Cosmic Queries – Scars in Spacetime

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So Paul, thanks for doing Cosmic Queries Grab Bag. Lovely. It's always great questions. Some of them came from deep space. Very deep, which means they're either really smart or really drunk. I got a headache from some of the questions. Check us out and find out what gives Paul a headache on Star Talk. Welcome to Star Talk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. Star Talk begins. This is Star Talk Cosmic Queries. I got with me Paul McCurry. What's up my man?

Welcome back. Always great to be here. And I never see them in advance. No. Yeah. This is like this is like Karnak where you hold the envelope and now you're gonna Carnak. That now you're gonna say you're dating from fifty years ago You know what? It's okay for viewers to not know something and then know something. That's like saying I'm only gonna teach science All right, go ahead. Let's continue.

I want to just take a moment to just reflect on the privilege it is to have you in this role. You're a multi Emmy winning comedy writer. Comedian, comedy writer, uh We're talking about it Emmy Emmy and Peabody Awards. And Peabody. That's the best one. Yeah, it's small but it's large, if you know what I mean. And uh thank you for taking time out of your day. Kidding, I love doing this. It's so Although you also work on Colbert and his days are numbered. Yeah.

And time out of your day might not be such a tat. Yeah, what are they gonna do? Fire me? I'm already fired. It might not be so stressful to take time out of your day. We're counting down and and I am available t for kids parties. Yeah. I can do blan balloon animals. Pretty much I could do a dochin, but just the body part. And uh no head, ears, or tip. And on this show, you've been knighted barren. Yes, by yours truly. So I'm honored I'm honored that. With my Excalibur sword.

You cut my juggler, but I'm okay now. So you brought questions in and this is a grab bag. I used to be a fan favorite, grab bags. The fans are amazing. I mean I always say this and I it's worth saying like You know what? It's uh a borderline annoying. I I judge how smart someone is not by how much they know. But by the depth of the The level of curiosity. Yeah. Yes. And that's the only thing that matters.

The hungry mind. Yeah. And I always say if I had you as a science teacher, I'd probably be doing something in science. And everything else. Yeah. All right. I don't care that you're taller than I am. That's annoying. Monopoly World. Hello. I'm just curious about where the differences are.

That's cool. It just says monopoly. Okay. Oh, yeah. I mean, just because the word whole shows up in both, just, you know, chill out. Don't don't don't over don't overthink it. Don't be a hole about it. No, the f for me, one of the fun things about a black hole, because our word hole is a two-dimensional idea. Think about it. Right. It's depth and it's depth and it's right.

It's that circle and you fall through. Mm-hmm. Okay? Right. Whereas a black hole is a hole in every direction you approach it. Which is why once you get sucked into it. Yeah, you're not. There's no path out of the black hole. Right. Right. And so it's a region of space where gravity is so high.

That the speed of light is insufficient to escape. And just to put this in context, I sometimes mig I make too many assumptions about what people might know. So let me back up just a little bit. Okay. All right. You know the old saying, what goes up must come down? Yes. Yes. That's bullshit. Sorry. And did you write a paper on bullshit? And that was a conclusion.

Early, how is it that we can go to the moon if you're gonna say what goes up must come down? Right. Okay, so it turns out there is a speed above which If you leave Earth, you'll never come back. And that is sensibly called the escape velocity. Right. On from Earth's surface, it's seven miles per second. So grandma's adage works for anything anybody would have thrown. Right. You throw it, it goes up. But if you have rockets You're not beholden to grandma's attitude.

Boosted, right, right. You're not beholden. Right. So it will never come back ever. It'll go to the edge of the universe before it thinks about coming back to Earth. So you can ask, if it's seven miles per second on Earth's surface, you can imagine objects

planets with higher gravity where the escape velocity is higher than seven miles per second. Right. Everything would weigh more. So that makes sense. Continue this line of reasoning, you get to a point where the escape velocity is the speed of light itself. The speed of light is insufficient to carry the beam out of the black hole. So you fall in, you ain't never coming out. Light's not coming out. Is there a better term for it than black hole?

No, I think you're right. But both come from general relativity, right? And both involve extreme. Yeah, the wormhole. So the wormhole, I had some early ideas about what that could be or what it might be. Right. If you look at the math that gives us a black hole, the solution H there's a second solution to it, which is the mathematical opposite of a black hole, which you might call a Yeah. Yeah. No, go ahead. Say it again.

If you were to name the mathematical opposite of a black hole, what would you call it? Uh a white Thank you. A white hole. That's a solution to the equations. And it's the mathematical opposite of a black hole. Right. All right. So black hole sucks everything in. A white hole would probably do what? Push everything up. Push everything out. So we said let's look for that in the universe. Couldn't find anything that resembled anything remotely what a Whitehole should look like. Okay.

So we don't think they exist. But how would they connect? We say would they connect with a wormhole? Connecting the black hole and the and the white hole. But since black holes are naturally formed from collapsing matter, is there any sort of known process in the universe to like could naturally create some kind of a wormhole that's We don't know and we don't think so. We think you're gonna have to make one on your own time.

Okay. We know how to make a wormhole. Yeah. We just don't have the right ingredients. What we need is negative gravity stuff. Not the same as antimatter. Antimatter has ra has ordinary gravity. Okay? An antiproton has the same gravity as a proton. Negative gravity stuff. Because what does gravity do? It collapses space time. Right. A wormhole, you're trying to pry it open. Right. And travel through it.

Yeah, that's that's that's you get you do that for free. Once it opens the hole, you just step through. That doesn't require just open the hole. And you get sucked through. No it's not sucking. It's just step through. But if a black hole is millions and billions of miles away from another locate doesn't a wormhole connect? That's a tunnel in a If they're connected by a wormhole, watch where you're stepping when you go through the other side. Parce que vous n'avez pas

Get one of those mirrors. Do you think that you can look under one of those look under the car mirrors? Do that through the Oh I know that. I'm Italian, I know that. Do you need easy pass in a wormhole? Bet some municipality will put one up in the first wormhole. But you could naturally create a stable wormhole. So Or no. Aliens, for example, if they have access to materials that we don't and they discover a negative gravity thing

then th they, if they're smart, will con know how to configure it to pry open a hole through the fabric of space and time. You step through and you land in another place and another time. So it's sort of like wormhole versus black hole. It's like you Black hole, you check in the hotel you ain't checking out. It's a it's what they call the Roach Motels. And and Wormhole, you're checking out of the hotel, but you end up in a worse hotel with a with a lousy buffet breakfast.

Speaking of checking in and out, I think a lot about wormholes.

And you know what the closest we have to wormholes in our civilization? An elevator. There's like whatever's out here, you walk into this room. It's a box. Little box. Someone pushes some buttons. Right. And then the doors open and it's a whole other place. Right. But what people don't explain and science will never is why I have to make small talk during that wormhole travel where I wanna kill myself. So I think of that all the time. It's plus if you're coming from an elevator that

That opens to the outdoors and you come in and then you're not outdoors anymore. You're in some other place. And if I don't tell you where you are, you have no idea. If I bring an alien into an elevator, it'll have no clue. Because it's moving through time and it doesn't know it. As far as it's concerned, it'll be a wormhole. Just to finish this up and we'll move on. The stuff that you refer to. We don't know what it could be or what it is, or even if it exists. Close to

Nothing close negative gravity? Come on now. If we had fat if we had that, we wouldn't need rockets. Do you think we'll ever get there? Do you think nothing in the universe looks like it's operating under negative gravity. But I know the way science operates, keep your mind open to every and any all possible

is and we're looking in the universe, we don't see any it open is, oh, we can't explain that. I wonder if it's negative gravity. That would be a way to think about negative there's nothing out there that needs negative gravity to account for it. So I I'm I'm skeptical, but it's nonetheless fun to think about. It is. And maybe in the end we just need magic like Doctor Strange. Okay. But I kind of want to solve it with Rick of Rick and Morty, because he uses real science.

Sort of yeah, it's the we've talked about that. Hello, Dr. Tyson. This is Natasha from the U.S. New Mexico. I'm currently at Pan Club with other medical students and our mics are broken. So whether She's at band club. Band club. B-A-N-D It's a thing. She plays it. Yes, there's a club they play in a band. I look bad. Yes, she was writing this while she was getting beaten up. Well they can't beat them up too much because then they can't perform for the for the game.

Not the fingers, not the fingers. This is literally hilarious to me because she's writing this as she's at band club and she's a medical student. So apparently you have time in medical school. cluster school to be in a band, which is troubling to me. I am not coming to you, Miss Davis, for any medical treatment because I don't want you to play your flute while you're working on me. Okay. So I'm currently a band club with other medical students. Our mics are broken. So while other instruments are

are cool, I must yell. How quietly should a singer whisper to affect one quark at a time? What about just one atom? Any good uses of my nonsense? Thank you both.

Okay. So You can divide the universe up into four forces. Mm-hmm. So the obvious one is gravity, we all know about that. Another one is the electromagnetic force. That's what holds all our model atoms and molecules together. The third is Palmicurio Charisma. That's a four. No, no, that's I checked uh I in fact I double checked. It's not there. That's negative gravity.

Then there's the weak nuclear force which operates within particles that describes how they decay into other particles. And then there's the strong nuclear force in the nucleus of an atom. We don't have access. to the strong nuclear force. You gotta be like ten million degrees to get in there. Quarks that make up atoms. We don't have access to that.

The weak nuclear force, we're not really messing with that either. We can interact with gravity and we interact with the electromagnetic force. All right. Whatever you do, that's what you're doing. Okay. You took a hit of acid before you came here. What am I supposed to do with that? Whatever you do, that's what you're doing?

We had someone in this chair, Betul Kachar, who said something I'd never heard before. I had to pause and reflect on it and say, wow, that's deep. The world is simply Electrons looking for a place to rest. Wow. And I and I I didn't want to embrace that until I kept thinking about it. And it's like, yeah, that's what's going on at all times. That's what happens in in when atoms get together with atoms to make molecules. The electrons are finding a place to hang out. Okay I have this pen.

It's held together by molecules and the electrons that bind enabling. First of all, did you wash your hands before you touched that? I licked my hands clean. Okay. But no, there's there th you're saying electrons are in motion within that At all times. At all times in everything. So there's the electrons, that's the electromagnetic force. But she's talking about quarks. Right. You ain't getting into quarks. Quarks are they're locked up in

So it's like Legos make up a brick building. Within the Lego you've got atoms and you've got within the atom you have the You're not getting into the courts without higher power than what we have access to. But she wants to still influence it. And it's kind of a metaphysical question. Whatever you do ever at all, you're invoking electromagnetic fields and forces. But the issue here is wavelength and it's not about loudness, it's about the fact that the w collective wavelength If she

She breathes. That's true. That was good. कमाना That was good. The point is, she wants to whisper at some volume level that will somehow tickle quarks. The fact that she Which by the way is a fun parlor game. Tickling quarks. Yes. If you do anything at all, you are moving around electrons. And you're bringing the quarks with you in the nuclei of the atoms that are parts of the molecules that comprise you. So you cannot do anything without setting into motion. electrons and quarks.

So either bound into the molecules that move because as she whispers, vibrations go into the air, and the molecules of the air vibrate carrying it to another location. So a whisper doesn't target anything, it just bothers everything equally like the human resources department. Right? I mean they're there for your own protection. Yes, that's true. We have to worry about this in science all the time. If the mics are down and everyone is screaming at each other and she wants to be heard.

The background level of conversation creates what we call a noise level. Okay. That's the random sounds that are out there. If she wants to be noticed. She has to break through that noise, either in frequency or intensity, in order to get noticed by anybody else. Define intensity as loudness. Volume. And frequency is If she comes at it with a frequency that no one else is communicating with, everybody will hear it. So you have a deep voice. If everybody's higher, your voice is gonna cut.

My voice is gonna cut through. Right. And if I come in in a high pitched voice, that'll get heard in the din of other noises. Well but at the atomic scale does sound Stop being a precise tool and become like more of like a a shove, like a statistical shove of some kind. No, it's always just it's a pressure wave moving through the medium. Right. At all times. Right.

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Michael Boisvert Hello Guardians of the Geeks. Mikael from Canada. No right. If I submerge my arm in a sink full of water, first of all you need to get a hobby. Or Get in a swimming pool. Damn, you cold blooded. Come on. People coming in out of their honest home experiments. And you gonna talk smack about it. Screw you and the cork you didn't ride in on. Uh if I submerge my arm in a sink full of water or get in a swimming pool, I don't really feel squeezed by the water.

However, if I do the same with rubber gloves. say, on washing dishes, or get in a river wearing a waterproof fishing waiter, and I hope you're fishing and it's not some weird thing. I feel disturbingly squeezed. What's up with that? Shouldn't I feel less having something rigid in terms of material around me. If he put on mittens and then submerged, it's not gonna fit he's putting on latex gloves. Of course they're gonna squeeze it. OK!That's what I mean!The guy needs a hobby!

If you're putting on rubber gloves, they're gonna squeeze your hand. Yeah, well because it doesn't feel like it's squeezing you, just pushing your body Right now you're at equilibrium with the air pressure. You know how I know that?'Cause you're not shrinking, you're not expanding. Yeah. So all pressure is equal on all parts of your body. Right. I know that. Okay. Right now. Okay. Here's a cool thing you can do.

If you're sitting in a pool, we're approaching summer now, just sit at the edge of the pool up to your neck. Like sit on a step where you're up to your neck. Then inhale a very deep breath. And your body comes up a little in the water. I was a swimmer growing up. Yeah. Why does my bathing suit get air in it and it just fills up? you're farting in your pain. No one told you this. These are practical questions. I've been a swimmer my whole life.

Because you're wearing speedoes and there's no air exchange. and it becomes a big thing. I don't do waiters, man. I just do a speedo. Yeah. Everybody take that in at home. Drink that in. But uh look the glove traps air. And when the air gets squeezed, the glove tightens. Okay. So And that's what he's feeling. have something underwater that is squeezable, the water pressure will squeeze it. If you have a plastic bag and put anything in it, okay Ahead. Doesn't matter.

It won't matter what you put in it. Okay. That's what the word anything means. Okay. The air inside the bag Is in equal pressure with the air in the atmosphere. So the bag is just a bag. We don't even think about it. Right. If you take that bag and immerse it without letting water get in. No, don't seal it. Don't seal it. Leave it open up top. Okay. And lower it into the water. Before the point where the to stop away the water doesn't drink.

that bag will collapse completely around what you put in it. That's air pressure. It is water pressure winning out over air. gonna take all b between all the heads that are in the duffel bag, it will it will it will it will squeeze out all of the air that's in that bag. Okay. Then you zip it and now you have a basically a vacuum sealed bag.

No, no, no, I didn't say that. I'm working my way to that. I'm just saying that if you have a glove, typically there's air between your hand and the glove. If you put your hand in the water The water's gonna press the air out and it'll feel like the glove is squeezing on your hand. Right. But it's not. It's just taking the air out. Right. Okay, so now watch. If you go deeper

Then water pressure becomes significant. And there's a point where your body cannot resist the water pressure. And your eardrums will pop, your your lungs will collapse. And if you go deep enough, You just implode. It's like your your it's like the the water is the mafia and your body owes the water money and it's squeezing you. Is that the exact analogy to what I have to do? I think that works exactly right. I'm talking from experience. And we were talking about heads in a duffel bag.

I know a guy who knows a guy and I owe somebody money. So so it's fun to watch this happen. Just take a bag, like a a ziploc bag, but leave it unzipped and just dip it into the water. Just watch all the air come out. It'll be snug onto what's in there, then zip it up. It's how to get all the air out of it. I get a g well, I get a Ziploc sandwich bag, I put something in it, and if I squeeze the air out, what it does is it it it forms uh the the bag forms pretty uh closely around that object.

Correct. You can get water to do that for you for free, but you have to set it up to make that happen. Okay. Yeah. So that's water pressure getting the air out, but an five inches into the water? that's not enough water pressure for you to feel that as the pressure on your body. Here's what'll happen. As you submerge, there's pressure on you. You you have skin. Mm, right? So your skin

It's pretty good. But your eardrums, they are sensitive to pressure. Your your capacity to breathe against pressure is will be challenged. Fighting pressure. As you're fighting it as you get lower and lower. Right. So it's fast pressure is a fun not fun. It's a fascinating It's a little unsettling, but I'll keep it in mind.

Lee Robertson, greetings, gentle folk of the universe. Lee from Florida here. What is the determination for an object to be affected by the Roche limit? I know Saturn's rings were likely made uh by one of its former moons being destroyed by the planet's Roche limit, but how are we able to maintain orbit around Earth with our own Roche limit and The Roche limit matters.

For objects that are held together by the force of gravity. If you're just a solid object, the roast limit is irrelevant to you. Okay? You're a solid object. You are not held together by the forces of gravity. Wait, if I if I push the bounds of the Roche limit, am I going to be full of the book? You can just walk across the roach limit. And Laugh in the face of crap. Which I've wanted to do for a long time. Of objects that are gravitationally bound, you could just laugh as you walk by them.

So why the distinction on solid objects versus non solid objects? So let's distinguish solid objects that are rigid and solid objects that are held together by gravity. We think of Earth as a solid object, but it's held together by gravity. All right. How do you know if something's held together by gravity? It's spherical. Always. Yes. Because that's what gravity does to something when it is in charge. I'm gonna go back to this pen cap. Isn't this held together by gravity?

It's held together by electromagnetic forces which swamp the effects of gravity. That's why that's not falling apart, even though we're within the roach limit of Earth. You can walk around and not get torn apart. Because crossing the roach limit is Earth is not really tearing you apart.

It feels like it looks like that's what's happening, but that's not what's happening. I'm gonna tell you what's happening. You ready? Yeah. Okay. The closer you get to an object, the stronger its tidal forces are. And tidal forces go up as the inverse cube of your distance. If you are one-third the distance to an object that you used to be. What's the inverse of one third? Three. Three. Cubit. What do you get? Three times three times three. What do you get?

twenty seven. The tidal forces are twenty seven times higher. If you're one third the distance than they used to be. If you're one fifth the distance, it's a hundred and twenty-five times higher. So these are tidal forces. All that means is it's pulling on one side, the side closest to the planet, way more than it is on the other side. So at the Roche limit. The title force simply exceeds The gravity. And what is that point? How do we how do we measure? Calculate where that is.

But it's different for every audience. exceeds the gravity of the object that's holding it together, then Gravity loses. The tidal forces win. And so mountains just float up. And because they're not held down by gravity anymore. Rocks float up and the whole thing just breaks apart. It doesn't break. It just lifts apart from itself. Because the Roche limit is kicking. Assembles is the better term than break apart. like kicking the ass.

Nothing breaks. A rock is still gonna be a rock, but if the rock was sitting on Earth, it's no longer attached to Earth. Because rock is held together not by gravity, but by electromagnetic forces. And you have this fetish about your pen. So your pen would would survive a crossing of the road slope intact. Ich liebe dich. Ich liebe dich.

Fetish is a little strong. I mean really. But so so is it sort of like Pulling bread apart and it and at some point you're pulling it apart to the point where it it it becomes disconnected from itself and then that's the exceeding the roche limit at that point. If the stretchy part of the bread is what we're thinking of as gravity, then there's a point where your force exceeds the gravity and the bread just pulls apart.

So like the Roche Limit is like the ultimate relationship boundary, like where you're getting closer and closer, it doesn't mean anything because you just want to turn your relationship into confetti. Well, up until that point, you're both independent. strong entities. Within the Roche Lobe, you get torn apart. No, you get no, I use a different word. You get disassembled. Everything you once were is now in pieces.

So it's like you're in a bar, things start to happen, there's a guy, you get a little close, Roche Limit's like, let's take it outside, I'm gonna dismember you. Only if you're talking to his woman does that happen. Exactly. It doesn't just happen No, I'm in my speedo in the bar. She's checking me out. I'm not asking for trouble. Then the Roche limit kicks in and we have to go outside. So so the Roche limit sort of exceeds gravity's power or strength.

Exactly. And so it's a very natural place where that would happen. But anything that's held together electromagnetically is intact. Rocks, boulders, no problem. Your PAN cap, you, and the electromagnetic force. is forty orders of magnitude, forty powers of ten, stronger than gravity. Effect on something that's held together by electromagnetic forces, like rocks. But if you're a pe- a rubble pile?

That's all held together by gravity and you come near the rush slope, it'll totally The rocks themselves within the rubble. Altyazı M.K. But they'll break apart. So another two rocks here, they're together We don't know whether some asteroids are just rubble piles or whether they're solid, which matters if we're gonna deflect them en route to hitting us. Oh'cause you've got to push it out of the way. need like twenty Ben athletes.

He was part of that. Was he? Yeah. He goes on the thing with But he's m it was Bruce Willis. Bruce Willis is the old salty guy and then Ben is like loose, but then Ben's ends up being the guy Tyler, she helped out too. Oh my God. You need something to come back to. Exactly. I don't know if you know, but we recently did an explainer on the Roche Limit. Oh, perfect. So anyone who was confused by what I just said. Or by what you said?

Well the reason this question got asked after your explainer is the buzz on social media is your explainer was eh Mm. So you just uh catch it in our archives. Okay. We d I think we do well on our explainers.

Bev happy galactic gumbo to you, Dr. Dyson. If you could delete one overused sci fi movie trope, what would it be? Thank you for keeping the educational Eternal Flame strong. Bev a one syllable name from Alabama. Given up on this, so I'm going to mention it, but not that I think it'll ever happen. They should stop, you should stop hearing explosions in space. It would be completely silent. Because There's no air in space to propagate the sound. The waves.

it is to where you are, completely silent. So it makes for much less drama if there's just Okay, that's all good and technical. Can I have one now? Yeah, what's yours? Can we delete the speech where they save humanity? Have you met humanity? It's annoying. Well how about the one where the astronaut is like

Are they lost in space or are they gonna save somebody or not save somebody? And it's always the video of the kid that was just born and they're touching the video screen back on Earth. Yeah. You know, really, come on, can we move on from that, please? You know? It's just a Anybody who has like a nine month old kid, keep him on Earth. Yeah. You don't send him into space.

No, and he doesn't need to be on a video at nine. He's gonna be doing that the rest of his life. How about the fact that when they show up, the aliens, they immediately speak perfect English, okay? Meanwhile, you can't understand the guy from Glasgow, Scotland right now. All right. And suddenly right no, seriously, like you got an octopus. No, the alien study. No, the alien study. No, it's it does it doesn't wash for me. They can learn they're smart.

Why are we always assuming that we're dumb and they're smart? Because that's another truck. Because they arrived here. We we we cheer on people who ascend a hundred kilometers above Earth. surface which is the equivalent of two dimes above A schoolroom globe. They go up and come back and we celebrate them as astronauts. We have an alien coming from across the galaxy. No, they just it took'em a long time to figure it out. Why do we give them credit?

I'm just saying they come across the galaxy. I'm thinking they're smarter than us. I'm thinking they have higher technology. I'm thinking they could read a dictionary and be fluent right after they read it. But do you but the i they could read the dictionary and just say this is a really stupid race and it's not worth it. They could do that too. In fact, they likely will. Exactly. Uh so th so those are your tropes. You have any others that come to mind?

So those with the touching the screen of the newborn infant from your spouse at home and and the Where the astronauts are floating in That's fine, that's fine. That's fine. Yeah. So there's another one. They have these sort of laser weapons. Okay. And again they're making noise. Yeah. Hãy subscribe cho kênh Ghiền Mì Gõ Để không bỏ lỡ những video hấp dẫn You see the laser going from the to ship to the target. No, the lasers headed to the target.

If you can see the laser, that means it's sending light sideways. to you. Right. It means there's something there reflecting the light. It would be like the kid went like this with the the chalkboard erasers. Okay, now do the lasers so we can see the laser beam. That's not how But wait, the laser beam has an endpoint that it hits the object. But you're not seeing the beam. You know, you won't see the beam at all. It's light. It's light and unless you can reflect it out of the beam to your eye.

How do you know that there's not something happening in space You'd have to be in the middle of a big gas cloud to make that happen. And then you'd have particles reflecting a That's sort of the chalk in the thing. That that's that's the equivalent of the chalk. Right. I don't think we need to save humanity. That's all I know. Kurt Guy. Hey, Neil and Paul. Paul, on your show Permission to speak, you spent years pulling the extraordinary out of ordinary people.

From a cosmic perspective, Neil always says we're all made of stardust. after hearing so many different life stories, what's the atomic common thread you found that proves we're all part of the same human constellation? I love that. And so that reminds me that your stage show is not just you on stage, a fundamental part is you interacting with the audience. Yeah. just born out of my stand up and liking to talk to audiences and getting these amazing stories.

Caught on and now they leave the front rows empty? It's like going to a Gallagher show where he's smashing few through. Calendar for those who are over fifty. Open people up. You act like you're young. You're seventy-eight. Prostate. I know. Although I do get asked if it's a pre-planned if they've been scripted or not. I get you. I know you're you're you're talented. I you don't need that. I get that. So you n you read the audience by whatever metrics.

And you know what thread will work through them so that you have a meaningful exchange of content and humor. Yes. And so is this because you know human nature so well? 'Cause I have my counterpart to that uh just as an educator, but I wanna hear'cause the comedian is way closer than the educator is.

I think that people wanna be heard and I think people wanna be heard in a context where they feel safe. I define safe as like not worrying about political correctness and what you could say and also that they're not gonna be made fun of. That would mean emotionally safe, not physically safe. Yes, okay. And then uh although they are there are we do this over an alligator pit, so there's a physical safety issue. Yeah, yeah. Of course. Hello. Uh for me

What I've been told, and I can't speak to this, I do have this natural curiosity. I'm not just asking the questions as part of an act. So and when you get to that second, third, and fourth question, you get these amazing stories. And I think the reason that it works is because There's something that I call a we all have beautiful imperfection. And what I say in my show is I like that.

We're imperfect and we should embrace that. You know, in other words, we wanna think that life comes in nice neat boxes and everything's black and white, but life would be boring. But in the imperfection

That's what's interesting. That's where you get crazy stories, funny stories, how fair stories. Because we're all making imp imp imperfect decisions all the time, but that's okay. And I think what happens is And a connection happens with people in the audience that night because they're sitting there going, consciously or subconsciously, oh, this guy's as imperfect as I am, and I feel pretty good about that. Maybe we should redefine those imperfections.

As perfections, if they're fundamental to what it is to be alive. Oh. Wow. That's a lot deeper than I thought of it, but and so No, it's the uh it's the it's uh in the same vein of that is if everyone is special then no one is special. Right. It's the same kind of Yeah. But if everyone has imperfections, then that's what the perfection is. But Kurt asked about common thread, and I think the common thread is that people wanna be connected.

Especially now, things are divisive and they uh seem to only be getting worse. But it's not a political show. But I think people wanna be connected and they get connected through these stories. And I think the other thing that happens is I think it gets us out of our silos to be aware that there are other people out there different from us in a way that's good to know. You don't have to agree with it, like it, or understand.

But you have to know in advance that they're gonna like that. They're not gonna get up and walk out of the show. They do. Okay. I mean I've had I've had stories where you're like, Oh my God. I mean I've had two heroin addicts on stage, one recovering and one didn't want to recover. Bring them up on stage. Oh yeah, they come on stage. I bring them up in groups. All right. Four or six people at a time and then we just start. That's brave. I've seen you do that at the beginning of Colbert.

Yeah. Yes, and what um what ends up happening is It really turns into like we're hanging out in somebody's big basement having drinks and telling stories for people who have never met before because then people from the audience will start to yell out questions, which is fine with me. And then the beautiful thing for me is They don't leave right after the show's over. They come over to somebody and they'll say, Oh, you're from Portland, I'm from Portland. If they learn that about them. Yeah.

Yeah, and they and they would they were drawn in by the conversation. So I think it's the common thread of sort of we're all imperfect and we're all figuring it out. to send you to the Middle East. Whoa. And bring peace to the world. Oh yes, okay. I'm uh I'm the one. You know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna go in my speedo. That'll make people throw up.

Nobody can fight'cause they're all throwing up. But but thank you for asking that question. Uh uh uh it gives me a chance to explain the show a little bit. Yeah, yeah. It's pretty awesome. My version of that, I don't know if I got asked it as well. Yeah, I think it's true. Well yeah. I rely on an assumption. That everyone is fundamentally curious at some level. And if they forgot how to be curious, there are embers that just need to be fanned.

can then reignite in their adulthood embers that were there as child as children. And there's nothing more satisfying to an educator than to watch an adult have a resurfaced feeling of wonder. About the world that kids have every day. So here's what you do. We talked about emotional safety in my show. What you do is what I'll call intellectual safety. Like I never feel stupid and I don't think anybody

I've been trying to make it feel so I've been failing at that. Let me let me go back and try again. You really suck at that. No, you give it you give intellectual safety and those two things together. You can draw people in emotionally with enthusiasm and not being pedantic and talking down to them. And you never make somebody feel They don't fear they don't fear displaying their ignorance. Exactly. Yeah, okay. And so when look, I mean we've got to be a little bit more.

I will attack you. I will attack you if you don't know that you're ignorant and are y coming out Right. Right. 'Cause then you're in this place where You you you know enough to think you're right, right, and you don't know enough to know you're wrong, and then you're aggressive. I don't I you know I'm Yeah. Everybody watching, everybody listening and you and I have had a moment where you go I don't wanna ask that question, I'm gonna feel s it's gonna sound

That would be you and me. Not you and I. Okay, you see, this is why people don't socialize with you. This is why you're alone a lot. Sitting there pulling bread apart, doing the Roche limit. Just say. So I think that that's a a common thing, especially when you're younger. It's like I want to ask this question and I feel stupid to ask it. And then you ask it and the person goes, It's great you asked that because five other people had the same question. You never m create an environment

where you feel like you could ask a stupid question and you have enthusiasm. So you give what I'll call intellectual safety in that way. I think it's really important. All right. Okay, good. Yeah. This is great. Time for a couple more. Of course. Det mesta du gör behöver elektricitet. Vi på vattenfall finns här för att du ska få ett elavtal som är tryggt och lätt att förstå, och som låter dig göra precis det du vill.

Välj ett fossilfritt elavtal som du kan lita på, för livet går på elektricitet. Vattenfall: there's a way. ご視聴ありがとうございました Trygghet för liv.

I am Olican Hemraj and I support Star Talk on Patreon. This is Star Talk with Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Hi Doctor Tyson. If space itself is expanding faster than light, what's really stopping us from ever outrunning the universe and is the limit physics? Or just our current understanding of it. Alan Ray are here, an Indian turning in from Vilmius, Lithuania. Whoa.

Okay. So if I understand that question, you're If space is expanding, and the fastest you can travel in the space is the speed of light, and space is expanding faster than the speed of light. Seven miles for seven three. Okay, glad you go ahead. Yeah. The speed of light is hundred and eighty six thousand two hundred and eighty two miles per second. If the space is expanding faster than light and within space the fastest you can move is the speed of light, you're not outrunning the universe.

Is it ever possible? you're not outrunning the universe. That's not happening. And is it is it do we know that or do we just think that there's science out there that we don't understand that? If the universe recollapsed. And is not then stretching at faster than the speed of light, then yeah, you can get wherever you want. It could be beat it. Every place you see you can get there. Right. A at the speed of light or less. But

Right now we're it live in a universe where there's a distance at which it's receding from us faster than the speed of light. And it's not a problem because that's Einstein's general theory of relativity, which places no s speed limits What is causing it to recede at faster than the speed of light? Do we know? The two things. The original energy of expansion.

was greater than the escape velocity of the universe itself. That's another way to think about that. That's what it'll expand forever. But we also found dark energy, which is this negative pressure that's forcing the expansion to accelerate. And so that puts it out of reach. Negative pressure. I thought you were talking about your personality. Okay. Umot. So you're not outrunning the universe. So just ch chill out.

Well we wanna we wanna get a couple more in here as we finish. Diego Calderon. Hello Doctor Tyson. I'm Diego Calderon from the world's longest and narrowest country. Home to some of the world's most advanced telescopes. I'm a new Patreon member and someone deeply curious about the universe. Our telescopes can detect parts of reality we are completely blind to radio waves, infrared, X-rays, and gamma rays. but they always translate them into forms our senses can understand.

If humans could develop one extra sense to better discover the universe, what sense would you choose greetings from? Where is it? There you go. Santa Claus. I feel like you're hitting on me right now. Yeah. Oh we heard a tango? The Andes mountain range it goes like practically the full length of Chile. And so all the great telescopes in South America landed in Chile for that reason. There's also very good uh atmospheric stability

Because the mountains are right on the ocean shore. And so the way the air comes in and interacts with the mountain range, it creates for very stable observing environment. It's halt relative to that and the air is cool off the ocean. So it all combines the same advantages they get in in Hawaii and the big observatories. We should go on a vacation there together. To the Andes. You and me? You know, bring the wives. I don't know if they're gonna want to come. Leave your speed open.

You know what it'd be? Better discover what we do. Come here, give me that right there. Mine was know what you're talking about. Common sense. Uh we don't need I mean I feel a little privileged here as a scientist because scientists have dozens of senses. Just like the just like Diego commented, we can see infrared, ultraviolet, X-rays, gamma rays, radio waves without our physiology.

enabling that because we have detectors. That's what science is. It's how to probe the world beyond our the capacity of our physiology to accomplish that. So because I can do it with my s with my with my Tools, I'm not thinking that I'm deficient. Right. But I he's talking about not through tools but just a natural I know. I'm just saying I don't feel the deficiency that he's asking. Right.'Cause I have Tech yes. And if there's I think common sense is something humans lack. What It's not common.

I just pick the ability to detect, you know, when someone actually t actually knows what they're talking about or is just a bag of hot air. How about that? That's that's science literacy, which empowers you to know when someone else is flipping.

I don't need a sense of dark matter. I need a sense that tells me where the hell my phone is so I don't tear my house apart like I'm a rabid dinosaur looking for some meat. I don't know. I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm getting angry now. That don't make sense when I get angry. So you lose your phone in your own home. Yes, you haven't done Which says anybody... Over. No, here we go. Here we go. So common sense is actually a good one.

Yeah,'cause I'm content with the senses that my methods and tools of science Otherwise bring to me. It's sort of the person you don't like and I agree is the one that will just come in, you know, full in a China shop like I know everything and doesn't want to hear. And and I don't mind someone doing that if they actually knew everything. But generally when you do know everything, you're not that aggressive. No, exactly. Yeah,'cause you're comfortable when you're not. Overcompensate.

Not overcompensate. I mean wait, what? Uh uh well that was a great question. Yeah, really good.

Um I think I'm Here we go. Hello, Dr. Tyson. In popular fiction, we experience time travel from one perspective either a single person traveling through time. or multiple people traveling to a specific time in a single event. We rarely, if ever, hear of multiple people traveling from multiple perspectives. How would the universe handle these separate events? Thanks from Austin Town, Ohio, Bob W. The universe can't handle the truth. Well it's conflicting cause and effect.

No, no. If if one person goes to one place and that's what the story is about, fine. But you can make another story about somebody going somewhere else and let there be a hundred stories about people going throughout. So maybe the question is, if someone is about to disrupt a timeline of events, It gets highly complicated if somebody else is in a different part of that timeline with similar capacity to influence. the timeline of events. Yeah. And then you h then it gets very chaotic.

But wait, the universe would have to either force all of those perspectives into one consistent story, split them into separate realities Yeah. Yeah. would just become one story. It wouldn't have to force anything. Okay, so then if time travel were possible, would multiple travelers from different points in time necessarily? It was really. Converge into contradictions? They would wreak havoc on the timeline we have come to know and love. They would turn it into a new timeline.

had them as part of that timeline to begin with. That's not science fiction. That's like the universe opening up too many tabs and everything crashes. It's that that's a t it's a too a a universe with too many tabs, I like that. Yeah. That's a perfect analogy. 'Cause I did my thesis in Chile over that. It's so weird. When were you there? Uh it seems it seems contradictory to me.

No, I'm just I think the issue is how much of a maelstrom would unfold if more than one person would mess We're meddling in the timeline sometimes. Can multiple conflicting paths be all true at the same time, or no? the same universe. No. Okay. That's what does conflict mean, right? So you can't have a universe where Hitler rises to power and in that same universe Hitler doesn't rise to power. Pick one. And so this is why people are thinking that timeline splits, you actually split universes.

So contradictory things can exist in two different universes. That's the only way to get out of that that's conundrum. Right. And and there are plenty of people who wanna think that way about universes. The timeline splits into two universes.

So I would time travel with you. All right. Yeah. If you didn't talk. As long as you leave your speedos behind, we're right in. Ah, there you go. Uh I think we did a nice job here. We got through a lot of questions. Yeah. One quick one and I'll answer it quick. A quick one. Okay, let me find the quick quick Patrick here, Dr. Tyson. Patrick, just another science nerd from Southeast Texas.

What if space time behaves like a supersolid, meaning it has both fluid like flow and crystal like structure? Could black holes actually be long lived topological defects in that medium rather than singularities? And if so, instead of destroying information, might they encode it in stable patterns or scars in space time itself, potentially releasing it later as structured gravitational wave echoes or even

Retro casual signals. This is a really basic question. And I wish this guy would be a little smarter. Wow. That's a great question. That question is so trivial. I'll let you take it. Well, you know, I I'm a big fan of crystal light. Uh it's like a lemonade but it doesn't have all the calories. Is that what we're talking about here? So I'd like the notion that something we think of as Just empty space.

is reinterpreted as a medium within which you can embed information. I kinda I like where he where he's going there. Okay. And we know how you make a black hole. So if you can make a black hole in this medium, then the black hole itself is not some blemish that's there.

When we look at crystals, there are imperfections within crystals that make for some interesting properties. Some of those imperfections give them certain color hues because the light doesn't go through smoothly. Yeah, yeah. And so

But a black hole is a very natural phenomenon. So I can't think of it as an imperfection. I refuse to think of it as an imperfection. But if a black hole has the power to send out ripples, into that medium that contain echoes of what happened inside, and that then somehow gets embedded in that medium, that's a cool idea. The question is what so here's what you do. When you have an idea, however outlandish, you ask how would we test

Is there some light echo left by a black hole in the middle of empty space that we should be looking for? Is there some scar or record within the fabric of space and time? that would betray the existence of these black holes or other imperfections. And you'd have to pose the question in a way that our telescopes can answer. Otherwise it's just fun science fiction.

What about the the his supposition? What if space-time behaves like a supersolid, meaning that it's both fluid-like flow and crystal-like structure? Do we believe there is a separate So what if and then if it is, then it would somehow capture these echoes in its substance, if it is a thing. Right? And And it sh it's probably not all it would capture. There'd be some other phenomena When we say echo in this context, we mean sort of what happened w w the the after effects of a black hole.

Yeah, just a black hole being a black hole. How d does it does it vibrate? Does it trigger some pulse? Is there a gravitational wave that has information embedded within it? So So yeah, I don't have a problem thinking that way. But if you're gonna do that, you wanna come up with predictions. And No, it would be it would be His job. Wow. Okay. Wait a minute. I'm leaving it to him to come up. Did you semi retire from s science? Uh I'm tired. I'm tired.

Damn tired. That's another trope in every movie. I'm tired. I can't do this. I'm too damn old for this. Uh well, that was a great question. And it uh I think we've wrapped up. We've got a we've got a lot of. Right, we're good. Probably didn't get'em get to them all. No we did not. All right, maybe next time. Yes. Very disappointing. We'll find you. Uh so w what are your next cities? my website callmancurio.com and uh there's I'm right there, you can't miss me, home page in my Speedo.

And after May twenty first, uh if you need your lawn mode. I'm Who wants mayonnaise on their sandwich? I'm the guy. I can do anything Sure. Colbert show and um yeah. Yeah okay. Kind of weird and strange, but it is really All right, dude. Thanks for coming. Yeah, great to see ya. All right, this has been Star Talk Cosmic Queries. Grab bag. Fan favorite. Neil deGrasse Tyson here, as always bidding you to keep.

Det mesta du gör behöver elektricitet. Vi på vattenfall finns här för att du ska få ett elavtal som är tryggt och lätt att förstå, och som låter dig göra precis det du vill. Välj ett fossilfritt elavtal som du kan lita på, för livet går på elektricitet. Vattenfall, there's a way.