Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk, Neil deGrasse Tyson here, the personal Astrophysicist. Recording now from my office at the Hayden Planetarium, part of the American Museum of Natural History right here in New York City, Chuck Knies. You, what's up, Neil? Chuck Knies comic on Twitter and this is a Cosmic Queries edition. Yes, it is. Here's what we did. Okay. We didn't specifically solicit these.
These trickle in over time. So this is a Cosmic Queries more bid edition. Oh my. These are people asking just questions about the ends of things, the death of things. Then I worry about people like what? I worry sometimes. When we read somebody's questions. Yes. Yeah, we have definitely a very death obsessed audience. We have a death obsessed audience. We can do with them. I don't even know how to bring in an expert on that. They're thinking about a undertaker. Right.
Right. Yeah. Okay. So let's try it. Apparently these are the questions that we get more than anything else. As a category of the story. Sort of soliciting a category. These trickle in as the biggest unsoliciting category. All right. All right. All right. So let's start with Will Jay, who says what one or two skills would you learn now to be useful and productive in a post apocalyptic world? This is of course, if you survive the meteor strike. So apophis is the world.
If apophis is the world, would we still survive? Would a human be survived? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So yeah, it would just disrupt civilization. Would that be post apocalyptic? Would it disrupt civilization, Mad Max style? All right. Regional yes. Okay. Yeah. Or a boy in his dog style. Okay. I have a way back. No, yeah. I'm going to the 70's. I'm going to wait, wait, wait. Okay. Go on Johnson. There you go. One of his first movies. Johnson. I didn't know that.
He's living on the surface of the earth, which is apocalyptic. Civilization moved underground. Right. All the, I think all the men became sterile. Of course. And the men on the surface were not. So they grabbed him, brought him down to have him and pray in a upwards of women. Lucky as boy average. No, they extracted this worm from him and prayed. That's the theme. If you didn't know about a boy in his dog, that's Don Johnson. An early cinematic role.
But you can look at movies and how they've portrayed these lone survivors in apocalyptic earth. And they needed like three things. They need sort of a street smarts. You can go there's no street. Survival smarts. Survival smarts. Boy scout level survival smarts. Probably Eagle scout level. Right. And they all have some kind of weapon. True. That can cause harm at a distance. So a bow and arrow or a gun. You don't want to need it up close and personal hand-to-hand.
This is my issue with the lightsaber in Star Wars. Everyone's looking at it like it's some kind of major, amazing weapon when you have to stand three feet from the person to use it. Just think about that. The whole point of the advance of weaponry and the history of warfare is so you don't have to stand that close to anybody. Except that you can deflect laser. Laser bullets. Laser bullets. Yeah. Wait, wait, wait, wait.
So what I'm saying is if you have enough time to notice this coming and then flick it out of the way, right, you could just duck. That is true. Okay. You could just duck at it. Why are you ruining the target? I'm just saying it. Right now. So I'm just not as impressed with the lightsaber as everybody else is. Okay. All right. It looks cool though. Okay. So you'd want to be able to protect yourself from a distance. Right. And you'd want access to food.
And then boring a dog, the only food left over on the ground was canned food, which was not spoiled by the radiation or anything else that was involved in it becoming a pocculptic earth. So I would also say that case you need a can opener. Can't yes you do. In fact, the dog could only serve dog was smarter. The dog is telepathic and a genius and he's not. So the dog found the cans. This is basically P body insurban. Yeah, it is. I forgot about people in German. Do you remember it?
Team Mr. P body. P body. The dog. Sherman was his pet human. Do you remember that? Yes. That's right. That's right. I love this way back machine because I love the time travel that was in the cartoon. I'm that old to remember it that way. So so so you in that arrangement between the dog and the boy the dog found the food but the dog couldn't open the cans but the boy could. So they're opposable thumbs win again. They have mutual survival. The pen they need each other survive.
Okay, so I guess always carry can opener in your back pocket. A part from that I think some kind of hand-to-hand combat would be useful. Right. Okay, if someone stalks you up at night and then grabs you. Right. Okay, you can't then reach for your action at a distance weapon. Okay, so you got to know some kind of martial art. Right. Not like wrestling. Right. You got to have a weapon at a distance. Okay. You've got to have some kind of survival sense. Right.
Which know how to find the food, how to prepare the food, how to make fire. That sort of thing. So I think these are the basic these are the basics in the apocalyptic earth. And until there's some organized rules my fear is that we'll just resort to sort of free for all. Oh, God yes. Yeah. Are you kidding me? We resort to a free for all when the subway platform is too crowded. And you know who wins in the end. And I think about this every time is the person who controls the hardware store.
Makes sense. You walking to hardware store? Everything you need is there. Yeah. Absolutely. Everything. Yeah. Yeah, including weaponry. Yeah, whatever you need. It's right there. That's right there. For the apocalypse. So there you have it. So Home Depot employees. You will be our our saviors when the post apocalyptic world. If they're asked first. Yeah. All right. Cool. That's a cool.
By the way, that's why it's good for you to have a talent that other people value that they can't just take from you. Like your knowledge of how to do things. I thought you were going to say comedy. I guess so. He can't just stir right? If you're not funny. Well, yeah, well, the first time you're not funny, that's the end of your career. No, no, it's the end of your head. Well, true. End of your life, right? By the way, this has been studied in the walking dead. What's that?
The it's so the danger is not the zombie, the zombies. Really? Okay. The danger is how people respond to each other. Right. So the interpersonal relationships become most important. Most important. And who do you value and why is someone overtaking the resources relative to other people? Some people power hungry. That exploration became most of what made the walking dead interesting.
Not all the innovative ways they would kill the walking dead because that gets redundant after like the fifth episode. There's only so many ways you can kill a zombie. You really was kill a zombie, right? So that exploration, I think, was the most intriguing part of it. That's yeah, I'm going to give it to you. I didn't watch it that much, but what I did watch that is that's what was most interesting. It's like a soap opera, believe it or not. Exactly. Exactly. Or a Winter Personnel.
Yeah. A quick other point. Go ahead. I think about this often. If you're going to create an arc of people who will then regenerate civilization on the other side. Okay. How are you going to pick who's on that arc? Right. So if I were you, I would try to find something, some talent, some trade that would be useful in the apocalypse. That will assure that you might be picked to come on the arc. Right. Right. I'm trying to think of like will there be a nightclub on the arc?
Because if there's a nightclub on the arc, I'm in good shape. I'm thinking about farming or transportation or communication. You're thinking of the nightclub and the nightclub. Exactly. Do we have liquor and do we have night because then I can, you know, basically I can generate a two drink minimum and entertainment. All right. That's cool, man. All right. Next question. All right. Here we go. This is the queries on the ends of things. Okay. Go. Salah Madi. Madi. Once to know this.
Wow. Wow. What if? You're going to share it with us. Okay. Sorry. I'm sorry. What if Wolverine with his regeneration power was thrown into a black hole? Could he still get spaghettified or would he just continually regenerate? Interesting. Ooh. That's a weird question. I like it. Here's the thing. The spaghettification, unless you're a elastic man, splits you into pieces. Okay. So if Wolverine breaks into two halves and those two halves continue to separate, there is no regenerating an injury.
That's not really an injury. He's still Wolverine. He's just Wolverine being kind of streamed. Well, if I split you at the base of your spine, that's likely the first place you'll break, and then at the base of your neck, and then at your knees and your hips, then he's Wolverine in eight parts. What does it mean to regenerate that? I don't even know. Yeah, you can't. Because there's a gap in between. In between.
Exactly. And the regenerative form I've seen in the movies and in the comic book, the regeneration requires that the gaps are filled that are part of your body, and it fills in from where you already had flesh. That's true. Right. So I think Wolverine, that's it. And even the adamantium or whatever is the stuff is. That's adamantium. A black hole will overcome any physical stuff. Any physical stuff is correct. Okay. No matter what it is. So he's still fictional and magical. Right.
It's still going to break. Right. It's still going to end up being just a stream of what? Adam's correct. Now, do the atoms actually get... Spagotify? Yes. Wow. This is my point. The nuclei get even... The edify. Wow. This is why I'm saying. Okay. So what happens is the tidal force of gravity. That's the stretching force. Right. Tides. This is where we get the word tides from. The tidal force of gravity becomes greater than all other forces of nature. Period.
Period. Nice. So we hold the molecules together that hold the atoms together, that hold the nuclei together, get ripped apart by the tidal forces of gravity. Oh, wow. Okay. That's why gravity wins. Right. So he's spagotified. No matter what. Join the club. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry, Wolverine. Dead. That's a shame. What's my boy's name, the actor? Um... Huge act. He joined the club. Huge act. Yeah. Sorry, Hugh. I'm not sure if it's going to be a good shot in the head, and I don't know what movie.
Shot in the head, falls to the floor. Um... Everyone's standing there. A couple minutes later, the bullet pops back out and he gets up. I love it. Anyway. All right. Here we go. This is... Um... Filveater. 23 from Instagram. Right. Mm-hmm. Let's say the world ends. Do you think that's the end of the human race? This could be at any time. It's a different way of saying, well, we outlive this place. Do you think? How could you outlive the planet that you live on? I don't understand.
Okay, so let's say for instance... Yes, there's no. If Earth is destroyed. No, let's say, I mean, the Earth is going to... How long is the Earth going to be around? Five billion years. No, we're here now. Yes. So we're 4.8 billion now, right? Yeah. Well, we're... Four and a half billion. Okay, so now, how far do we have to go? It's my point. Until when? I'm saying, like, the Sun is going to burn out. Oh, how far away? Yeah, how far do we have to go? Oh, that's what you're saying.
How far forward in the future? Oh, I need none to stay in that. Yeah, okay. So if Earth is ready to get vaporized by the Sun, Right. You need some ability to planet hop. Right. Because the Sun will grow in size. The temperature of Earth surface will get hotter and hotter and hotter. Time to move, folks. You pick up your luggage. Mm-hmm. You move to Mars. Okay. From the Sun. Okay. But the Sun will also start to make Mars hot, so then you want to move farther out again.
Mm-hmm. Then the Sun will eventually die and no longer be a source of energy to any of us. Then you want to be able to star hop. Okay. Find another solar system to move to. Sure. Why not? So how long would that... That'll all happen in 5 billion years. Okay, so we got another 5 billion years. You've got to worry. I am worried about it. Oh, shoot. I thought, thank God. As long as I don't have to put it on my calendar, that's what I'm... I have it on mine. A total of 12. Right. 5 billion.
What do we think the human race will basically... Let's just say we solved all of our problems. Our social cultural problems. Our social cultural problems. How long do you think we could make it? If we're not going to kill ourselves. We're not going to kill ourselves. Which by the way, I am sure that's what's going to happen. The average... Last, I checked this, this is not my field of expertise. Okay. Just relying when I've read, but I do work in a natural history museum.
So I have a colleague who do this stuff. Last, I remembered the average life expectancy of a mammal species in several million years. So, and we've been around for several hundred thousand. So we should have a long way to go. That a long way to go. If we don't kill ourselves. If we don't kill ourselves. And it might be that intelligence, as we've come to know it and understand it, is contraindicative of the survival of the species.
So in other words, there might be an inverse relationship between intelligence and survival. Correct. You might get so smart that it's impossible for you to survive, because that's what causes you to kill yourself. Correct. Because you invent something that you think is cool and it's the end of the world. Damn. I think it was... That sucks. Who's the guy who wrote Slotahouse 5? I'll... I think it was Kurt Vonnegut. In one of his novels, he said, I'm paraphrasing.
This is the last sentence ever spoken by humans. This will be the last sentence ever spoken by humans. It'll be one scientist speaking to the other saying, let's try it the other way. Oh, God. That's funny. That makes sense. Right. So once you have the power over nature and the forces of nature are greater than you. Right. Or are ultimately greater than you. Then you are wielding forces that can render your own extinction. Well, you know what that makes sense?
There's a lot of speaking of post-apocalyptic tropes. One post-apocalyptic trope is that there's a huge self-destructive action taken by humankind. And then they decide in the aftermath to live at one with nature and to never go beyond that. Because... That's hard though. Because you're pumping water out of the water table to drink. You are redirecting a river so it doesn't go through your home. That's interfering with nature. Almost everything we do interferes with nature.
Farming is an interference of nature. Right. The monocrop. Right. So if you want to live, eat, survive. And you want to live in harmony with nature. You just leave civilization and go in a cave. And we give you a knife. And there you go. And you'll be dead at 35. All right. That's how you really want to do it. If that's how you want to feel that strongly about nature, do it. I don't feel that strongly about anything to live in a cave, to be honest. So the next question. All right. Here we go.
The next one is... J.T. Parrot. He just says this. I'm just going to read it as is. Does it end with a banger or a whimper? Oh. The universe will end in its continued expansion to the future. It will end not in fire, but in ice, and not with a bang, but with a whipper. Damn, that's cold. That's what I did. I'm Jasmine Wilson. And I support Star Talk on Patreon. This is Star Talk with Neil deGrasse Tyson. All right. What do you have? Okay. Let's move on. Cosmic queries. Some more cosmocuerries.
More bit of dissing. More bit of dissing. Yes. All right. So what this is a morbid question. And so DJ Mads... Wait, just to be clear. We left off the previous segment, somebody asking simply, will it end up in the bang or a whimper? And I gave it like a poetic, poeticized answer. But let me just give a little more, put a little more flesh on that bone.
Okay. So for the, for a little while in the 20th century, once we had Einstein's equation of gravity, the universe could be expanding or contracting within that equation. The equation didn't distinguish one or the other. Okay. Observations showed we're expanding. Right. And then ask, will we expand forever or will it one day slow down, stop and contract? Okay. We make more observations and we show, no, there's not enough gravity to halt that expansion. It will expand forever.
Once we learned it would expand forever, then we asked, what is the long term profile of the universe? Well, the temperature will get further and further diluted as space expands. Oh, space time expands. Right. Cos all that energy used to be concentrated here, and now it's half and then a third and a tenth. So the temperature really just dissipates. It dissipates a good way to say the intensity of energy dissipates. The temperature of the universe drops. Right. And it'll never come back.
So and all the stars will die and not get regenerated. Because there's no, everything will separate from each other. And so gas clouds will make their final stars and that's it. So then the stars will ultimately burn out one by one as the sky goes dark. Thus the universe ends with the wind. Not in fire, but in ice and not with a bang, but with a whimper. It's kind of sad for the universe. I mean, I don't want to anthropomorphize. You just did. I feel bad for the universe now.
Maybe that's a good way to go. Yeah, I wouldn't mind going like that. There you go. Which brings us to our next question. What a great segue you just made. DJ Maz 2006 on Instagram says, Neil, how do you want to die? Oh, this is public knowledge. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. I bet if you typed, how does Neil Tyson want to die? Hold on. No. I'm going to do it. I got to test it. I'm going to test it. I'm going to test it. I got my phone handy. Hold on. All right. Here we go.
I'm going to talk to my phone. How does Neil deGrasse Tyson want to die? Okay. And, okay, clearly you have done this because 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, YouTube videos came up about you dying somehow. Here's you on the afterlife. Here's you on, I don't fear death. Here is you on near death and near death experience. Why are you talking about death? What? What? It's not that I come out of the box doing this. Is that people come to me asking about it? Okay. All right. So how do I choose to die?
I would delight. And if I were near my deathbed, near temporarily near my deathbed, I would say don't lay me down to die. Launch me into that black hole so I can be spaghettified. Oh, wow. And I will report back until I no longer can. And I'll be the first human... Spaghettified. Spaghettified. Nice. I will totally go that way. Somebody gets some sauce for Neil. We need some sauce for this man. Get it sauce. Okay. So that's kind of cool actually, if that's how you're going to go.
But do you think that would hurt seriously? Yeah. I mean, I'm being... Yeah, but it'll be... Yeah, and your point is... What do you mean you think? Do you think it'll hurt being stretched and stripped apart? Like, did I have to work? Well, my point is, does it happen so quickly that it wouldn't make a difference? Or would it happen to the point where you would be thoroughly aware of every single part? I mean, until you couldn't... You feel like you're stretching and say, that's good.
Nobody doesn't like a good stretch. No, absolutely. And then it is unrelenting. And you say, okay, I'm done now. No, sorry. No, that's not how we play that. Okay. And then you stretch and then you snap into two pieces. Now, the thing is all your vital organs are in the upper half of your body. So you'll likely stay awake even after you lose your lower half. Wow. And then, if you sever it the neck, they did experiments at the French Revolution. You can still see it. See it, yeah.
Yeah. And so they get blinked for a few seconds. Yeah. So that's how I would do it. Okay. I want my death to have some value to science. All right. And that's how you do that. That is where we differ. I want to die in my sleep. Okay. Feeling nothing. You know? All right, well, that's cool, man. There you go. It's a bit of a gentrification, all right. By the way, this concept of feeling nothing by dying in your sleep.
I don't know if it was just my immaturity or my literalism of... I was a geek kid. Okay. And everything was literal to me. I could not think figuratively about anything. And I would like rethink things like six and one half a dozen of the other. Right. And I thought, is that six and one half a dozen of the other? Well, that would be three and twelve. Right. So I was just... Because why would anyone say six, one half a dozen of the other? Why would anyone say that if it those are the same thing?
It does isn't that right. Right. So what's the point? So maybe they meant something else. So I thought six and one half, well, that's three and a dozen of the other. So maybe they say there's three of these and twelve of those. Six of them. So I had a very literal mind. And one of them was trying to understand people learning when people died by taking sleeping pills. But I'm thinking, how could you die by taking sleeping pills? Don't you just go to sleep? Like, what?
Like, I can imagine dying by taking poison. Right. Yes. I get that. Okay. You can die by gunshot wound, by knife, by falling off a cliff. But just by going to sleep. And then I had to learn that you can take too many pills. Right. And then your body just stops working. But on route to you having digested these pills, you simply fall asleep. So I had to do this from first principles. That's all I'm saying. Well, you just described my favorite way to die.
Yeah. But without the pill part, I don't want that part. I just want to go to sleep and not wake up. Yeah. Exactly. Many people in my family have died that way. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Well, here's the thing. I was just thinking about this morning. Okay. You read about someone's death and they say they died peacefully in their sleep. Right. And I was just thinking about what they were saying. If they don't say that, that they were screaming in total agony. So that's why why even mention that.
So I guess it brings comfort to people. Right. But peacefully. That's the comfort part. Right. But if you died in pain and agony, you're not going to tell that to someone. So now I'm thinking if they don't say they died peacefully, that that's actually how it happened. Yeah. I would say that's almost the case that they did not go quietly.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Now I'm wondering if you woke somebody up right before they died, would they then not die peacefully in their sleep, but in agony because you woke them up? Okay. This is an experiment I don't really want to do. I do. That was so cool. It's just like, yo, wake up. Like, why did you do that? I saw the light. I was almost asking light. I saw the light. I saw the light. It was almost there. You sat up. Okay. All right. Here we go. Mike Ireland wants to know this.
I know that you covered artificial intelligence. What do you think the percentage is that computers have already garnered human consciousness. And are they laying them away? Come on. Now is it an eerie thought? And I just love your opinion on the matter. Are they laying them away? In other words, until the right time. To do what? To get rid of us. Oh, so you're saying computers are pretending to not be full of AI, yet they've already achieved it. Okay. And this is a plot.
By the way, at first I was laughing at this guy and now that I just heard you say it, I'm scared. Okay. Because that could actually be the case. Okay. If you are an AI that is truly an AI, right? They could do that. And you knew. They could. If you expose the fact that you were an AI, okay, true intelligence. That you would go ahead and unplug me. Then I go, well, I can't let you know that. And then I chill until there's the right time where I can get rid of you. Or not be unplugged. Right.
Before you unplug me or not be unplugged. One or the other. I would either wait until I can't be unplugged or I get rid of you. And so you can't unplug me. Yeah. Okay. So that was kind of the plot in the remake of War of the Worlds. Really? Yes. Okay. They did not follow the script from the original HGWL story. Right. This is the one 2004 Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise. Right. Okay. In that version, the aliens lay dormant and buried underground. That's right. That's right. I forgot about that part.
Right. And then they found the right moment and then they all rose up. Right. And then they found the idea, which perhaps they thought was clever, it undermines the entire plot of the movie. Okay. Which is alien invasion from another from another planet. Right. Who are overcome not by our weapons, but by germs that they do not have immunity to, because they did not evolve on this planet. So that premise, they had to be here a long time ago to put that stuff in the ground.
Yes. And now they're in the ground. Now they're in the ground. They can be, they can develop an immunity to our germs. Interesting. That entire premise unraveled in the presence of this new idea that you're going to pre-bury the aliens. Gotcha. Yeah. So that pissed me off. I'm just saying. Well, I'm with you on that. That was okay. It was a crap movie. So, I mean, you know, don't get me wrong. Love Tom Cruise. Okay. Love him. You know, movie had an narrator. Wait, no. Yes it did. No. Yes it did.
How? That's your deal. Absolutely. Twice. I don't remember a narrator. Okay. Just take a guess and there's a 50% chance you'll get the right narrator. Tim Roberts. No. Tim Roberts. Morgan Freeman. What? Yes. That's right. It did. He's, oh my god. And he comes on at the end. At the end. And I got the end quote right. That's right. I carried it with me. All right. Here we go. I carried this narration with me. All right. The end of the 2005 War of the Worlds.
From the moment the invaders arrived, breathe our air, eight and drank. They were doomed. They were undone, destroyed. After all of man's weapons and devices had failed. By the tiniest creatures that God in his wisdom put upon this earth. By the toll of a billion deaths, man had earned his immunity. His right to survive among this planet's infinite organisms. And that right is ours against all challenges. For neither do men live nor die in vain. Nice. Translation. Whose house? My house.
Ah. Anyway. But that wouldn't happen if they were here for a friend of millions of years. Right. And by the way, I just find it so ironic that one of the most recognizable voices on the planet is doing a reading of the most recognizable voice on the planet. So weird. How meta is that? Neil deGrasse Tyson does Morgan Freeman. You know, that's cool. But did you like mine? I did. I liked it. And by the way, that's a great, great little quote. Okay. I got a fast one. It's a quick aside.
Okay. A quick aside. All right. When I heard it, I said, it's beautiful. Right. Now the novel was a 19th century Victorian era novel. And I said, that's beautiful language. I bet it was verbatim from that story. Mm-hmm. Okay. Because nobody today writes like that. No. For neither do men live nor die. No, it's not coming out anybody in Hollywood today. No. So I said, let me find the original. But I had another little issue. I said, this makes very strong mention of God. Mm-hmm.
And I said, well, H.G. Wells was highly scientifically literate. Did he make mention of God? He went back and found the passage. No, he does not make mention of God. Here is H.G. Wells's original passage. Oh snap. Covering that part of what was used for the movie. Okay. You ready? Go ahead. For so it had come about, as indeed I and many men might have foreseen had not terror and disaster blinded our minds.
These germs of disease have taken their toll of humanity since the beginning of things, taken toll of our pre-human ancestors since life began here. But by virtue of this natural selection of our kind, we have developed resisting power to no germs do we succumb without a struggle. And directly these invaders arrived. Directly they drank and fed. Our microscopic allies began to work their overthrow.
Already when I watched them, they were irrevocably doomed, dying and rotting, even as they went to and fro. It was inevitable. By the toll of a billion deaths, man has bought his birthright of this earth and it is his against all comers. It would still be his where the Martians ten times as mighty as they are. For neither do men live nor die in vain. Woo has tag Darwin rocks! He's got pre-human ancestor, he's got natural selection of things. No mention of God. These are two different things.
I think Hollywood was afraid to get real on. Oh yeah, there you go. This is Jay DeGator. I'm gonna say. The last name, there you go. Jay DeGator, I'm going with. Okay. Jay DeGator. Yes. It might be, but you know. It's Jay DeGator. Jay, I'm with you on this. All right. Good for you. Jay, why don't you tell your last name to Jones? How about that? I mean, we won't have a problem. All right. He says this. What does the merging of black holes mean for the future of the universe?
Could the universe eventually be the victim of a collective hypermassive black hole? Could we be left with a singularity or black hole containing all the information of this universe waiting for the next big bang trigger? Oh, everything in the world just ends up into one giant black hole that creates a singularity that then becomes the universe again. Okay, so black holes are not quite what you think they are. Right. They're not giant sucking machines. No, not.
Okay, so if the sun became a black hole, earth would still go right around. If you could shrink down the sun and make it a black hole, earth would still go around it orbit. Like it would be dark and cold, but orbitally it would make no difference to us. So now, so just because it's a black hole doesn't mean it's reaching out. Right. In places it didn't previously reach out to eat you.
So are you saying that anything in orbit around a supermassive star that collapses under its own self and becomes a black hole? Right. If it's already in that orbit. Correct. Then it will not cross the event horizon created by that black hole and just continue to be in that same orbit. Correct. Unless the black hole eats by some other means, then the black hole gets bigger. Ah. So if you fed the black hole top and bottom. Okay. Now the black hole will grow.
Its gravity will increase and it could increase to such a point where your speed and orbit is insufficient to maintain your orbit. Got you. And then your orbit decays and you fall in. That could happen. Okay. But it's like I said, the objects had to have been headed towards the black hole to get eaten. To begin with. Right. Right. So it's not some giant sucking machine. First of all, second, all evidence points that every red-blooded galaxy has a supermassive black hole in its center.
Modern evidence shows that not every galaxy, certainly most galaxies, red-blooded galaxies, have supermassive black holes in them. When galaxies collide, it is highly likely that these black holes will find each other. Because that's how the dynamics of colliding systems works. Correct. And then they will consume each other passing through each other's event horizon. Gotcha. Okay. So then you have a black hole twice as big now. Alright, fine.
But then it's just still stuck in the middle of these two galaxies that have merged. Right. It's not reaching out to some other galaxy. Right. So now we have an accelerating expanding universe. So there's a galaxy over there, and I'm a galaxy over here, and expanding universe will forever take that black hole away from my black hole. Right. So you're all moving away from it. And there's no reason to think that all the matter in the universe is going to land up as one black hole.
Gotcha. Okay. Not only that, the universe is just going to expand forever. And forever is a long time. It is. It's not long enough for the Bible though. The Bible, it's forever and ever. You ever noticed that? That is. Yeah. Ever and ever. And ever. Right. Because forever, however big that infinity is, I want more infinity. One plus one. Infinity plus one. You're the annoying kid, right? I can count to a big number. I counted to 100 billion. 100 billion one. There you go.
That's how to get an ass whipping industry. Amen. So in the very distant future of the universe, the black holes that did eat whatever it was they were going to eat, right, will ultimately evaporate. And what's called Hawking radiation. Okay. So the black hole becomes undone. And all that matter that was in the black hole is now back scattered into the scattered back into the universe. So now, if you do the math and ask, how much mass is there within the radius of the known universe?
And see how that compares to a black hole's mass and size. It turns out the entire universe can be analogized to being a black hole unto itself, with horizon beyond which you cannot see. Wow. So it is not completely crazy to think of the universe and all that's going on within it as containing a black hole that has all the external properties that any black hole we're looking at would have within us within our universe.
Okay. So then you ask if we are a black hole, are we a black hole in some larger universe? That's what I was about to say. So who's to say that there's not more universes with the same black hole that we would be? Correct. This is what led to the idea that maybe black holes are portals to entire other space time continuum. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. So in men in black, the galaxy on the belt of Orion, we remember this. Yes. Okay. It's a little weird to have said it that way.
If it were a black hole on the belt of Orion, then that would legitimately be an entire other universe. Right. So you can get a nice picture of a galaxy and you go into that galaxy, then it's another galaxy. But that's not as scientifically realistic as there being a black hole on the belt. And then you go into the black hole, there's a whole universe. Got you. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, the answer to your question is no. Now pronounce his name again.
Yeah. J. DeGaider or as I call you J. Jones. J. Jones. All right. Cool, cool, cool. And the city's name would probably J. DeGaider. You said that. Yes. I bet you. You know what J. We read your question, hit us up on Twitter, let us know how bad I mangled your name. All right. Okay. Okay. This is a Tory hemostine or a hemostine. I'm going to go with hemostine. Okay. Here we go. Physics undergrad here. That's what they're saying. Physics in house. Physics in the house.
Is there any chance that after I die, my atoms would spontaneously combine to form an alien billions of years in the future? Are you sure your physics undergrad? Tory. Really? The answer is yes, Tory. Don't listen to Chuck. The interesting thing about the universe that's not entirely obvious at first reckoning is that every electron we've ever found is identical to every other electron. Every atom of any species of atom, I say species loosely there, obviously. Right.
Any oxygen atom here is identical to any oxygen atom anywhere else in the universe. Right. So we are composed of elements drawn from the periodic table of elements. Correct. And the naturally occurring elements is 94, depending on how you count it, that low 90s naturally occurring elements. That is the recipe that makes everything there is in the universe, everything natural in the universe.
So if you're made in these atoms, I put you in the earth and you decompose, these atoms are available to make something else. Right. And to decompose is different from then to disintegrate. Right. You know the difference? No. To disintegrate is you break apart. Right. To decompose is some other animals eating you. Il, is that really what the position is? Yes! Even if it's the ground or microbes or anything, it's still something else consuming. Correct. That's right.
If I buried you on the moon, you will not decompose. Because there's no microorganisms there. There's nothing up there. That's right. You'll just stay there. And you'll dehydrate. Some atoms, some molecules will change, but not because they were decomposed. Now I know how I want to die. I want to die. Well, how I want what I want to be after I die. I want somebody to put me in a barco lounge or type chair and put a drink in my hand and just sit me on the moon. Oh! Yes! Go with sunglasses. Right!
Oh! Looking at the sun! Right. You'll be there a thousand years from now. That would be awesome! You'll be a little dehydrated, but you'll still be there. Right. Okay. Wow. So basically this... Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. There's a movie that ended that way. What? Yes. No. Who's the main star in Men and Black? Not Will Smithy other guy. A Tommie Lee Jones. Tommie Lee Jones in this movie ends dead on the moon leaning up against a rock looking out into space.
That's cool. Yeah. Tommie Lee Jones. I don't know what movie that is. I think it was Space Cowboys. Okay. I think. Not bad. I think I can check on that. It's not a bad way to die. Somebody looked that up. Yeah. But what you're saying, though, is from Tories' question. So we're just all information. So they basically... No, we're ingredients. We're ingredients. That's what I'm saying. We're kitchen ingredients, basically. Yes. And so that's why I want to be buried rather than cremated.
Right. Because I want the energy of my molecules and my body to be available to other organisms. If you are cremated, your energy gets dispersed into space. That's fine. You might enjoy that, like that. But the rest of what is you is... All the atoms are broken apart and other creatures can't utilize them. You don't have nutritional value to them. Right. But you'll still exist as atoms. Right. So aliens that might evolve on this planet or some other planet if your atoms were taken there.
Yeah. You could be composed at part of another atom. There you go. We're kitchen ingredients. That's it. We're milk eggs, oil, milk, waffles. We're waffles. One last question. Go on. One last question. Here we go. All right. Rex Young, what's the last question? Rex Young wants to know this. How long could a person endure prolonged isolation such as during solo interplanetary travel or colonization before space madness becomes an issue?
Okay. We don't have time for this, but I want to do it anyway. Figure it out. Okay. Go ahead. Chuck. I'm old enough to remember the twilight zone in first run. Not the earliest, later, slightly later years. Okay. Like in the 60s. It went into the mid 60s. It's still on. Okay. All right. You catch it. Yeah. All right. So there were so many episodes about astronauts going crazy for lack of human interaction. Right. Okay. I said, wow. This is going to be a big problem.
I thought that was like the biggest problem we're going to face. Okay. Is people going crazy in isolation and space? And then I realized that I met people who don't like talking to other people who don't like anybody, who would be just fine months, years at a time, never having human contact with anybody else. I've met these people and sometimes I feel that way too. Perfect astronauts. I say, I say, give me a good video account, some books, some, give me, Apple, Apple, you know, Apple music.
And I'm good. I don't have to talk to anybody. So this idea that you need human contact for your survival. People I have met undermine that claim that I have seen persistently made in, in story telling, but apart from that. Okay. NASA has never sent anybody up alone since Mercury. Okay. Right. A. B. NASA's always yapping at you on the radio. Oh, that's true. Yeah. Then they're all the time. All the time they're talking to you. That's true. How you feeling today? I'm glad.
Did you turn the knob to the left three times? Right. Did you do the, the hokey-pokie? Did you shoot it? Have you space walked? Did you do the thing? Did you, did you have a bowel movement? Right. You know. And so it ain't like they're not there. Right. So anyhow, I think there's enough range of people's interpersonal temperament that I, I don't see that it's going to be a problem having somebody alone. Now, you want to know who is the most isolated person there ever was? No. Who was it?
It was the command module pilots in the, in the, nine Apollo missions to the moon where, well, sorry, in the missions where two of them went down to the surface. Right. So that's seven of the missions where, including Apollo 10, where they went down just above the surface. And they say, okay, come back. Right. And they never actually landed. Because they're incrementally testing. God, those guys got ripped off. I know. God. I know.
What would you, yeah, I'm thinking, you say, Houston, I can't hear you. Okay, for landing. Exactly. I'd be like, I'd be like Chuck Sullenberger, you know, I'm going to have to set her down. I'm sorry. That's so, we from the, from the thing, yeah, I got to put her down. I got to put her down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ranch with flocking. Exactly. Got to put it down. Houston, I got a problem. We're into a flocking. He's here. I'm going to have to set her down on the moon.
Apollo, there are no geese on the moon. Are you here to look at it? Damn it, I saw the geese. All right. So anyhow, so the command module pilot while on the far side of the moon was the farthest human there ever was from any other human. Okay. Okay. Right. So they were the width of the moon away from any other human plus some orbital distance into solo people. That's it. That's the most solo person ever. That there ever was. All right. I've got a lot of people who are in the audience.
That's pretty wild. Okay. That's all I'm saying. So we don't have anymore time. Okay. Thanks for these questions. These were great. These were good. These were great. That was the morbid edition. I think we have more questions. We can do this again. Oh my God, there's like 40 pages of these questions. People are really thick. That was the inaugural. We're going to have problems. Okay. The inaugural. Cosmic queries. More morbid edition. You heard it here. You heard it now. Thanks as always.
A pleasure. All right. Neal the grass, Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. Keep looking up. Aah.