Hey, everybody, I'm Joe McCormick of Stuff to blow your mind. Today, we want to play you an episode of a new show called Smart Girl Dumb Questions, hosted by journalist Naima Raza. Each Friday, she unpacks complex ideas by asking simple questions to big thinkers. This one is with astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.
They talk about.
Dimensions, wormholes, time travel, and brick and Morty. So enjoy the episode and you can find more episodes of Smart Girl Dumb Questions wherever you get your podcasts.
There was an asteroid set to meet the Earth in the year twenty thirty two.
Well, that's to put very politely, to meet the Earth, Jemmy, they collide. Yes, we can say meet and greet the Earth. The press ran with the fact that the likelihood of it hitting Earth went up briefly from like one percent to three percent.
That was it, eh, But one percent is not that different from three percent, so you're saying it still might happen a.
Third And then it went Yeah, I feel.
Like it's a very binary situation, this meeting of Earth and the asteris.
Well, the value of that news cycle, yes, is people were trained to follow the scientific progress on the number. That's an important way that the public should be interacting with the moving frontier of science. I'm happy that we went through that episode because that will happen more frequently going forward. We have better data, better telescopes to see asteroids of that size in that way.
Yeah, Previously we wouldn't have even known the difference between the zero and the one percent, even.
Known it was there. That we might have known it was there, But when it was much closer.
Like Bruce Willis Ben Affleck close, well, you.
Don't get me started on arm again. That movie violated more laws of physics per minute than any other psych fiction movie ever. Plus an asteroid the size of Texas we would have discovered two hundred years ago. That's the good thing about asteroids that might kill us, right if I met, They are the largest and the easiest to detect.
Smart girl dumb questions. Hi, welcome to smart girl dumb Questions. I'm named Areza. You're a smart girl with the dumb questions, and that telling me the good thing about the asteroids that might kill us, that they're larger and easier to detect. Is Neil deGrasse Tyson. He's an astrophysicist, a science communicator, an educator, the director of Hayden Planetarium here in New York, and someone whose job it is to help make sense of the universe really for people like me who just
don't get it all the time. Neil has written several best selling books, including Astrophysics for People in a Hurry and Merlin's Tour of the Universe. And I was so excited to talk to Neil because of all the things that I'm dumb about, science really top the list. Like I took biology in school, but I couldn't look when
the frog got dissected. And I took chemistry, but all I remember is kind of honk, like hydrogen bonds once and oxygen bonds twice and nitrogen bonds three times, and oh my god, I cannot believe I am even telling you this on a podcast. So my dumb question for Neil Degrass Tyson was are we living in a simulation?
Like?
Is this whole universe a simulation? But before we got there, I had to understand what the universe was. And we started small, like Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star small, and we worked our way up into galaxies and universes and multiverses and aliens, and this idea of wormholes which maybe allow you to cross through space time that blew my mind. Here's my conversation with Neil de grass Tyson. So I want to start with the building blocks the stars.
I'm your servant in this interview.
You're not anyone servant.
Yeah, I'm a servant of your curiosity. And by the way, it's not for you to judge whether you're asking a dumb question.
Okay, oh, you want to challenge the whole premise of my show.
It's whether I give a dumb answer.
The dumbness is in the eye of the answer.
Yes, because an educator should be sensitive to how a person's tangled mental pathways might be interpreting the world. And then that one gurgles up as a question. Then I deeply care about how you thought about the world, and that puts the onus on me to figure out a way to respond such that what I share with you is received by your learning receptors.
Are you untangling me or are you just sending it down the tangled pipe?
Navigating a tangled path? Sometimes I'm a badly tangled from life. Yeah, right, And so you got to navigate that.
At the end of this, I would like an assessment of how tangled I am compared to the most tangled person you're.
In fact, when I post on social media and I see the comment thread, I take that as a neurosynaptic snapshot of how people think about words. I've used, phrases, I've offered, content I've delivered. If I think I posted tweet, let's say, and if I think it's funny and no one laughs, it's not funny.
It's not funny. It's like your own personal fMRI all of America or all of the world.
Very good, Yeah, that's my it's a it's a social media fMRI.
Okay, Twinkle Twinkle, little Star. I was at a roller skating rink the other.
Day, Neil, and that's a thing.
That's a thing, Okay, a roller skating disco. I was told by somebody there that when you see a star, you look at the star. That star is so far away, both in distance and time, that the light I am seeing from that star means that the star may not even be there anymore? Is that corrector? And oh, I can tell by your eyes that this person.
So you learned this at a disco roller skating rink. Yes, we're all that's where you are. The great wisdom of the world is dispersed. It's completely correct, but misleading, all right. So, because it takes light time to travel between any two points. Yeah, the world you see is not as it is, but as it once was when the light from that object left En Routier retina. I see you right now, not as you are, but as you were four billions of
a second ago. Now I'm not going to then say I wonder if she's still alive, because four billions of a second is small compared with your life expectancy. So too it is with stars. There's stars that are thousands of light years away. Yes, it could have died, but stars live billions and in some cases trillions of years. Ah, So a thousand year delay that you're not going to
catch it in the last thousand years of its life. Now, of course some stars do explode, but at a rate of maybe two per century per galaxy.
How long does it take us to know with the telescopes and whatnot.
The information about the death of the star is on route through space. So let's take the sun. Right, If someone plucks the sun out of the middle of the Solar System. You wouldn't know for eight minutes and twenty seconds, because that's how far correct still feel the gravity. We'd still orbit even though there's nothing there, right, we'd still do well, you wouldn't know there's nothing there. So eight minutes and twenty seconds go by, and then we plunge
into darkness. The temperature of the Earth descends, and we fly off at a tangent lost in interstellar space.
That's the first page of your book. This is like what happens if the Earth were to stop rotating. And your answer is to pin yourself down unless you want to go at what is it, eight hundred miles per hour? I mean, my mind is broken by your book.
That's a good thing. And then you reassemble it into the laws of physics that guide.
The universe at the rollers category apparently back to the building walks.
Okay, to start at the beginning of the universe.
Now, I don't want to start the universe because the universe is expanding. So if we start at the beginning, by the time we finish, it will be even bigger than we could get to. Okay, you can look into telescopes, you can see what's happening out there. We cannot see the Big Bang.
That's correct, but for reasons that are not obvious.
But yeah, yeah, we see the afterglow, correct. So what are the reasons that are not obvious?
Is a barrier? The light can't pass through that afterglow? It's opaque to light.
And there's no technology that we're developing to try to see.
It's not using light. Before the universe had this opaque barrier, it was active in ways that we have some telescopes that can see through the barrier to those early times, and so one of them is gravitational waves.
Do we know what happened before the Big Bang?
No, but we have ideas.
Do we know that something for sure happened before the Big Bang? Is it possible at the Big Bang?
Oh, for sure, But we have ideas.
What are the ideas?
Our universe is a natural expression of a larger entity called a multiverse that's making universes forever, and there could be an infinite number of multiverses. All that does is move the question earlier right way? Do we get the multiverse from? Right?
Where did that start?
Right? So this is this is a big challenge with origins questions because the origin of something typically, if it's singular, you can't compare it to the origin of something else. However, let's look back in time the origin of the Earth. Peoples, Oh, we'll never know the origin of the Earth because you can't go back in time. This was logged, lobbed against astronomers centuries ago. Until we have telescopes that look at other star systems being born and you can see them
making planets. So now I have comparisons, and I said, oh, that must be how our planet got made. These are planets around a star that looks just like ours. And when it's not singular, you can do you can compare and contrast. We found galaxies being born, so now our galaxy is not the whole thing. We only have one universe. We don't know how it was foreigned, but maybe there are other universes that we can compare it to.
Do you have a hunch or is that not a thing?
Going with the multiverse. It feels right and it looks good coming out of the equations. We're not just pulling it out of our ass. The equations give us the multiverse.
Okay, yeah, And all of this is rooted in math.
Yeah, that is well, well, it's served by math, I should say, it's rooted in what the universe really is, whatever that is, and we invent math. And it's one of the great miracles of science that this invention we call math has anything at all to do with the with the universe that we didn't invent.
It's like our language for trying to understand the universe's math is.
That is the language of the universe, the way Spanish is the language of Spain.
Well, this is great because I interviewed two eleven year olds recently and they said they feel everything they learn is not useful.
The problem is, when we're in school, the expectation is that what you learn is what will be useful to you later. That implies that the only way we function is by applying discrete knowledge to discrete problems. But no, most of the ways you function is you're applying wisdom and insight to a problem you've never seen before. And where does that wisdom and insight come from the collection of all of the things you learned, Yes, but also all the ways you learned. You are a turn paper
on Julius Caesar. Well, you had to research that these are methods, tools and tactics didn't even matter. There was that about Julius Caesar that you had to go through that exercise to arrive at that term paper, and that is the exercise that you carry forth. Math and physics are the embodiment of a new kind of brain wiring that teaches you not just what to know about the universe, but how to think, how to think about knowing it even correct.
Yeah, and that's good news. I didn't tell them that the process by which they were learning it's going to be invaluable. But I didn't get to wisdom and insight. But I like that distinction.
There's knowledge, wisdom, and insight. Yeah, and they're they're more refined versions of themselves. And also you can learn this and learn that and learn this, and then later on in life see a connection that no one else did. One could define genius in just that way. The genius is a person who sees what everyone else sees and thinks what no one else has thought.
Do you think you're a genius?
Other than in that phrase definition, I never used the word. It's a label, and when you start labeling people, it's shorthand for I don't need to know anything more about you. Because I've given you this label. I know everything I need to know about you, so I don't even have to have a conversation. So I'm just anti label.
So Big Bang happens before the Big Bang. It's possible. We don't know exactly what happened, but it's possible that there are these multiverses a multiverse sorry, crinking.
Out our universes such as ours.
Yes, and so there could be infinite universe. Y do we exist in other universes?
Well, it depends on what you mean by that. They would likely if this model is accurate. Yeah, then there are enough universes so that there's an entire universe where all events are playing out exactly as they are in this universe. Or you know, we're having this conversation except on the interviewer and you're the subject. But if all variations are possible, that means a duplicate of what's happening
here exist in at least one of those universes. So now to say do we exist in those universes, it's tempting to write a sci fi novel about that. We've already done the experiments with clones. Do you know what that experiment is no, they're called twins.
Oh twins, Yes, exactically.
Identical, but you're not the same person. So put your twin in another universe. Yeah, then I you will get over yourself.
So if we know all of this, we can see we can see stars, we can see the aftergo of the Big Bang. Why can we not travel to that?
It's long gone, it's long gone.
But we can time travel.
You have to travel backwards in time. You put the future that created you at risk.
You'd muddle.
Yeah, if you hold it back time and accidentally prevented your parents from meeting each other, you would not exist. You would not exist. To go back in time and prevent your parents from meeting each other, or, as was indicated in at least one sci fi story, if you disrupt their act of love making by ten minutes, not disrupted. If you delay, okay, in ten minutes, some other gammy would have been made, not the one that made you. It'll probably be the same egg, but definitely a different sperm.
So the risks now. Stephen Hawking, concerned about these very same risks, propose what he calls the time travel conjecture, which is, we will one day discover a law of physics that prevents backwards time travel because of all of these problems that are inherent in doing So what is time in the sequel to this Merlin book? M Merlin answers that with it, so I can say, just wait till the book comes. So Einstein suggested that time is
defined to make motion look simple. That's an is defined to make motion.
So time is designed to make sense of space.
Yeah, that's the right way. That's a good way to think about it. But beyond that, there is no measurement of time without an event that repeats itself. By the way, astro folk, we were time people. Yeah, we all your fundamental measures of time come from us. There's the day, there's the moons. Then there's the time time it takes to orbit to orbit. That's a year.
I'm excited for the sequel to your book, Merlin's to the Universal visiting this planet, Just visiting.
This planet, okay, knocking out until the fall.
Read very few physicists, but the other one is Carla Ravelli. Carla Revelli, you guys are accessible, Yeah, very accessible. He wrote the Seven brief Lessons on Physics and these Guardian articles. You guys, you get that's not like Kanye Drake's ex strama.
Right. I've had people write to me and say, because I have the book Astrophysical for people in a hurry. Yeah, And when I titled it, I said, I'm not going to use the word brief. It's too it's out there and many books that have the word brief are very successful. Yeah. The Brief History of Time is Stephen Hawking the number one selling science book of all time. So I said, I'm not going to use brief. Someone wrote to me and said, uh, this, I think you owe Bravelli an
apology for copying it. I was like, what we like? Then I said, do you have any idea how long it takes to produce a book? Like?
To call it brief would be ridiculous. It's not a brief book because the brevity is in the eye of the reader. And I think that actually a lot of these books, yours included, take time to read because they require you require me to think and then to go back and think about all the things that I have to unthink to think this thing that.
Can happen sometimes, right, deal with it?
Yeah, I mean, I'm glad there's one of the chapters in it, and he talks about in the re Valey book, and he talks about twins, the twin paradox, the twin paradox. Exactly, there's one twin living on a beach and one twin living in a mountain at altitude, and those twins will age differently.
There are different fields of gravity. The one on the mountain will see the one in the valley age more slowly.
And vice versa, and the one in the valley will see the one in the mountain age more quickly quickly. That is because of the way that time bends. Yes, explain it though, because I mean, is this apicable? Is this a dumb question?
No? No, no, it's time and space are conjoined. Yeah, And gravity is the distortion of time and space. And the way it distorts time is that it slows down, okay, time as you get near it, and time speeds up as you get far away. Okay. So we have equations that guide you in understanding that you can calculate how much time you would lose or gain.
Is this an anti aging method that you could go to a valley and time would move slowly?
Except you know, if you did this, you know in the limit you go near a black hole and time really slows down for you. This was portrayed in the movie Interstellar, Uh huh, where they're gone for twenty minutes and the guy was twenty years older, had gray hair and everything, so he was waiting for them to come back off of their time distorted coordinate system.
I saw this conversation you were having with your friend Brian Green, friend and colleague, and your mind was blown by something he had said to you over lunch, which was around whether or not wormholes or a structure kind of for space time.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, remember that correctly. Yeah.
And then there's a viral clip on TikTok and it ends with your other colleague saying, you know, it's time for some weeks week.
That was my co host.
Yeah, say exactly a joint for this conversation or something like that.
Yeah, because it was entangled particles in the vacuum of space. If they're connected by wormholes, then wormholes may be the actual stitches in the fabric of space time itself.
Explain what a wormhole is.
It's what you think it is. We're here in this in the now. Yeah, and then a wormhole opens up, you step through and you're in a different time in a different place.
So it is a mode of time travel, yes, a little bit.
So I want to put research on wormholes, not rocket drive. So a quick anecdote, I was in the Charlotte airport and I have to go from a big plane to a little plane, okay, and I swear I walk three miles. It might have been only a half mile, but it felt like three miles. So I get to my destination and I thought I'd be clever geek, and I tweeted, can't wait until there's wormholes. That way, all gates will be adjacent. So I thought that, yeah, that's great. I
like quality geek tweet. And in this, by the way, wherever you are on the geek spectrum, they're geekier people than you.
Okay, and you can find them without wormholes.
It's just on Twitter infinite. In the threat, it says doctor Tyson, the day we have wormholes, you won't need airports. WHOA, Yeah, just got out geeked.
And you would just like, how would you move through a wormhole? Would you have to find that specific space time moment?
Imagine a wormhole where you connect a wormhole between the back of your refrigerator and the grocer it's all you need more milk, and they just put the milk in.
But could you just create wormholes?
Ideally we would make one, and you need a negative gravity force to prop it open because this naturally wants to collapse on itself, and we don't know what would happen if you were in there and it collapsed while you were there. That would be weird.
Yeah, is your mind still blown by this wormhole idea?
Yes, I would say, and less so than in the moment.
But yeah, so a year later, Oh yeah, they're still thinking about and you still think it's we need to have research on wormholes for this reason, and there is there a budget for wormhole reason we.
Need we need negative gravity matter, and we don't have it.
We don't have it, and are we close to having it?
I don't think so.
And is there who writes the budgets for things like find Is there a line item in our government like find negative gravity matter?
We don't even know million dollars if it exists.
Okay, very quickly on horoscopes because to the point of people's tangled minds. I am in the intersection of ven diagram of people who have multiple degrees and read the Cosmo astrology page. Does that worry you about me?
Only if you wanted to become ahead of NASA, But otherwise there are plenty of jobs for you in the world where you can read your horoscope and it won't matter at all.
But when I read your book, I saw that you have taken my entire my stars. I'm a scorpio.
Oh you got to that part of the book and you have.
Taken away the scorpio is no longer a month. It's like a week.
Me, not you.
So how did that happen? Is that about time?
It's about Earth on its axis. Earth is spinning, as we know, it's also tipped, and if you ever played with tops, you might remember that they possess so they spin, but then they wabblebb okay, So the Earth wobbles, and that wobbling over twenty six thousand years, shifts the correspondence of the constellation and the month associated with it, and
it shifts it through completely a full twelve months. So every two thousand years or so, the Sun passes through a different constellation than the astrological charts would have you believe.
So horoscopes are not real.
There are many reasons for them not being real. That's among them.
That's among them.
It's a hoax perpetrated on adults. So I shouldn't say hoax. Hoax implies that the people perpetrating it know that. Yeah, I think they believe. I think there are people who propagate this who fully believe it. Yeah, And so then there's no real guilt there.
And so there's no explanation for the fact that I, as a Scorpio, connect more I believe with cancer people.
So I've seen descriptions of the zodiac, yes, where it says these are twelve prominent constellations in the sky. You said you were what scorpia? You're Scorpion and you connect with cancer?
Yeah, okay, I like to date cancer, okay? Or sometimes Aris?
Is that better or worse than any other dating app we might have? I don't know. But the I just did the calculation before I came today, Oh, that the four brightest stars in the constellation Cancer are actually quite dim and then may be as many as five hundred stars brighter than the brightest star in the constellation Cancer, which makes it a dull, boring and uninteresting constellation.
So I should stop dating cancer. You've just expanded my dating pool, Neil. This thank you for that service. When it comes to dating, are my expectations keeping me single? I'm named Araza host of Smart Girl Dumb Questions, and this is the sponsored dumb question brought to you by Tinder. So forty percent of people who find dating difficult say that they can't meet someone who meets their expectations. But
is the problems supply or demand? It's easy to build a checklist for what we want six' five blue, eyes maybe some kind of specific zodiac, Sign but researchers have found that people are really bad at knowing what they want or. Need in, fact the science kind of sucks at it. Too in one, study for, example researchers ask daters to identify their own traits and also identify the traits they were looking for in other, PEOPLE i eat their dating, expectations and then they ran it through this
machine learning. Algorithm they turned out they could predict one way attraction at around twenty, percent that, is who would be liked or who would like, Somebody but when it came to two way, attraction the algorithm was not. Good its success rate was less than one percent because it turns out the actual best predictor of compatibility is not your expectations but your. Experiences, now of course that doesn't
mean you should throw all your expectations out the. Window of, course you deserve to date somebody that treats you, well that makes you feel. Safe yet a graduate degree may not be the best predictor of, That and it could be a good time to slide over that location filter or give that short king a second, glance because when it comes to, dating our experiences are more important than our. Expectations so the important thing is to actually start going on.
Dates and a great place to start dating Is. Tinder it starts with a. Swipe you can explore all the possibilities for. Yourself Get tinder today and start. Dating and wormholes would wormholesles? NO i think we should go.
BACK i figure out a way to pry a pathway through spacetime that connects to otherwise very distant, Parts and when you do, that you just step through and you're in another place in. Time the two most famous current ways that's done is In Doctor strange in The marvel universe And rick And morty in The cartoon.
Universe i'm not familiar With rick And.
Morty that means your audience is not. Geekified it's a.
GEEK i mean my audience might BE i might not be the best leading. Indicator you just.
Lost you just lost The rick And. Morty rick has portals through space time and he goes to other, universes other, galaxies and half of those shows are More he's interacting with other life forms that are brilliantly conceived to be different from us in ways That hollywood perennially fails at. Doing all the aliens In, hollywood it's got a, head two, eyes and those armsferent there's a little thing on the. Forehead it's, like really, really most life On earth looks
nothing like. Humans, yes and we HAVE dna in. Common now you're going to bring something from another planet and walk and with a.
Mouth you, know such limited imagination.
Exactly So rick And morty is unlimited imagination as as it conceives of life.
Forms so these wormholes, though so these two conceptions of.
It here's a, wormhole gun shoots it and opens up a.
Hole oh so that's, okay so you could find but it's not like a wormhole.
Identifier, no Worm they're not going to be naturally in the. Universe, no, okay they want to collapse on. Themselves so you need negative gravity to the, open which we don't.
Have so wormholes they wouldn't. Exist we need negative, gravity.
Uh to create a, substance, right.
Yeah negative gravity substance to create and stabilize a.
Wormhole gravity brings space time, together, yes and a wormhole you're prying it. Apart so you need the opposite of what gravity is to make that.
Happen that was a very clarifying.
Sentence tracking your tangled mental.
That really help. Me, Okay so gravity brings.
It, together just untangled one little. Bit, yeah, okay.
Okay a negative gravity will will suspend that and then allow you to pass and then through a. Wormhole you could go to other universes.
In, principle but that would could be dangerous because in those universe might have slightly different laws of. Physics, okay and stepping into, it you collapse in a pile of goo because the, forces the molecular forces might not.
COMPORT i could go to other, galaxies, oh, definitely, definitely galaxies, easier, okay and other, dimensions other.
Dimensions we don't know how to go to other.
Dimensions and what is a.
Dimension it's interesting how we have such an intuitive understanding of. Dimensions we never think about. Them have you imagined a future with flying? Cars of course everybody. Does why would you want a flying car less?
Traffic?
Okay? Good, yeah when you're out on the open road driving seventy miles an, hour are you, saying, GEE i WISH i had a flying? Car, No, no you're only thinking about it near. Cities when you're in traffic and you got a place to, be you just want to up and go in the car on the. Road you are stuck in two. Dimensions, yeah you can change lanes left and. Right that's one, dimension and the other dimension is just forward and. Back so driving is a two dimensional.
Exercise in a flying, car you enter a third dimension and bypass these hapless souls who don't have a flying. Car, yeah, okay do we together on? That we're?
Together. Okay so that's three, dimensions so.
That you can move the idea of a flying car and just, say when you want to bypass the, traffic you want to go to another dimension to do. So in that, regard The New York City subway is a flying. Car you're stuck in dimension you go into another, dimension and this case is, down not, up and there's a whole, other, whole entire transportation system that does not get stuck in that. Traffic that's a flying.
Car BUT i think the difference IS i can see those dimensions like the dimends you're talking.
About i'm warming you.
Up, okay, okay.
Because you that tangled you eat. Horoscopes IF i went straight, there this wouldn't have. Happened, OKAY i Gotta i'm gonna make sure we're on the same. Page, okay.
Good SO i don't believe they're. REAL i just read.
Them, so, yeah this is easy to. Understand, correct we are on the same. Page, okay let's go back to two. DIMENSIONS i have a, desk, yeah AND i still have. Paper, Okay SO i lay paper out on the desk and THEN i run out of desk. Surface so what do you? Do put it on the?
FLOOR i, could, Yeah or you can stack them on top for each.
Other, yeah that's a third. Dimension stacking is is a third. Dimension that's what you. Got, Okay so, no watch on the pape on the on my, DESK i, said sixteen sheets of. Paper let's say, yes let's say twenty four by. Five NOW i can Stack how many pages CAN i stack into the third? Dimension? Yeah UNTIL i hit the? Ceiling, right, Okay oh my. Gosh, Look and how much more room there is in three dimensions than there is in two?
Dimensions of, course you got? Me, yeah. Okay so now we're in a. Room the room is a three dimensional, room AND i put boxes in this. Room now the room is, full and, someone a hyperdimensional being, says just go into the fourth dimension and you can fit millions of boxes. There AND i, say where is the fourth? Dimension it is at a perpendicular line to. YOU i already have my perpendicular. Lines they trace the three dimensions
of this. Space we cannot conceive of what direction that fourth dimension is any more than the ant can know what up.
Is, okay so we're just. Ants we're three d, ants the two d, ants and there's Some is there a four d? Ant is? That is it possible the fourth? Dimension don't?
Know that's really, interesting? Right? Yeah if you're actually two, dimensions you have no, Thickness so you would be this, flat your flat, membrane and so anyone who sees you would only see your. Outers they'd have to cut you open and peel back your outer contour to see what's. Inside so let's seal that. Back we are three dimensional people who are completely transparent to four dimensional. Beings you
have an outer. Perimeter we call it. Skin, yes, okay, YEAH i would love to write a sci fi story where the hospital is the surgery is a four dimensional room and you go in there and the doctors remove the. Tumor, yeah and they never cut you open to do, so.
Because it's just your.
Flat they're accessing you through the fourth. Dimension so surgery they just go in and pluck it, out it, out and there's no no evidence of Any.
That would be.
Good when you start thinking about, dimensions it's a fascinating.
World and you think they're infinite. Dimensions it could.
Be cosmologists say there might be ten dimensions in which to embed everything they need to account for in The Big bang and follows, it but we can't see the other dimensions because they're tightly curled. Up the idea with the higher dimensions is that they might be there right but not entirely accessible to, Us and.
It's possible that there's life on those other. DIMENSIONS i don't.
See why?
Not, yeah why? Not we, can we can conceive of. It my last Guest Cleo. Abram do you Know Cleo? Abram she has a show Called Huge If true on YouTube and, ANYWAYS i end every show asking what the guest doesn't know about with the guest is quote unquote dumb about and she, asked where are the? ALIENS i want to ask you about this BECAUSE i feel every Time i've seen you asked about, aliens this. Happens what's happening in front of me right, now which is that? YOU i feel like you.
For the question what you're interpreting my, Face.
I'm interpreting your face billions of a second. Ago i'm interpreting that, actually but four billions of a second. Ago but you seem to be skeptical about alien, sightings ABOUT Uap Unidentified aeral phenomena OR, ufo both the.
Signings i'm skeptical of how people interpret.
Them how do you think people interpret?
Them they think they're visiting aliens from outer, Space and an account of people seeing aliens is more often than not an account of some lights in the sky behaving badly to the fact that fifty years ago there was no end of accounts typically extracted via. Hypnosis no end of accounts of people having been abducted by. Aliens in the era of the, smartphone those accounts have gone to. Zero, really because you could film an encounter with. Aliens, yes it would go viral.
Instantly we have the ability to have proof now.
Correct so that skepticism is people's, accounts that's.
All are aliens? Real do aliens?
Exist we don't have evidence yet of, them but there's no reason to doubt.
It if they were to. Visit what would you be most embarrassed about them seeing on our?
Earth, WELL i don't know what they would. DO i can't think like an. Alien but there's a COMIC i think it was in The New yorker. Show two cave men facing each other in a, cave and one says to the, OTHER i don't get. It my water is, pure the air is, clear all of our food is. Organic yet none of us lives past Thirty those are. Cavemen now let's go to eighteen. Forty everything they ate was, organic the water ramp. Heure half of everyone born was
dead by thirty. Five fast forward to. Today if you die before, ninety your obituary is going to have to account for. That, somehow not just your old, age not just old. Age you're, like how did he? Die explain? Yourself explain, Yourself explain. Yourself explain. Yourself and in The New York, times for, example the OBITUARIES i marked when they started giving the cause of death for people over. Eighty so that meant we understood, aging we understood the
death of someone who's. Old and it's a reportable bit of. Information LIKE i, said if you die before, eighty people want to know. Why when one hundred and, fifties one hundred and seventy years, ago it was half the people were dead by thirty. Five so the point is today we live in a world where we have overvalued the significance of the food we eat relative to what role science has played to increase.
Our, longevity and what is the technology that has enabled us mostly to.
Lookitation, vaccines preventive, medicine knowing what role exercise plays in your cardiovascular. Health we have still a long way to. Go WHEN i was in seventh, GRADE i wrote a book report On ponce De leone and The fountain Of. Youth so it's A spanish explorer And i'm looking at it AND i, say this is a full grown. Adult BUT i was a geek kid since age, Nine, yes which WHY i can have this. Thought this is a full grown.
Adult were you non geek before?
NINE i was just? Regular, okay? Yeah after, NINE i got my death. Groove Now i'm reading it and it, said there's a full grown adult who sales across an, ocean believing that there's a fountain from which you drink and then you will live. Forever AND i thought to, myself what the f how Could he's a grown? Man, right this is not a fairy. Tale he's a grown. Man how could he think? This and everybody thought, that
and SO i was so disappointed in adults not. That but THEN i, said all that was five hundred years, ago and now, today this one food is all you need to. Eat here's the miracle, food here's a miracle. Drink don't do any of, this do this one. Thing AND i, said this Is ponce a De leon all over. Again this is the secret to. Longevity it wouldn't have
to just be. Food could do. This in, fact any ad on YouTube that has the words this in, IT i don't think on it because they want to leave you dangling at the.
This, right you were missing. This the thing you're missing out.
On this is irresistible. Clickbait What i'm saying is maybe all that will ultimately be shown to have an important difference on the, Edges but that's not What god is living two and three times longer than our great great.
Grandparents, okay, aliens that's. Aliens back to that's, aliens BECAUSE i, so here's my. Thing is it possible that the aliens are in a different.
Dimension, well that would be a way for you to still say they're aliens with no possible evidence of their. Existence.
Okay. Sure by the, way do you think aliens speak? Math?
Yes, yes, yes that's how you'd have to communicate with.
Them That Caveman New yorker cartoon that you're talking, About you and meet, alien alien comes, here and you would, say.
YEAH i would find ways to show symbol if they, see to check what their retinue of senses. Are if they hear but don't, see you need other ways to do, This. Okay and maybe they see in a different wavelength of. Light they could see infrared rather than, visible so i'd have to you'd have to assess. This, yes then you work within their.
Senses but it's definitely. Math it's Not, English, no espaniol is.
Definitely not any language On. Earth and NOW i feel bad about. This when the Movie Arrival yeah came the government shows a physicist and a linguist to communicate with the, alien AND i, said, no you want a cryptographer and an, astrobiologist not a linguist and a. Physicist and then WHEN i, POSTED i JUST i felt.
Bad people thought you were anti.
Linguist linguists are hardly ever in. MOVIES i have no shortage of astrophysicists in. Movies every space movie has an actual physicist in there, Somewhere and so THEN i felt. Bad cast in, Shade, yeah it was their day in the.
Sun we got to send the right people in the circumstances you don't want to. Send i'm sorry, linguist but, like we don't want to send the wrong.
Person, YEAH i don't need your. Culture.
No in twenty, TWENTY i produced an interview With Elon, musk and he talked about how we needed to be a multi planetary space faring. Civilization do we need to be a multiplanetary space faring that.
That makes very good news paper? Headlines you'd expect that spoken of someone who's in the business of making rockets and launching, things sending people. Places So i'm not surprised by, That and that idea goes back some ways Or Carl sagan was a big fan of becoming a multi planet. Species so why would you do that.
Because you believe that there is some scarcity on This, earth some abundance to be hot, outside or some expansion of our population that requires, it.
Or more likely in those, scenarios that it could put our species at risk if all our eggs were in one basket and a killer asteroid comes or a virus or. Whatever, okay that's the main, motivation other than just the exploration part of. It you can go, there explore and then come back to go there and stay a big. Driver there is that way we protect the. Species. Species, YEAH i have a way more practical view of the. WORLD i don't mind people thinking. THAT i just think it's
it's a solution to a non. Problem every scenario you come up, WITH i can put life On earth at risk to solve. It seems to me to be easier than terraforming marsn't shipping a billion? People do suppose we suppose we trash our. Environments, yeah and we Need earth two point. Zero that's not an asteroids being in our own, bathtub, right, okay this time cooping in their, bathtub right, yeah, Okay so why not that if we have the power of geoengineering to Turn mars Into, earth then we have the
power to Turn earth back Into. EARTH i can't think of a reason why we would have to do. THAT i can think of a hundred reasons why we would want to do, It but every reason that people give for having to do, it, YEAH i don't find. CONVINCING i want to do it BECAUSE i like.
Exploring one of the reasons why we want to do, it and it feels sometimes imperative is, competition, competition not just amongst, species but within our own. Species we want to be in The moon before other countries are at The. Moon we want to be at the In mars before other countries are In. Mars we want to take up as much Of mars as we. Can territorial domination it's a.
Driver it's a, driver especially among.
Men yeah, yeah well, YEAH i mean it'd be interesting if we had more female leaders to see if they too would have to save incentives actually.
Really big ones in the past. Century, yeah they have been just like. Men.
YEAH i was going to, SAY i think a lot of the things that we think are just male and.
Females Margaret thatcher de Were.
Gandhi there's that book that's like men are From, mars women are From venus or. Whatever it turns out that it's like.
POWER i think those women succeeded because they were succeeding in a man's, world and they have to be like a man to do. So let's say you're in a traffic and someone cuts someone else, off and then a person jumps out of the car and yells at the other. Person there's a ninety nine percent chance that's a, man not one.
Hundred but not In New york necessary because it's a Man's we're all In New York.
City and the funny thing, is to, me men like complaining about women's emotions and their. Hormones, yeah century centuries doing that without actually looking at ourselves and, saying how does testosterone manifest as a hormone on our? Behavior how many bar fights break out between women versus? Men is that socialization or is it? Hormones, yeah you could say it's SOCIETAL i, Suppose but this territorial. Thing, yeah this is not, genderized but just the idea that if aliens
exist anywhere in the, universe how come they haven't? Visited? Right, okay you can do a calculation that if you visit other star, systems you figure out how to make rockets they can fit other star, systems even if it takes one hundred years to get. There then you get there and you build a, factory and you build two more. Ships then they go to two other star system and then they go to. Four give yourself a very relaxing time to make that. Happened you could do it in
one hundred million. Years the universe is billions of years. Old, Okay so if you run that, calculation you can, say If amlias did it at, all they should have occupied every planet in the. Galaxy where are? They this is the Famous fermi. Paradox an argument against The fermi paradox is whatever urge you have to want to take control of a planet is self, limiting as we say in, physics because you reach a point where, okay now half the planets are. Going but now this urge is so,
STRONG i want your. Planet it's self. DESTRUCT i want your, planet, okay and then they fight each other and the entire system. Implodes and that actually already happened On earth with the age of.
Colonization lots of talk About russia And china and outer space and the space competition With russia And. CHINA i think That. India india's got this big space program right, now And i've been impressed by the stride that The indians are making an outer Space are you impressed by?
That what impresses me is not that they've made the, strides, yeah but that the strides were unthinkable even just a few decades. Ago they're accomplishing what other space faring nations are. Accomplishing. Yeah so we're all, Human So i'm not differently, impressed, yeah for what they've done relative to anybody else doing. It what impresses me When i'm impressed is where were you twenty years? Ago, yeah thirty years, ago and where are you? Now india was the first to land, safely
softly on the south pole of The. Moon The indian headlines Were indian lands is the fourth country to land on The. Moon that's not the. Headline it is the first country to land softly at the south.
Pole and what's up With india in outer space because of the speed with which they have gotten, here are they going to get elsewhere? Faster you? Think or or you, know there's national.
Pride never underestimate the value of national pride and national. Security security is a code word for protecting. Yourself but also if you feel like being an, aggressor you have the power to do. So SO i say security Because i'd rather we were secure rather than it's a that's the peace nick in. Me In india a few years before they tomahawked out one of their satellites from more a. Bit it's called a kinetic. Kill you would do that
if the satellite is failing or you don't want. To and So india did, that after The United states did, it After russia did, it and After china did, It and So Prime minister gets on and, says we do this for peaceful you, know there's the peace. Argument, yeah this is the beginnings of people's access to. Space one thing that concerned me deeply When india landed on The South. POLE i don't know if you know that it had a. ROVER i.
SAW i don't know what it.
Is, yeah, okay so it's a rover and so there's the. Rover, yes the emblem in The indian, flag here's the Central. Yeah and one of the icons of The Space agency were embedded in the rovers, wheels so that as it rolled on the dusty, soil these. Imprints but they came in. Peace but, wait but. Wait and the sad part of my concern is it's Something americans would. SAY i know we would say, It so how CAN i get mad if somebody else is going to say so on the?
Internet because people were dancing in the streets when, yes oh, yes, okay there was On twitter or wherever it first landed on X because as you, know The pakistani flag has The muslim and the and the and the. Star this posting, said In india we have our flag on the. Moon In pakistan they have the moon on the. Flag did you have to go? There you, know it'd be something. Different If pakistan wars big as idea and they had active then it would be kind of a. Fun it would be trash talk.
In the, way punching, down punching, down.
That's what you're. Doing AND i WAS i was saddened by.
THAT i want to talk to you about how technology changes your what you, Do how DO ai and quantum change.
Astrophysics, well there's certain problems that become tractable that were previously only things we could. Approximate If i'm going to model what happens to a rotating galaxy that has hundreds of billions of, stars my computers in the nineteen seventies couldn't do. That, well let me model galaxy using one hundred. Stars maybe ables something about one hundred stars that will give me insight to a billion. Stars maybe maybe. Not so much of our effort over the years is approximating
the reality because the computing power can't match the. Reality with quantum, COMPUTING i can model all the, stars by the, way every, star every, time every star moves the gravitational, configuration but everything is.
Different, yeah it can calculate.
That calculate. That then there's gas. Clouds how do you calculate a gas? Cloud it's not a discrete. Object there are bits and pieces of molecules moving, around subjected to radiation forces and magnetic forces and rotational forces and sheer. Forces oh my, gosh we love. It, okay bring it.
On is it possible that we live in a? Simulation?
Yes and my best evidence for that is just when things are kind of, stable let's have the leader of the free world be A New York city real estate. Developer there's got to be someone simulating us throwing that in just for their.
Entertainment that's Your your best evidence for simulation Is Donald.
Trump wouldn't have to just be. That and then so now he's not in, office and then he comes back one and then we Have. Biden things are pretty. Stable we need a.
Pandemic pandemic, well, YEAH i, THINK i, say and Then biden becomes a little less. STABLE i say.
THAT i think one argument for a simulation is how how periodically something extraordinary happens in the. World the world doesn't just stay in a stable chaos Chaosk and if you ever played these simulation, games that's what you, want because that's where it's more.
Interesting that's where it gets.
Interesting. YEAH i used to play Sim city and every now and Then godzilla would walk across the, city maybe fires and everything we've, broken And godzilla is not, real but it's metaphor for an assault on the, city which is exactly what nine to eleven. Was it was an. Assault it's Not. Godzilla but when you're simulating the fire, department the police. Department Un, yes what is tax money? Doing are people?
Unhappy my Friend ian has a list of reasons why he believes the world is a. Simulation they include.
Things like, wells wells w what's?
Wells the idea that you like put down on there's, water emergency broadcast, system just like things observable phenomenon that seem odd and. Simulation like for, me like all things drilling are. That it's like reminds me of being in a video game where Like Mario, kart like you, Know mario hits the thing and then a mushroom comes out and he gets.
Bigger uh.
Huh that seems like we're living in a. Simulation just then.
Natural so he's saying there's no law in the universe that says if you, dig you get. Water so when you, dig you get. Water clearly somebody put it. There OH i need some, energy let's put oil.
There, yeah, exactly like, oh let's put the sludge into a. Car will power a. CAR i mean it's kind of, Odd like the whole thing is.
Odd, Okay so it's Like, minecraft where you just through stuff there and you do it and you build a little.
World Sea chuck we don't even need.
Weed, okay that's the.
Thing but how would we find out if we are in a, simulation how would we?
Know there are? Ways, okay one has been. Suggested so gamma ray. Bursts these are pulses of gamma rays from the universe that summer higher energy than. Others, yeah and if you find it's the highest energy of anything we've ever leasured of. Anything if we find an edge to, that where above, that there's no, more that could be the edge of the. Simulation because you can't simulate something to.
Infinity you have to put some edges on. It like The Truman, show it looks like a sky and, clouds but he goes out there and then it's a. Wall, right it's the Wall up until then it was, fine, Right but if you explore this is what exploration. Does it probably annoys the, Programmers, yeah because we're reaching for the edge of what you thought we would ever.
Acquire so then mars could be good good as, well good because it pushes the. Edge, sure or it could just be fall into the line of the. Simulation they want us to go, There.
The simulation would not need you would not want. It if you are the simulator to simulate everything if no one was looking at. It If i'm, digging you'd only simulate What i'm digging. Too in the spot Where i'm, DIGGING i don't have to simulate it over there because you're not digging over. There so that greatly improves the computing power of the simulation when you localize it the only places where people are granting it. Attention here's a
way to consider. This when we look in the universe in the search for an intelligent, life that comes with a big assumption that whatever we find would agree that we are. Intelligent but who declared that we're intelligent?
Ourselves we?
Did?
Yeah?
What? What? Okay and what's the closest species to? Humans?
Monkeys?
Chimpanzee? Chimpanzees, yeah how smart is a? Chimp it's one PERCENT dna difference between. Us we have The, james, webspace telescope and philosophy and art and. Music they have none of. It, right stack boxes and reach a. Banana, now if you're, religious you might, say what a difference that one percent make makes we're? Special? Yeah or you take another, View maybe the difference between stacking boxes and reaching a banana and The james webspace telescope is as.
Small, yeah it's like a one to three.
Percent as that one percent you, say come, ON, ti sack. It, well imagine because our toddlers can stack boxes and. Banana so now imagine a life form that's one percent beyond us in the. Universe, yeah on that same intelligence, scale what would we look like to?
Them we look like. Chimpanzee we would look like.
Chimpanzee, yes our most brilliant achievements would be accomplished by their. Toddlers little Alien timmy, Comes, oh what did you do today from? School? OH i composed a sonnet and derived the principles of. Calculation that's so. Cute put it on the. Refrigerator, sure.
That's so.
Sad so my point, is, yeah they could have Created earth as a literal aquarium terrarium for their own, amusement with us as life forms upon, it and we would never know until we hit the.
Edge until we hit the, edge and then maybe we would find.
Out unless they're so smart they know we're not even going to live for the.
Edge, okay you've been so generous with your. Times i'm going to try to get you out of. Here when do a lightning, round, okay And i'll keep the questions lightnings. Purple, okay, Great why are you so good at communicating or or actually, better why do other scientists suck at? Communicating they, Do i'm, sorry not all of.
That it's not valued in the. Field there's no test for it in THE. PhD, yeah that's like, saying why do construction workers suck at? Communicating it's not it's not the core of the, function it's not part of the it's not part of the, job and so. So AND i would say some fraction of my colleagues may be higher than in the, population are on the on the. Spectrum and when you're on the, SPECTRUM i don't care about. You, YEAH i have my own, thoughts AND i care about
my lab. Equipment and so you, know you can't put a camera in front of that person and expect them to be cheery eyed and smiley and with. Eyebrows you can't expect. That, yeah AND i While i'd rather be in the, lab.
Thanks thanks Doctor.
Tyz, yeah, Yeah i'd rather be in the, lab But i'd be irresponsible IF i never left.
It as an educator and having this value of being able to, communicate how do you assess our relationship to act and the skepticism around science and expertise right, Now.
Yeah it'll just implode society and then we'll recover from it. EVENTUALLY i think The United states is good at reacting to perceive. Threats there are other countries that do not have this problem of the mistrust of, science and we'll just watch them ascend, economically because innovations and science and technology are the engines of tomorrow's economy in every, sector including things like. Farming we make more food on less land with fewer farmers than ever. Before it's because of.
Science so we'll just watch other countries rise. Up AND i think we have more to fall before we realize. That and it's, sad but you, Know i'm trying to do ALL i can to prevent.
It it's.
Hard the communication, HELPS i, Think, yeah so, HERESY i protect my. EGO i say to, myself as bad as it, is maybe it would be much worse IF i were not doing my. Thing that's WHY i.
Say that's why we can't let you time travel and undo, yourself because then you wouldn't be able to hear be here and teach. Us you updated and re release your book.
Order to the twenty first, century thirty five.
Years between its publication and its. Update in that, time we discovered a lot of things The hubbles. Telescope what in the next thirty five years are we going to? Discover what do you what do you likely to?
Think like, physics we have a good handle on. That, yeah because budgets get, allocated space probes get, Designed we have a we have a decadal survey right that we invoke and that guides us in the decades that. Follow So i'd like to know if there's life anywhere On, mars even below the. SURFACE i want to know if there's life swimming In jupiter's Moon, europa which as a frozen outer shell and an ocean of liquid water that's been liquid for billions of. Years there's more water there
than all the water In earth's. Oceans SO i think the question about life in the, universe microbial or, otherwise will be answered in the next thirty years BY.
Nasa all, right last question for every GUEST i have on the show is what do you not? Know what are? You what Is Neil deGrasse tyson dumb? About if?
Anything, oh Anytime i'm in the company of someone who knows anything THAT i don't. Know that's ALL i want to talk. About, yeah, YEAH i have a curiosity of everything THAT i don't. Know and if they're an expert on like cricket legs or whether there's a chef Or i'm all there.
Must be very frustrated for you to be a.
Guest then, ye yes it is because then everyone asked me, questions, Right AND i don't mind that Because i'm an. Educator but that's not my preferred dinner, party. RIGHT i prefer to sit me next to someone who's GOT i don't. Care they could be a, preacher they could be an oil. Driller i've got.
Questions, okay give me a. Question something you want to know that you wish that you could go to a dinner party to night and sit next to someone who could. Answer what's a specific.
Question, oh let's say it's a construction. Worker, okay how did they get the crane to the top of the?
Building how did they get the CRAZY.
I didn't see them put it up. There it's fifty stories.
Up, yeah there there's probably a crane left or.
Something i've never seen. IT i would ask, them do you.
Think that in another universe somewhere out there there's A Neil deGrasse tyson that knows this and the.
Infinite, YEAH i, mean it's just these are.
Things there could be a construction, Worker Neil Degrass tyson and another.
Plan sure That neil would certainly know the answer to that. Question the curiosity would be all up in.
It thank you so, Much neil for doing. THIS i so appreciate. It oh, SURE i feel less tangled now thanks to.
You your mental roadways have been. Unraveled thank.
You thank you for that.
Service you have it, anytime all.
Right that conversation With Neil Dagrass tyson just definitely untangled my mind a little, bit or it totally bent it out of. Shape i'm not. SURE i have a lot of processing to. Do but three quick reflections on. That one on this question of if we're living in a, SIMULATION i Found neil's answer to that to be beautifully scientific and mathematical in some, way like there's no evidence against, it and there's potentially some evidence for, it so it's.
Possible AND i found even more compelling his answer to the second question of how would we you know this kind of testing of the edges of the simulation to see if it. Breaks it is hugely destabilizing for me to think. About, second and on the subject of, destabilizing it was really sad By neil's answer about our growing distrust and skepticism about the. SCIENCE i had hope for something more, hopeful but he instead was, like, well we might implode as a. Society we have a lot further to.
Fall that just sucks because if you think, about you, know other parts of that, conversation the great leaps we've made as a, society our ability to kind of double or triple our, lifespan our ability to detect and deflect. ASTEROIDS i, mean these are huge innovations that relied on a belief in, science an investment in. Science it's hard to think that we're going to let those things. Go, thirdly and on a much lighter, NOTE i want to make a plea to the negative gravity matter funders around the,
world whatever universities or researchers are doing. THIS i, mean the idea of wormholes like These rick And morty guys have to just like avoid airports, entirely and to have food delivered into my refrigerator sounds like the best. Thing it also is really kind of, trippy really, trippy and if we get, There i'm going to know for sure that we're in a. Simulation that's it for this week of Smart girl Dumb. Questions i'm going to go find a wormhole AND i hope you'll be back with me Next.
Friday today's show was produced With Sickbird, Productions Jade, Watson Diana, DaCosta And Kess, agnew with additional editing by