?

  You know?

• 4:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So here's, here's, oh, by the way, so it's not a matter of strength. Okay, it's a matter of speed of your foot. So Superman is strong, but is he fast? Now you can catch a speeding bullet, he can catch a bullet, I guess.

• 5:11Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 5:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's pretty fast.

• 5:12Chuck Nice?

  He's very fast. He's not flash, he's not flash fast.

• 5:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, he's not, right, right.

• 5:18Chuck Nice?

  Probably the second thing after flash.

• 5:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And he has, has super, super everything that's human, which we once discussed, Chuck. We discussed his flatulence, that we concluded he must also have super flatulence. We have to dig that one out of our archives, that's on, that's on YouTube.

• 5:34Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 5:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Super, super flatulence.

• 5:36Chuck Nice?

  By the way, he's not, he wouldn't be the only one.

• 5:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so.

• 5:44Chuck Nice?

  Not that I'm bragging.

• 5:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here's, here's an interesting fact. So you take the escape velocity for a planet, okay? And divide it by the square root of two. And that's the speed you need to get into orbit.

• 5:59Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay.

• 5:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's kind of a cool fact.

• 6:01Gary O'Reilly?

  So, okay.

• 6:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, uh, so what is seven divided by square root of two? I'll do that right now.

• 6:09Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes, do.

• 6:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Seven divided by square root of two. You get five. So, the space station and the space shuttle and Elon Musk and all these folks orbit the Earth at five miles per second.

• 6:23Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 6:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's lower than the escape velocity, obviously, because you're still in orbit. But escape velocity and orbital speed, low orbital speed, are precisely related by that formula. And, but, but in fact, the derivation of that was on my general exam for graduate school. You can derive how and why that's true. Straightforward, but you have to know that that's a thing, all right? And then figure out how to, anyhow.

• 6:54Gary O'Reilly?

  Anyhow.

• 6:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Point is, a hundred and thirty miles an hour, it ain't happening on Earth.

• 6:58Gary O'Reilly?

  So where was it gonna happen? Where could, so I take my ball and I go off, off-world.

• 7:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 7:04Gary O'Reilly?

  You know, where, where am I gonna go to get myself my jollies about kicking the ball into deep space?

• 7:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, so Mars is not gonna work, okay?

• 7:13Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay.

• 7:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, you're not fast enough for Mars. You're not even fast enough for Pluto.

• 7:18Gary O'Reilly?

  Crushing my dreams here, Neil.

• 7:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, you're not fast enough even for, uh, the largest asteroid is Ceres. In fact, Ceres is so lo, C E R E S, from the root of cereal comes from that, by the way. Um, Ceres was the goddess of harvest, I think, one of these farm goddesses. And we get cereal from that root word. So, point is, uh, Ceres is so large as an asteroid that its own gravity shaped it into a sphere.

• 7:50Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh.

• 7:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And after the Pluto debacle.

• 7:53Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, we're not going there again, are we?

• 7:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, we're not. But, round things too small to be planets are called dwarf planets. Pluto got demoted from planet to dwarf planet status. And Ceres, which was in the ranks of asteroids, got promoted from asteroid to dwarf planet.

• 8:12Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 8:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. So on Pluto and Ceres, the escape velocity is about, what do we get? About a third of a mile an hour.

• 8:24Gary O'Reilly?

  I can do that.

• 8:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no, sorry, sorry. Mile per second. Excuse me.

• 8:29Chuck Nice?

  Hmm, third of a mile per second?

• 8:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you ain't getting it.

• 8:31Gary O'Reilly?

  No, not happening, no.

• 8:32Chuck Nice?

  No, that's nowhere.

• 8:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're not happening. Right, right. So, yeah, and these are big objects. These are, you know,

• 8:38Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 8:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're, they're, they're hundreds of miles across, these objects, okay? Uh, so the question is, what size object can we satisfy Gary's Superman urges? So, let's look at big comets. So, Halley's Comet, not as big as they come, but it's, you know, we've all heard of it and it's visible and, okay. That one, uh, it's like half a mile an hour.

• 9:06Gary O'Reilly?

  Really?

• 9:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 9:08Chuck Nice?

  Oh, we could do that.

• 9:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, but then, how are you gonna play the game at all?

• 9:12Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, no, with the beam. I'm gonna take some chums, I'm gonna get some chums, we're all gonna go up,

• 9:16Chuck Nice?

  Well, if you chase-

• 9:16Gary O'Reilly?

  And we're gonna kick balls from one asteroid to another.

• 9:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, oh, I see.

• 9:22Chuck Nice?

  But you better, just, just don't chase after the ball.

• 9:24Gary O'Reilly?

  No, it's be like asteroid, it'd be like golf. You're gonna land it on another asteroid as it's going along.

• 9:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But then you, okay, so we can all run a mile, at least one mile per hour. So, you, if you run too fast, you can, you can jump yourself into orbit and to escape velocity. So, you're right, Gary, you'd have to get a configuration of asteroids and comets. Um, and again, all of these are ten, you know, two dozen miles across, around there. Um, practically anything we throw as humans or kick would, would achieve escape velocity.

• 10:00Gary O'Reilly?

  So, we need to wait for one of those meteor showers. We gonna get any joy out of that? They, because they're pursed, we can kick between-

• 10:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, the meteor showers are tiny. They're like the size of peas.

• 10:10Gary O'Reilly?

  Let's not do that.

• 10:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, those aren't as, no, no, no. If, excuse me, excuse me, the comets we're talking about at ten, twenty miles across, the asteroid that took out the dinosaurs?

• 10:19Gary O'Reilly?

  Yep, not that big.

• 10:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Was six miles across.

• 10:21Gary O'Reilly?

  Ow.

• 10:21Chuck Nice?

  Right, yeah.

• 10:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, you don't want these, this is not what's falling in a meteor shower. If comets and asteroids, these large-

• 10:28Chuck Nice?

  Not even Bruce Willis could help us.

• 10:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly. This, if they were what were falling in a meteor shower, that's the end of all life on Earth.

• 10:34Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 10:35Gary O'Reilly?

  Let's not do that.

• 10:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, yes, not do that, right. So, uh, yeah, it's so-

• 10:40Chuck Nice?

  But it made for one hell of a soccer game.

• 10:45Gary O'Reilly?

  Wouldn't it just?

• 10:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So going from a few dozen miles up to like a few hundred miles is a very big difference in escape velocity for us. And you're right, Superman could do it at all times. Oh, and by the way, that old adage, uh, what goes up must come down? You know, that grandma said or everybody else? That's only true if what you throw up does not achieve escape velocity. If it goes higher than seven miles per second on earth, it will never come back to earth.

• 11:14Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 11:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It'll stay in the solar system, but it'll never come back to earth. Now, if you wanted to leave the solar system, what you do is you say, what's earth's speed at our dis- orbital speed at our distance from the sun?

• 11:29Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 11:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? If I take that speed, which is 30 kilometers a second, okay? About 18 miles per second, multiply it by the square root of two, I'll get the escape velocity from the sun at earth's location.

• 11:46Chuck Nice?

  Ah.

• 11:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it works beautifully this way. So if you want, if you want to throw something that not only never comes back to earth, but also never-

• 11:56Chuck Nice?

  Just leaves the solar system.

• 11:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Leaves the solar system. You take the 30 kilometers second multiplied by square root of two, which is 1.4, so that's it's like 400, it's like four, what is it? Um, 30, uh, 1.4, 45 kilometers per second, that comes out to be about 30 miles per second. If you get 30 miles per second, like, straight out, it's gone.

• 12:20Chuck Nice?

  You're gone.

• 12:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're gone.

• 12:21Gary O'Reilly?

  So we're gonna need that equation, that's mathematics, when we, when we decide that we're gonna bug out of this particular solar system.

• 12:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, you have plans?

• 12:30Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, of course we have plans.

• 12:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's like, that's the only way I can help you here, Gary.

• 12:36Gary O'Reilly?

  That is cool, because it's, we are not physically able to achieve this, but-

• 12:43Chuck Nice?

  Thank God, thank God, because it'd be the worst damn soccer game you've ever seen.

• 12:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if someone gets angry and they kick it into orbit-

• 12:50Chuck Nice?

  Kick the ball and it's just, there you go.

• 12:52Gary O'Reilly?

  Could you imagine?

• 12:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's gone.

• 12:54Gary O'Reilly?

  You go home, you go home and your father's sitting there, well, where's your ball? Well, John kicked it into space.

• 12:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The bully, the soccer bully.

• 13:01Gary O'Reilly?

  You go and get that ball right now. I haven't spent my, it'd just be chaos.

• 13:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, here's an interesting fact. Um, if-

• 13:11Gary O'Reilly?

  You.

• 13:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, if you don't achieve escape velocity, the ball will want to return to the spot where you kicked it.

• 13:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In an, in a orbit.

• 13:22Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay.

• 13:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The problem is, Earth is in the way.

• 13:25Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 13:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if you shrunk Earth down to a point, but you still floated up there and kicked the ball, and you didn't quite achieve escape velocity, it will make this huge elongated orbit come around, and then hit you upside the back of the head. But right now, Earth is in the way, so it'll hit Earth on the other side of the Earth. So the, uh, interesting thing about orbits, the point you launch it, is a permanent spot of the orbital path of the object itself.

• 13:53Gary O'Reilly?

  Basically a boomerang.

• 13:54Chuck Nice?

  Suck-a-rang.

• 13:55Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, suck-a-rang.

• 13:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 13:57Chuck Nice?

  It's a suck-a-rang.

• 13:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and, and an hour and a half later, it'll hit you right upside the back of the head.

• 14:03Chuck Nice?

  Now that, right there, is a great prank.

• 14:06Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 14:07Chuck Nice?

  Where you kick the ball, and then you just go, stand right there, don't move. Just wait, just wait for it. Wait for it, bro.

• 14:19Chuck Nice?

  Then it goes.

• 14:20Gary O'Reilly?

  It's gonna need some patience, but it would be a giggle.

• 14:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, so Gary, that's all I can do for you here.

• 14:24Gary O'Reilly?

  That's more than enough, Neil, thank you.

• 14:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, you got it.

• 14:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so what do you got?

• 14:42Gary O'Reilly?

  All right, this, and I suppose really it's just human nature. Who's the better, who's the better pop band, The Beatles or The Rolling Stones? Everyone has this kind of question, and they wanna sort of get them on together. Now, here we go, in a sporting reference, is cricket, the sport of cricket, harder or easier than baseball?

• 15:03Chuck Nice?

  Uh, it doesn't make a difference, they both suck.

• 15:09Chuck Nice?

  There's your answer.

• 15:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck for his nuanced point of view on the world.

• 15:13Chuck Nice?

  There you go. I, you know, I'm trying to be as subtle as possible.

• 15:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you achieved it. You achieved your aim. Chuck, you gotta admit that without Gary on the show, cricket would never come out of our mouths. No. At all. We wouldn't even.

• 15:27Chuck Nice?

  True.

• 15:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, he rounds us, he completes us.

• 15:29Chuck Nice?

  Oh, this is true.

• 15:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. So let's back up, let's back up here. All right. Let me tell you, Gary, let me tell you the little bit of cricket that I know. Okay. All right. So I played Little League baseball. Yes. I was catcher on the team. Our teams were the name after real teams. So I was on the Red Sox and I was catcher. How did that go down with the boy from the Bronx? It was not a problem. Yeah, the Red Sox hate the Yankees, but the Yankees really don't care. Right?

• 15:56Chuck Nice?

  Yes. And that's how you know the Yankees are better.

• 15:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 16:00Chuck Nice?

  That's how you know the Yankees are better than the Red Sox because you go, you go up to a certain part of the Northeast and I don't care what happens. It's Yankees suck. Yankees suck. But you walk around New York and you never hear one word about the Red Sox ever.

• 16:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you remember was when the Patriots won the World, the, uh, the Super Bowl and there's a Patriots parade?

• 16:26Chuck Nice?

  Yep.

• 16:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is, this is in, this is in February.

• 16:29Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 16:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And this crowd, this is in Boston and the crowd spontaneously started saying Yankees suck.

• 16:35Chuck Nice?

  Yankees suck. At, at a completely different sport, at a completely different season. And they're celebrating the world champion win, but they couldn't resist.

• 16:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, well.

• 16:45Chuck Nice?

  Saying Yankees suck.

• 16:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. So I was, I had no problems wearing a Red Sox uniform. Okay. I was also an All-Star. Of course. So I was all, I was all these things. Yes. Okay. I just happened to be all these things. So I visit England for the first time and I see them playing cricket and I'm observing. Yep. And I'm thinking, wait, the ball.

• 17:07Chuck Nice?

  God damn, boy, y'all play baseball wrong.

• 17:12Chuck Nice?

  The hell you doing out there? Now, why there's them damn sticks in the middle of the field? Now, you know, somebody gonna fall. You got yourself a liability right there, son.

• 17:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what we're looking at. Put your eye out.

• 17:24Gary O'Reilly?

  That's a wicket. That, Chuck, those three stumps in the ground with the little bits of wood on the top are the wickets. You have one at each end. They are 22 yards apart.

• 17:35Chuck Nice?

  In America, we call that a lawsuit.

• 17:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what we got.

• 17:39Chuck Nice?

  Put that on the playground. Tell you right now, you gonna have four or five parents suing your ass in a minute.

• 17:51Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay. Anyway.

• 17:53Chuck Nice?

  I still don't get, are the wickets, are the wickets like bases?

• 17:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, let me get there. Hold on.

• 17:57Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, yeah, it is, it is.

• 17:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, I'm there, and what am I, 14 or something, something? I also played stickball in the Bronx, so.

• 18:04Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 18:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, so.

• 18:05Chuck Nice?

  Now, that's a game.

• 18:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a game. Now, you, now you're talking, okay? Got out the broomstick, and the rich kid had an actual stickball stick that you, he bought. And it looked a lot like my broomstick, but, you know, it just didn't have the threading at the bottom of the thing.

• 18:22Chuck Nice?

  Well, we, you know what we did with that? We took it and we beat that rich kid with it. Because how dare you actually bring anything other than a mop or a broomstick to this game?

• 18:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, I thought your anger management sessions were going well. What is happening?

• 18:37Gary O'Reilly?

  We are the anger management sessions.

• 18:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, we are? So, I, so I'm looking at it, and I said, can I try? All right? And so, the bat.

• 18:48Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, man.

• 18:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is like twice the size of a baseball bat. And it's flat.

• 18:54Gary O'Reilly?

  On one side, it's not, it's the face is flat, but it's got depth behind it. There's a lot, lot, there's a substance in it.

• 19:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm hitting a ball bigger than a baseball.

• 19:04Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 19:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With a bat bigger than a baseball bat. It's at least twice the size, and it's flat. And I said.

• 19:11Chuck Nice?

  Now, you know what we call that? We call that cheating, see?

• 19:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, I get up there, and they pitch the ball. Is that the right word? I'm gonna bowl the ball.

• 19:21Gary O'Reilly?

  It's a bowl, yeah. And it comes off, they go into the ground, it comes off.

• 19:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I swat the hell out of the ball and the ball goes way and I don't know the point of the game, but I knew if I had to hit it far, I hit that sucker far. And what I didn't do right was I ran down to wherever I was supposed to run, but I dropped the bat.

• 19:39Gary O'Reilly?

  Ah.

• 19:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  See?

• 19:41Chuck Nice?

  Wait, wait a minute.

• 19:43Gary O'Reilly?

  You've got to carry your bat.

• 19:44Chuck Nice?

  You're not allowed to drop the bat in cricket.

• 19:46Gary O'Reilly?

  No, no, no, you have to carry your bat, run to the other, you run to the other wicket, which as I said is 22 yards away. And if you've hit it far, I mean, you have to treat a cricket ball a bit like a baseball, as if you've got an allergy to leather. As soon as it comes near, you smash it as far away as possible. Now, if you, if you hit it over the boundary, you get six runs. If you hit it and it bounces before the boundary and goes out, that's four runs. Now that stops you having to run four times between the wickets. So it's just an easy way to get your runs.

• 20:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, so I can stay at bat, correct?

• 20:18Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, if you, if you hit it over.

• 20:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which I did. I hit it over the outer thing, but I just stayed there and I hit it again. And I had another time, I think one, this bounce, but then they, they caught it after the bounce. But then I run, right? That's when I ran? I'm trying to remember the details of this.

• 20:35Gary O'Reilly?

  If you, if it bounces and someone catches it, you still have to then get your runs in.

• 20:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct, correct.

• 20:41Chuck Nice?

  There's no, there's no way this game could be played in Philly. Cause nobody is going to allow you to hold on to the bat while you run to any place.

• 20:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, the cops will pick you up.

• 20:52Chuck Nice?

  Recipe for disaster.

• 20:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cops will pick you up, depending on your skin color. If you run in with a bat, yeah, run as, as fast as you can with a bat. Yeah, that, that in the streets of America.

• 21:03Gary O'Reilly?

  You're dressed all in white, right? Cause cricket, the, the traditional uniform of a cricket player is all white. So.

• 21:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So no, no, no, uh, forward face stealing a base, right?

• 21:17Chuck Nice?

  No, no sliding, no nothing.

• 21:19Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, you do slide.

• 21:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You'll sully your clothes.

• 21:21Gary O'Reilly?

  The, the, the elite bowlers, and there's, there's all different types of, just like in baseball, you have a, someone who's a specialist as a slider, curve ball, someone's got three digit speed. And cricket has the same. Although what they're doing is they're bowling into the ground and a certain length of bowl allows the batsman to work or not work. So the top speed will be just over a hundred miles per hour.

• 21:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So they're spinning the ball, so it hits the ground, then then the friction between the spinning and the ground.

• 21:57Gary O'Reilly?

  Exactly, but then the condition, the condition of the ground is a big difference. Because if it's grassy, you've got moisture in the grass and therefore it's gonna it's gonna have less abrasion, less friction.

• 22:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's gonna eat some of the it's eat some of the momentum of the ball.

• 22:12Gary O'Reilly?

  And then the the slower bowlers will hold the ball in a certain way. They'll walk, because the the seam on a cricket ball is a, if you imagine two semicircles brought together, is a raised seam.

• 22:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's the equator, it's an it's an equator.

• 22:27Gary O'Reilly?

  It's an equator, but it's raised. So you work across the seam, the seam changes angle. And the bowler will, if they're if they're really talented spin bowlers, they will bowl it out the back of their hand, not forward down the seam. So there really is a talent and the slower spin bowlers, it will come to you coming from right to left. And then when it hits the ground, it will almost do a forty five degree cut across you and confuse the hell out of you.

• 22:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If they spin it really, really fast, okay.

• 22:56Gary O'Reilly?

  And there are some real spin demons out there, they're so talented.

• 22:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me just say, none of them confused me. Whatever they were doing.

• 23:05Gary O'Reilly?

  Neil, you're an all star.

• 23:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe they're not skilled bowlers, they were not skilled bowlers, maybe, but.

• 23:09Chuck Nice?

  I am, I am confused as to how anybody can watch this, because what the hell are we talking about?

• 23:15Gary O'Reilly?

  I've got something that's gonna fascinate you. If you have an international game, say for instance, India played England at cricket. That would be an international game.

• 23:25Chuck Nice?

  I know it's it's the number one sport in India.

• 23:27Gary O'Reilly?

  It is absolutely off the chart when you see how they absorb the game of cricket.

• 23:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus, if I were from India, remembering the history with England, I'd wanna beat your ass every single time.

• 23:38Chuck Nice?

  And by the way, by the way, speaking of the history of England and India, there's no way I would play a game where an Indian guy could run at me with a bat. I'm sorry.

• 23:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you're British.

• 23:50Gary O'Reilly?

  No, it's not the bat, Chuck, it's not the bat, it's the it's all of a sudden someone who has the ability to bowl at you at a hundred miles an hour. And if they bowl, if they bowl at a certain length and they bowl short, that ball hits the ground, obviously, but comes up round about head high.

• 24:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It could hit you. Yeah, okay. Oh, so you, you're allowed to hit somebody.

• 24:11Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, well, now they've got to wear a helmet, but um, you know, you get body line technique, so they'll aim and it'll pitch up round here and you find batsman will duck and all the rest of it. So the, the, the amazing thing is what goes on in the science of how they will shine one side of the ball, leaving the other side of the ball in a mat. So that then enhances Magnus effect. They, you.

• 24:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that makes sense.

• 24:38Gary O'Reilly?

  There's all sorts of things going on within the game.

• 24:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I would say the Magnus effect in that case, because the ball is not even symmetric in what is smooth and what is not, then it could end up corkscrewing perhaps, depending on which way it's spinning. So it's not always curving in one direction, but it could actually take on another kind of um path that, that you can't foresee unless you have really good vision watching the thing spin.

• 25:07Gary O'Reilly?

  Hmm.

• 25:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so, so let me ask, with the bat, I use the flat side, but can you use the other side, which is angled?

• 25:14Gary O'Reilly?

  They do. They, so when you get a really, really clever spin bowler, that ball's coming in maybe forty miles an hour, maybe even slightly slower. And when they, what they do is they reverse sweep. So they go from, say, from their right hand side and as they know that ball is going to cut across them going left, they will reverse sweep that out away. So they'll use the backside of the bat.

• 25:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've seen that. I've never, okay.

• 25:39Gary O'Reilly?

  Chuck, as I was saying, with an international game, say, India versus England, it's a test match, that's what they're called, and this will turn you off cricket for life. It can take four days to complete.

• 25:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A game?

• 25:54Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 25:56Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, okay.

• 25:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so it's slower than baseball.

• 25:59Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, so the thing, this, this is so, it's where kind of baseball gets all the statistical, patient, deep thinking. This is where cricket has such an audience for some people around the world that absolutely adore it. Plus the fact they get to bowl balls at England at 100 miles an hour. Perfect.

• 26:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 26:18Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 26:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the audacity of England to play any sport against a former colony. I just want to put that out there.

• 26:25Gary O'Reilly?

  I know. Um, there's a lot of scratching of head and thinking, oh, gosh.

• 26:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just putting it out there.

• 26:30Gary O'Reilly?

  You know what? If you, see, the thing is, when you face a, a pace bowler, someone who has got triple digit speed, it's not just your ability to be a good batsman. It's a test of your courage. This thing is coming at you at a rate of knots that is frightening.

• 26:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, so, so, thank you, Gary. I didn't know about all the spinning of the ball and then I didn't pay attention.

• 26:54Gary O'Reilly?

  It's a, it's a really fascinating sport and...

• 26:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I didn't pay close enough attention to know that half was shiny, the other half wasn't.

• 27:00Gary O'Reilly?

  Hmm.

• 27:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I was good at hitting it. After that, they could probably figure me out and just pitch around me or something.

• 27:06Gary O'Reilly?

  You know, you, there's some finessing with carrying the bat, getting used to that. But what, when you get a good bowler, they'll work out because they won't just do one type of bowl at you. They'll come at you with a whole variety just to keep you going and they'll find out what your kryptonite is and then they'll hit the stumps.

• 27:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 27:22Chuck Nice?

  Hey, listen, I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to offend anybody who loves cricket, but any sport that makes baseball look exciting might want to be reconsidered is all I'm saying.

• 27:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But you don't want to offend anybody, right?

• 27:34Chuck Nice?

  I don't, I don't.

• 27:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Anytime someone says, I don't want to offend anybody, they're going to offend somebody.

• 27:38Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay, so the test matches can take four days long.

• 27:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't mean to sound racist, but I...

• 27:43Chuck Nice?

  It's a...

• 27:44Gary O'Reilly?

  There, I mean, there are, there are different formats of cricket, like T20 or the IPL, the Indian Premier League, which are short format, 20 overs each, and each, each over is six, six bowls. And they're done in a couple of hours and it is along the lines of baseball. There's loads of razzmatazz, there's loads of colored uniforms, and the game is all about hitting that ball as far away as possible.

• 28:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gary, you mentioned something about motorcycles the other day. What was your issue there?

• 28:27Gary O'Reilly?

  Why motorcycles can stand up?

• 28:30Chuck Nice?

  They're Transformers, that's why.

• 28:33Gary O'Reilly?

  Next question.

• 28:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, we're done here.

• 28:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So when you say stand up, not after you put up the kickstand, you mean it can just roll on its own without anybody on it?

• 28:45Gary O'Reilly?

  In a vertical plane.

• 28:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or a person can stand on the seat while the thing is rolling? For example, I've seen that, right?

• 28:52Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, the display bike teams, they're fantastic.

• 28:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so for the longest while, and I count myself among those who would give the answer, that you have spinning wheels that are basically gyroscopes, and that they gyroscopically stabilize the motorcycle. By the way, this same would apply to bicycles, of course.

• 29:15Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes, right.

• 29:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because, in fact, there was a famous scene, and famous because the people talked about it. I thought it was clear and present, but I didn't realize how many people didn't know that if you set a bicycle moving down a hill with nobody on it, it'll just keep rolling.

• 29:31Chuck Nice?

  And it'll keep going until it hits something.

• 29:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Until it hits something, for a long time, longer than you would expect. And that was revealed in the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

• 29:41Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 29:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In one of the romantic scenes with Robert Redford and Catherine Ross, I think it was.

• 29:47Chuck Nice?

  It was also revealed in my driveway as a kid, and I got into a hell of a lot of trouble. Because, boy, do you know how much that bike costs? I cannot believe that you were throwing that bike down.

• 30:02Chuck Nice?

  That's what you see, you run and you just let the bike go, then it becomes a ghost bike.

• 30:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was a common explanation, and I've even given that explanation. But I recently read that someone did an experiment where they added wheels that spin the opposite way of the wheels. They're not connected to the ground or anything, but they spin in the opposite direction, which cancels out the physical angular momentum of the rotating wheel. So that the whole system no longer has a net gyroscopic force operating on it.

• 30:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's still stayed up as it went down.

• 30:46Chuck Nice?

  So it's like, it's, it's rolling down the hill, but then let's say you have like a balancing pole with two wheels on it, and then they're spinning in the opposite direction.

• 30:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct, and they figured out a way to do this so that then, then there's, there's no net gyroscopic stabilizing force because it's been canceled out just through the laws of physics. So, but so it's still maintained its course. And so, so here's what's going on, and it's fascinating. It's, it's more complicated with a bicycle than in other examples I could give, but a system is stable in whatever it's doing, if its center of mass is as low as it could be, okay, within a range of-

• 31:33Gary O'Reilly?

  Which is the whole deal with motorsport, where they're always trying to get the center of mass as low as possible?

• 31:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, and electric cars put their batteries on the, not on the roof, but as low as possible, on the bottom, so that you have the low, because watch what happened. If the center of mass is so low, that anything you do to that object raises the center of mass, it doesn't want to do it.

• 32:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It always wants to bring the center of mass as close to the center of the earth as possible. That's why, you guys remember weebles? Do you remember weebles?

• 32:13Gary O'Reilly?

  Weebles wobble, but they don't fall down, all together now, all three.

• 32:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there, there they go. So you push them, and then it writes itself back up. Well, what's happening? Because in its righted position, the center of mass is as low as it possibly can be. And if you do anything else with a weeble, you are raising the center of mass, and that's not what the weeble wants to do relative to earth. So once you've raised the center of mass, it says, I'm going back to where I was, and the center of mass drops down, it gets closer to the center of the earth. In that case, only by a few inches, but it'll do it. It's the same reason why- Boxes need, boxes of cereal boxes, need that caution.

• 33:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It says, "When you open it, notice there might be some settling of contents." We call it settling of contents, but what's actually happening is every cereal flake wants to get as close to the center of the earth as it can. That's his job in life. And so that's why, if you jiggle it, it doesn't puff up. If you jiggle it, everybody's jockeying to get as low as it can inside the box. To get as close to the center of mass as possible. So, it turns out, the design of a bicycle, where the center of mass or the front section, and the back, and the chair, is that if you set the thing rolling down the hill, and it

• 33:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  begins to lean, what'll happen is, the front wheel will turn Right. Into that lean. Correct itself. Okay? And right itself. Yeah. Okay, so the bike won't necessarily go in a straight line, but if it curves, its tendency will be to right itself. So Neil, I'm on a high wire, on my bike, because I'm a bit like that, and I've got this enormous big pole. Now you want to ride a bicycle- What's happening? Why, why, why? You want to ride a bicycle on a high wire? Yes. Let's just do the high wire first. Alright. And then we can stick you on a bike if you want. Please. Okay, so the high wire, the reason why they carry this big stick that's left and

• 34:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  right, okay? It's not to balance them. No? That's not what it's doing. Really? No. Okay. No. Now you've got me. It's not, okay? That balance pole is floppy. Have you noticed that? It's not a rigid pole. Chuck, I so thought you were gonna drop a gag there.

• 34:46Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 34:50Chuck Nice?

  I was gonna say, it happens to a lot of high wire walkers, but it's okay. I bet I'm not gonna do that.

• 34:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of course not, no.

• 34:55Chuck Nice?

  I'm gonna leave it alone.

• 34:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so it's not a rigid pole, because you could say you can use that to balance. No, because they're not using it to balance. They get a floppy pole, so that the side on the left flops downward, and the side on the right flops downward, okay? And the system, the high wire walker plus the pole, has a center of mass now that is so low-

• 35:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That if he starts tipping to the left, the center of mass is raised because the pole is out there uh counterbalancing him, okay? So yes, I'll use the word balance in that context, but it's all about the center of mass. If he tips, the center mass raises and it wants to lower the center of mass once again. So he can easily, I mean, if you still have the talent to do this, stay on the pole, uh on the wire because the pole plus the wire, him on the wire, is the lowest center of mass of the system that you can get. And any, if, you don't see him walking with this up over his head, do you? You don't see that, okay? He's holding it down low.

• 36:06Chuck Nice?

  It's always held pretty low, right down by the waist.

• 36:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right by the waist, correct.

• 36:10Gary O'Reilly?

  So that's the whole thing, the whole thing is that we're talking center of mass always to keep the, this thing upright, to keep it in a good place.

• 36:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Gary, now you want to have the high wire act on a motorcycle.

• 36:22Gary O'Reilly?

  On a bike, let's not go too bad.

• 36:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so there's probably some kind of groove in the tire for it to stay on the wire.

• 36:31Gary O'Reilly?

  Well, you may take the tire off and use the rim.

• 36:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, that would work. Oh, for sure. Cause the rim is concave, right? So that, that's an interesting way to make that work. But um if you are up above the wire relative to the tires, you'd want the, the floppy uh uh stick, what do they call it? The, you'd want that to go even wider out to the sides and be even more droopy. And that would give you tremendous stability in doing this exercise. So Gary, I don't know, did I go where I had to go in that answer for you?

• 37:06Gary O'Reilly?

  I think you did, yeah. I mean, just thinking about would it work then for electric motorbikes? Because there's no engine and generally the engine is the lower part of the whole thing.

• 37:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, oh.

• 37:20Gary O'Reilly?

  Well, that then, uh would that then work in the same way?

• 37:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because I've seen motorbikes where the the batteries go up one of the

• 37:29Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I was gonna say, the difference is that the weight of an engine on a bike is pretty evenly distributed so that it it makes the bike balanced to ride. So, once you just

• 37:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's between the rear wheel and where your feet go. It's not up in the, not in the front wheel, right?

• 37:45Gary O'Reilly?

  No, it's fine.

• 37:46Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 37:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 37:46Chuck Nice?

  And so that's normally the way they position engines, but for battery, you can see it like they sit like right under the front forks sometimes, and then sometimes at the bottom of the bike. So it's interesting, I don't

• 38:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I'd have to conclude, Gary, that if they're putting batteries up the down, the down tube and up the tubes, then that's changing where the center mass of the, of the system is. And it can only be less stable for that reason, yes.

• 38:12Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 38:13Gary O'Reilly?

  Perfectly. What we need is delivery riders on less stable bikes doing thirty odd miles an hour down, down the street the wrong way with our food. Perfect.

• 38:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's like, because in the city, Uber Eats are people on, on motor, on motorized bicycles. It's not people in cars.

• 38:31Gary O'Reilly?

  Mm hmm.

• 38:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, and all the other delivery systems.

• 38:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's all I can tell you on that, Gary. Were you

• 38:40Gary O'Reilly?

  I'm good with that.

• 38:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Good to go on that? Yeah, so just remember, weebles.

• 38:44Gary O'Reilly?

  Fascinated by the balancing pole, because that is something I'm thinking, well, that's for balance. But it's not, it's a different thing altogether.

• 38:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a different, I mean, is, there's some, yes.

• 38:53Chuck Nice?

  What you said, the center of mass is for center of mass.

• 38:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's, it's to keep the center mass as low as possible. And in some cases, the center of mass is, in fact, I think it's in every case, the center mass is below the wire.

• 39:06Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 39:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that as you tip, the center mass says, I want to get as low, I want, again, I want to get as close to the center of earth as possible. And that's directly below the wire. And you're on top of the wire, so everybody's stable. There it is.

• 39:21Gary O'Reilly?

  Interesting. So it's not as dangerous as they make out, then?

• 39:25Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 39:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think most things are not. That's correct. If you boost the odds in your favor by training, by practice, by physics, then anyone else looking at what you do is imagining themselves in that situation and how dangerous it would be for them. They're not imagining you in that situation, imagining how non-dangerous it otherwise is for those who are trained. All right, that's all we got time for. This has been another installment of Things You Thought You Knew. This time, a StarTalk Sports Edition. Neil deGrasse Tyson here, your personal astrophysicist. And I've been with Gary O'Reilly and Chuck Nice. As always, I bid you, keep looking up.