Transcription
He came from another planet, with super powers in his afro, powered by radiation and disco music. Black Omega Star, something's going down at the disco. Don't worry about it, baby. Black Omega Star will be there. He's Black Omega Star. This is Star Talk. Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. We've got a cosmic queries grab bag today. Chuck? Hey, what's happening? Yeah, we've got a grab bag. You grabbed inside the bag? I did. It's, uh, sometimes they let you do that. Oh, Chuck, stop.
All right, so let's go right in. Yeah. Yeah. We might as well jump right into it. This is Roger McVey who says, "Hello, Dr. Tyson. Lord Nice." Roger from Wisconsin here, currently in Surin, Thailand. Wow. Ooh. Way to go, Roger. Ooh, good food in Thailand. Yeah, that's what I hear. You might have some good eatin'. He says, "Why is there not a lunar eclipse every month? Is it just the distance, or the wobble, or something else?" Great question. That's an observant question. Yeah. Very good. Oh. Very good.
So if you look at the path the sun takes in the sky, mm-hmm, uh, throughout the year, right, okay? So the sun actually moves against the background stars. You can't see the stars, but you can ex- you can kinda see them at twilight, like before sunrise, but it's not so bright that you can't see the stars. Look at the stars that are there. They come back in a month, it's a different set of stars 'cause the s- we I say the sun is moving, we are orbiting the sun, so our sight line on the sun is changing. Mm-hmm. Every month, we the sun is in front of a different set of stars. Right. All right. That is called the ecliptic. The moon orbits in a plane that is tilted to the ecliptic. Gotcha. You can only get an eclipse if both the sun and the moon are in the same place, right, in their tilted orbits. Okay. Okay? I'm saying the sun has an orbit. I'm very pre-Copernican in this description. Okay. When they're in the same place, then Earth, the sun, and the moon line up. Right. But at any other time, the moon is above the sun, below the sun, or to the side, and it's not. It's gotta be right. And it's called the ecliptic because when the sun, moon, and Earth line up, you get an A, a eclipse. Oh, gosh darn. That makes sense, doesn't it? Yeah. We, we good here? Yeah.
So you can have a full moon, mm-hmm, but it's not crossing the ecliptic. Okay. So it's not go It's not gonna enter our shadow. Right. You can have a new moon, and it's not crossing the ecliptic, and so it's not gonna pass in front of the sun. You need a new moon or a full moon coinciding with when they cross the ecliptic. Right. And so that doesn't happen every month. Right. Not every month. And in Dune, was it Dune? Okay. Where there were eclipses every day. There was some- something got, getting eclipsed all the time. I don't know which Dune it was, yeah. So it was not even interesting anymore because it was a da- Right, well, maybe. Kind of a daily phenomena. It's like a sunrise at that point. A sunrise, yeah. Yeah. It's still fun, but it's not Yeah. You're not gonna plan your life around observing it. Right. That's the simple reason. So if the two were aligned, we would have a- If they were always in the same plane, Plane. It would happen that way. It would. Every month, we'd have a total solar eclipse. Total solar eclipse. And a luna- And the difference is, not that this was in the question, a solar eclipse, you have to be on the spot on Earth where the moon's shadow drags across Earth's surface. And if you're not in that spot, you're not gonna see the eclipse. Right. Whereas in a lunar eclipse, the moon is entering Earth's shadow in space. Right. Anybody who can see the full moon will watch it enter Earth's shadow. The entire half of the Earth that faces the moon will see a lunar eclipse. Lunar eclipses are slightly, last I remember, slightly less common than solar eclipses, but everybody gets to see it. Oh, that's cool. You don't have to travel. You don't have to go anywhere. Very kind, very kind of the universe. Yeah, it is, it is. Very cool, Roger. Yeah, that's the, that's the only reason.
Elyssail says, "Saluta-" What? What? What? Spell it. E- L- Y-S-S-I-E-L. Okay, I don't know how you, what you do with that. I'm going, I'm going with Elyssail. Sorry. Is this a one-name person like Cher? Yes, what's this? Like Madonna? Yes, exactly. Okay. Um, uh, yeah, but it's, like, the, the more difficult version. See, Cher, Madonna. Elyssail. "Salutations from Newcastle, Australia." Hmm, love 'em. "Which, uh, if it is the case that a black hole explodes at the end of its life, would that explosion contain all the energy the black hole ever sucked in, or has all that energy already escaped via Hawking radiation? And I wonder if the Big Bang could've possibly been an exploding black hole of such mass that the event horizon was larger than our observable universe, and the universe as we know it is now stretching out to fill the void left by the universally large black hole. Perhaps beyond is a far larger, far older galaxy that is pulling on the mass of our observable universe at great enough distance would seem that, like, it would seem that the pull attributed to dark energy. Thank you so."
Uh, did we- All right, all right. So- get a black hole to fart us out? Oh, is that the translation? Basically. And then there's another galaxy that's older? Uh-huh. That is actually pulling on us, but what we're feeling is the gravity of that other galaxy, and that's why we think we have dark matter. Got it. Okay. Okay. Couple things. All right. So he's right. Uh, as the black hole evaporates, mm-hmm, it is losing mass. Yes. And the more the smaller the black hole becomes, the faster it evaporates. Okay. Until the rate at which it evaporates be- goes exponential. And in Stephen Hawking's original paper where he describes this, he says, "The very last gasp of the black hole will be of such high energy, it'll be a burst of gamma rays." Gamma. Gamma rays. Because the wavelength of light is the size of the black hole emitting it. Right. Okay? So as the black hole gets smaller and smaller, the wavelength of light gets smaller and smaller. Smaller and smaller. And that means it has higher and higher energy. Small wavelengths are higher energy. And so the very last gasp would be gamma rays. But that explosion means there's nothing left. That's the, that So it's not like that's exploding and then you're filling the void, sure, correct, with something that'll expand to fill that. N- no. No, that was it. That's it. That was the end of everything. It. Right. It, for the black hole. Right. So- It's spent. M- Now, you want something outside our horizon, possibly pulling away, giving us the, the delusion that there's some mysterious force pressing, uh, outward on the universe. Right. The reason why that's not likely. Nothing wrong with the idea coming in, all right? Somebody's tugging on it from the other side. All right. The Because you're still If that were the right explanation, it means you're still dealing with ordinary gravity. Right. Because that's ordinary gravity, it's just pulling the other way. Uh-huh. All right. And it wouldn't be a galaxy, it would be a whole other universe, right, pulling. All right. The reason why it's probably not true is that dark energy is greatest the larger the region of space that you're describing. So there's not, it's not obvious to me why an external force of gravity would manifest- Manifest- that way here. Right. So what you're saying is there are regions where it's greater than in other regions? Uh, well, it depends on how big is the region that you carve. Right. That's all. So it's a property of the vacuum. Okay. So the more vacuum we have, the more of this you have. Okay, gotcha. That's how you think about it. So- That's how I should've said it, yeah. 0 okay. So the more Right. All right. All right. So as the universe gets bigger, this phenomenon is more significant. Right. Whereas, if there's just something else pulling on the other side and we got bigger, the gravity would be less and less, 'cause- Right. We're getting farther and far- Farther and farther. Yeah. Right. So any and all ideas accepted. I mean, or c- considered, because we don't know what the hell dark energy is. And, you know, that's what makes this so much fun that LACL can say this, because what I love is when our listeners, like, think. Yeah, yeah. That's real thinking. And they come up with these- Mm-hmm. Like, ideas, and it's real thinking. It's real thinking. Like, it's, you know- Yeah. It's scientifically based. It's really cool. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. All right. But the answer's no. Yeah, okay. All right. All right, here we go. This is Paradox. Uh, another one-name person, just Paradox. Paradox. Yeah. There's a wine called P- Paradox, but it has ducks on it. Para- like a p- Paraducks? Paradox. Yeah, I think it's a play on that. That's, that's very funny. But, yeah, uh-huh. I, I kind of At first, I was just like, "Nah," then I'm like, "Wait a minute, that's kinda cool." Oh, yeah. I see what they did there, yeah. That's it, Paradux. Okay, here, uh, "Greetings, Dr. Tyson. This is Dennis from Salisbury, Indiana. The case for taking the word hole out of black hole. They are not holes in space. It's very off-putting to think of them that way. Renaming them could possibly give new perspective on them. BOS, Black Omega Star. How about that?" He is upset that we call them black holes. They are not holes, and so, uh, the Black Omega Star, which sounds like a new Marvel character. No, it sounds like the, the Blaxploitation movie that never, was never made in the 1970s. Oh, that, and so He came from another planet. With super powers in his afro. Powered by radiation and disco music. He's Black Omega Star. Black Omega Star, something's going down at the disco. Don't worry about it, baby. Black Omega Star will be there. Hold on for a second while I pick out my radioactive afro. I'm shocked. So, now I forgot the question. What, oh- Uh, so- could we rename it? I'm not one to debate word definitions. Okay. I'm not that guy. If I'm not that guy. I see. Good words are good words, and if you have a good reason to think it should be different, I'll, I'll hear you out. Uh, but see, don't they call it a black hole because when you look at it through a telescope, first of all, you see all the light of the universe- Forget the light. They call it a black hole- I'm saying like this- because you fall in. You, you fall in. Oh, that's true. You are falling in. In, in. You're falling in. The difference is, when we think of holes, what's- we think of a 2-dimensional Right. surface, and you fall through the hole. Right. This is a 3-dimensional hole. 3-dimensional hole. Any direction you approach it- You fall in. It's a hole. Right. So, that's a little freaky, yeah, but- And by the way, when you fall in, you fall in every direction then. E- every direction. 'Cause you're falling into a 3-dimensional hole. Yes. So, you gotta be falling in every direction at the same time if you are falling in from any direction, right? When you get inside of it. I don't know what you just said. Neither do I, who cares? Okay. It just makes sense that you're falling in every direction at the same time. It's just weird, so it's a little odd that it's a hole in every direction, but, so it's a 3-dimensional hole. I mean, that's what it is. And light doesn't come out, so it's black. I, I think it's the best named thing there ever was. Okay, well- that ends this conversation. Like, well, there you go, uh, sorry about that, Dennis. No, no, but just think about it, because the word galaxy, you know what that comes from? No. It's Greek. Greek for galactose. Galactose. You know what galactose means? Uh, let me see. He's the arch nemesis of Black Omega Star. No, go ahead. Galactose is milk. The Milky Way! This is how you get that. Oh, that makes sense. It's, it's poetic and romantic, it is, but it's still, you have to go there. Oh. You gotta, like, construct what's going on. Right. And in China, where milk is a less popular beverage than in Europe, mm-hmm, they don't call it the Milky Way. Mm. They call it the Silver River. Oh, that's lovely. That's way beauti- uh, for me, I, that's better. That's even better. That's better. Sorry, Greeks. And by the way, we found a sugar in milk, a couple sugars in milk. Mm-hmm. Uh, and one of them, we called it galactose. Okay. That's one of the sugars, and the other one is lactose. Right. Lactose, galactose. All because of the galaxy. Right. That's cool. Crossing our sky. Anyhow, so, so I'm, I think black hole is good, but Black Omega Star, you know, that's, that's- That's, that's, that's kind of- Again, it's the movie that was never written. That was kind of wild, man. I kind of dig it. Okay. All right, well, there you go, Dennis. We, we can get a phone call from some Hollywood director. Exactly. "You gotta make this movie." We gotta, yes, Black Omega Star. Radioactive afro.
All right, all right. Here we go. Sam G- I'm sorry. Oh, man, um, now I'm thinking about Black Omega Star coming home from work and just, his woman is just like, "Where you been?" "Oh, you got time to be out there saving the universe, but you can't be in here taking care of these kids." Black Omega Star. This is the home life- Exactly. The home life of a superhero. "You need to get your ass over there to them Black Omega dishes." "That's what you need to do." All right, here we go, umm Get you a Black Omega ass on that lawnmower- Yes, sir. And mow the lawn and take the garbage out. Yep. All right, here we go. This is Sam Green. But have y- have you seen the Key and Peele skit? On what? Where they imitate me and my wife? Yes, I- You have, you have seen that? I did. I finally did see it. Y- yeah. Uh, somebody showed it to me here, and it was very funny where, uh- Yeah, Jordan Peele, uh, plays me. Yes. And I'm looking through a telescope, and and Keegan comes in dressed like- Like- like my wife. Like my wife, yeah. And said, "Neil deGrasse Tyson, why don't you stop looking through that telescope and do the dishes and take the garbage out and, and walk the dog?" And then he says, "Well, in another universe- in a quantum ra-" that's already happened. So, are we in this universe, or? And he, he says- Yeah. Something really cosmic, and then she says- Oh. "Oh, uh, okay." As- But, so when I first met them, it was at the Emmys, 'cause during, during one of our, uh, nominations when we had, uh, when StarTalk was on NatGeo Okay. And we, we were nominated for an Emmy 3 times. Very nice. Uh, I, they were there. And so, I went up to them and said, "Dude, my wife has a, a PhD in mathematical physics." Mm-hmm. So, the conversation would not have gone down that way. Yeah, and then- And then, uh- that's when Jordan Peele went, "Well, actually" You know, the universe operates on elegant principles, from quantum mechanics to cosmic evolution. But what happens when you want to explore the deeper questions that keep you up at night? Claude is the AI thinking partner for curious minds who love diving into complexity. Whether you're modeling stellar formation or exploring the intersection of physics and philosophy, Claude helps you dive deeper into the cosmic puzzles that fascinate you. Try Claude for free at claude.ai/startalk and see why the world's best problem-solvers choose Claude as their thinking partner.
All right. All right, this is Sam Green. He says, "Hi, Dr. Tyson, Lord Nice. Um, Sam here, living on Tulsa time." Tulsa? That's right. Tulsa, Okla- I rode in the There's a, there's a river there, in Tulsa. Did not- I rode there that- Never been to Tulsa at an annual festival. Never been. Yeah, when I was a Rode for the University of Texas. Oh, very nice. Yeah, beautiful town. Okay. That town has these big praying hands, I think. Uh- Uh, they need it. Um- Okay, he says, he says, "My question is about space-time and causality." Mm-hmm. "We usually limit our models of space-time to ones where causality is preserved, but I wonder, could space-time behave in a sort of, mm-mm, meiotic or mitotic way, to preserve itself when causality is violated? I realize, and I'm borrowing from biology here, but imagine space-time splitting when encountering a-" Is that mitosis, where- Mi Yeah, that's- M-E-I-T-O-S-I? That's mitosis, yes. What is it- Mi- mitosis. Mitos- what does he- You just used- What word is that? He said, "Meiotic," M-E-I-O-T-I-C. Or- May- maybe he's borrowing from biology words? Yes. 'Cause I don't know that in physics. Yeah. Okay. And then mitotic, which maybe that is the mitosis. Okay, okay, go ahead. Mm-hmm. So, uh, I don't know either one of those words either. Mm-hmm. So, uh, maybe we can look 'em up, guys. Uh, 'cause, you know, maybe I'm not even saying them right, to be honest. Who knows? I don't know. People cut you slack every time now. Well, you know, listen, when, wha- th- it's an honor to have me mispronounce your name or a word. All right? That's all I'm saying. You keep telling yourself that. He's like, "Come on, man, you gotta Don't, don't, don't mess Let that happen." All right, let's get back to him. He says, "I'm, um, I'm realizing, I'm borrowing from biology here, but imagine space-time splitting when encountering acausal mass or replicating to contain acausal characteristics. Could such a mechanism be-" Acausal as in, uh, not causal? Not causal. Mm-hmm. A as in not. Mm-hmm. Uh, "Could such a mechanism be a way the universe maintains consistency?" I like that idea. So the only way you're gonna mess up causality is if you go back in time. Right. And they're, uh Rich Gott wrote a whole You know, he's a friend of Star Talk. Yes. Uh, in fact, he's a co-author of, of mine. Oh, cool. We co-authored a book together called Welcome to the Universe. Very nice. It was based on a course that we co-taught, okay, together at Princeton, along with Michael Strauss. So 3 of us. Okay. So it's, uh, it's Tyson, Strauss, Gott. G-O-T-T. Nice. You wanna find that. And there were, like, 4 versions of the book. There's, Welcome to the Universe, that's like textbook style. Then there's Welc- A Brief Welcome to the Universe. That's like a pocket, sorry. And then there's Welcome to the Universe in 3D. Wow, you ri- you guys really milked that thing, man. That's I- I'm telling you. Way to, way to, way to ride a horse. All with Princeton University Press. Woo. So Rich Gott wrote a book called Time Travel in Einstein's Universe. Right. And there, turns out there is solutions if you take a certain path around a black hole, or a pair of black holes, and then come back. You can come back before you left. Oh. Th- there's a s- there's a solution that I don't know how to calculate. Okay. But people who are fluent in this do. But we don't have to worry about the details of that. What we care about is the idea of it. Right. All right? Is the universe gonna get angry if you manage to go back in time? Mm-hmm. Then tell yourself to not go back in time. Right. How do you, how do you, how do you square that? That would be the most awesome thing. I could see why the universe could get mad at that. Right, right. So does the universe split? I mean, that's kind of what he's hinting here. Yeah, that's what he said. 'Cause- 'Cause at that point, what you have done, 'cause you already k- 'Cause you, you can't let that go. You already win, you already win. Right. So when you come back and don't go again, what happened to the winst? See? 'Cause you already win. That's how you got back. Right. But in the movies, what happens is, you always end up doing something else that puts you right back- Where it should've been. Where you gotta go. Or you disappear from the photo. Right. Right. That's Steven Hawking has something called the time travel conjecture. Okay. He, he thinks, thought, that one day, we would find a law of nature that explicitly says you cannot go backwards in time. Okay. And that, and so as a conjecture, he's imagining that one day, we will make such a discovery. You know what he did? He had a time travel party. Did you know about this? I did not. Hosted, uh, he or his people hosted a party at Cal Tech. Mm-hmm. And the announcement was made to all time travelers, "Come back in time and meet us here, and we will greet you." And nobody- Nobody showed up? Nobody showed up. Yeah. That's funny. So a-another one, you know the one about the Titanic? In the, in the, in the TV series Time Tunnel. I don't know that. The, had the same d- uh, producer. There was a couple of shows that had the same kind of, uh, uh, Land of the Giants, Time Tunnel. It was like one-hour TV shows, prime time, that were science-y. Oh. Science fiction-y. Okay. Okay? And Time Tunnel, the very first episode, they go back in time and they're just kinda lost in time. That's the show. They try to come back and they can't, they land up in another place. Oh, okay. So where's the first place they went? Uh, Titanic. The Titanic. Mm. It was the Titanic. Well, that was the end of the series. Oh, well. That was nice while it lasted. And so it, there, and then the reveal is there as he's walking 0 on the deck that he sees the, the, the Lifesaver. And it says- And it says USS Titanic. Yeah, well, no, it's not US, it's, um- Oh. Oh, that's right, 'cause it's not the US. It's the, it's British. British, right. Yeah, but I don't know, SS Titanic. SS Titanic. It's been hypothesized 'cause everyone is so intrigued by the Titanic and that story Right. that the day time travel actually gets invented, everyone wants to go back to the Titanic, and that's why it sank. Yeah, well. There wasn't enough boats for everybody. That's what So I don't- 'Cause they're all time travelers. I don't wanna go back to the Titanic. I wanna go back to a row boat. A rowboat. That's too Sitting- off to the side of the Titanic. Like, and eating some popcorn like, "Wow, that is messed up." "Look at that." You know? Who knows how that would get resolved. Either you can't go back in time, or if you do, the universe splits and prevents you from altering One of the timelines. Mm-hmm, one of the timelines, correct. So- And I, and we're not there yet. Right. But it's a great question, yeah. Okay. Mm-hmm. That's super cool.
Parker Mann says, "Hello, Dr. Tyson and Sir Charles. Uh, this is Parker Mann, retired geophysicist-" All right. " in Ventura, California. Now looking up instead of down." Oh, nice. Mm-hmm. Tell me the name again? Uh, this is, uh- Parker? Parker Mann. Parker Mann. Yeah. Shout out to you. Yep. All right. There you go. And by the way, we need more geologists to look up than down so that they will understand that it's one of our asteroids that took out the dinosaurs. Mm-hmm. Okay? Yeah. So, uh- We have a whole lot of down-looking paleontologists out there. All right. I don't wanna loop you in with the paleontologists, but Earth is your place. But yeah, all right. He says, "I recently saw a video in which Dr. Tyson said that Jupiter's orbit allows it to partially protect the Earth from asteroid impacts." Mm-hmm. "If it were further out, would it protect Mars? And closer in, protect Venus? Can you elaborate on why Jupiter differentially protects planets based on its orbit? Thank you." Good, good question. Yeah, well. Nice question. So we say protects Earth 'cause we don't care if it protects Venus. Protects anybody else. But the truth is, it's protecting everybody. It's pre- it's, it's protecting everybody within its orbit. Within its orbit because it's, it's, it's- c- 'cause what would happen is- it's like alignment. A, a, a comet would come by and you cannot escape the feel- Gra- the gravity of Jupiter. Oh, gravity of Jupiter. I, I, I should say that more precisely. Go ahead. You cannot come in and out of the solar system without having felt the influence of Jupiter. Nice. Okay? 'Cause the word escape has a very precise meaning. That's true, yeah. And I don't wanna say it that way. Gotcha, gotcha. So Jupiter's protecting Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. Yeah. Period. So a comet comes in, it, it and, and it, and it feels Jupiter and then it swings out the other side. Right. And never even comes in. Never even comes in to- Never, doesn't even come- come towards us. Correct, correct. Right. So plus, uh, the distances between and among the planets is exponential, uh, in units of the Earth-sun distance. Okay. Uh, Mercury is 0.4. Venus is 0.7, Earth is one. Right. One distance out, okay? Of course it would be. Mars is two and a half. Oh. Jupiter is 5. Oh. Saturn is 10. Oh. Uranus is 20. Neptune is 30. Okay. Well- No, but the, the distance was getting really big- Really big, really big. Very fast. Very fast, right. That's what the point of this- Yeah. This lame exercise I'm trying to lay down. Yeah. And so the, so all of the inner planets basically are huddled compared to where Jupiter is. Right. And, and its ability to protect its inner children. Yeah. Oh, cool. Is that because the, uh, the mass of these other planets is so much bigger that they need more distance so they're not disturbing the- They would clear out more distance. They would clear out more distance. They would clear out more distance. Right, okay. But the formation of solar systems is still an active field. 'Cause we used to think our sol- any other star system would look like our solar system. Right. That's a first assumption. Mm-hmm. And they, none of them is. Wow, that's so cool. Some of them have Jupiters as close as Mercury is. Oh. They're called hot Jupiters. That's cool. Yeah, yeah. "How you doing?" "I'm hot Jupiter." "What's up, Saturn? That girl is ratchet, I'm telling you right now." All right, that's super cool. If you want it, put a ring on it. All right, Parker Maham, what a great question.
Here we go. Freddy Abdon, "Hey, Neil, hey, Chuck. My name is Freddy Abdon, an American living in Pereira, Colombia." What, what's the name of the town? Pereira. I don't know that town. I don't either. Spell it. Pere- Maybe I do know it, if you pronounced it right. P-E-R-E-I-R-A, Pereira. Pereira. Pereira. Okay. E, is it E-I-R-A? That sounds Portuguese. E-I-R-A. Yeah. Pereira, Colombia. Portuguese, they put the E in front of the I. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Colombia- "Where the best coffee is grown." Ooh. That's right. Colombian coffee. That's right, Colombian coffee. We used to get those TV commercials. Better known as cocaine. Stop. "The second law of thermodynamics says entropy must increase. Uh, yet for a surprisingly long stretch, Earth maintained extraordinary order and complexity, enabling life to thrive in stark contrast to the decay and disorder we observed elsewhere in the cosmos. That should not have happened, statistically speaking. What could explain that rare pause in entropy, bubble of low chaos? Could it point to-" What are you, Captain Kirk? "What could have, explains" "Could it point to unique initial conditions, or maybe even some odd influence beyond our natural forces?" Religious people who know only some physics, but not- Enough. Enough physics know about the second law of thermodynamics that everything proceeds to chaos. Correct. That's a, that's a, is a simplification, but basically it goes from order to disorder. Okay. Okay? And Earth goes from disorder to now we have, like, life. You can't get more complicated than life. Right. So they wanted to invoke that as a reason for, not that physics didn't work, but that the hand of God operated. Intervened. Intervened here. Right. Reversing what would otherwise be the trend that we see everywhere else in the universe. Mm-hmm. So it was not a statement of physics not working, it's a statement of the handy work of God. And what is a miracle if not the suspension of the laws of physics? The proper way to say the second law of thermodynamics- Okay. is Okay. For any closed system- Mm-hmm. the system will move to disorder. Right. Inexorably. We're not a closed system. We are open to the universe, we're open to sunlight. Right. We're, we're bathed in sunlight. That is energy entering our system. Entering our system. Okay? Right. So if you have net energy flow into a system- Okay. then it's not a closed system. All right. So now, but you gotta rob Peter to pay Paul. If our entropy is going down- Mm-hmm. Life is, is lower entropy than what was there before, somebody's entropy had to go up. Really? The sun. Oh. The sun is dying. Yes, it is. So that we might have life. A different kind of sun- gi- giving up life that we might live. Oh, I see what you did there. You see what I did there? That's, I see what you did there. Yeah, I understand. So the sun will die. Right. And then when the sun dies, nothing is bolstered after that. Right. And then the whole system go- Whole system goes to entropy. Yeah. That's, look at that. N- Now a quick little aside, in our hole in the universe- Right. we have a completely enclosed sphere, glass sphere that has water and 3 l- lifeforms in it. Why would you do that? Terrible. Stop. Is just- No. Awful. It's, okay. Yes, they're, they're sealed in this cavity. Oh my God. All right. And so do we have 3 lifeforms. There's krill, like really tiny krill. Like, yeah, the little shrimpy things. Little shrimpy things. Yeah. We have snails. Oh, yeah. And we have something like kelp, like a, like a under- Oh, okay, like a plant. Plant, planty thing. Yeah, plant, plant. That creates a complete ecosystem. Mm. Okay? So the, the krill poops, the snails- Snails eat that. eat the, eat the poop. Right. The thing Okay. And then that fertilizes the kelp- We get the kelp, we get the- And the sunlight comes in and helps the kelp. Exactly. And then the- Exactly. It's a closed circuit. Oh, so you noticed it's not a completely closed system. Right. 'Cause it's made of transparent glass. Right. So sunlight gets in. It, okay, so now, here's the story. When we were building the Rose Center for Earth and Space in the year 1999, 'cause we opened January 1st, 2000, um, there was a lot of construction dust. They finally moved that into place, and there's construction dust. So the- Oh my God. Construction people said- Oh, no. "We clearly have to protect this sphere of glass." Up came the tarp. Ugh. Oh, poor s- poor snaily. No, well, the plant. Yeah, I mean, it, it This So fortunately, clearer heads caught it. I mean, the, there's You can't blame the construction workers. I mean, they're not astrobiologists. Yeah. Okay? They weren't looking at that like, "Guys, I know it looks like a closed system, but it isn't." "Okay? We gotta allow the sunlight in. We need photosynthesis for the kelp. And, uh, the 2 lifeforms actually, uh, well, uh, are, are They're all 3 lifeforms, and they're dependent upon each other." So, yeah, I don't know. So w- I, I, it was, I, I forgot how long, it was a few days, but there, you picked it up, and there were a few belly-up krill in there. Oh. But they reestablished their equilibrium, and they're still going. They's still going. After 25 years. In that, in that seemingly closed system. Seemingly closed system. In that seemingly closed system. Correct. It is living off of the sun. Nice. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, that's how that works. Okay, very cool. All right, I love that. That was great little lesson in entropy. Mm-hmm. Uh, Nicholas Hayes, "Hello, Neil." Oh, oh, one other thing- What? About entropy. Go ahead. Okay, you're alive, right? All right, well, we hope. Okay. Sometimes. You, uh, y- right now you are consuming energy for being alive. For being alive. Where'd the energy come from? Um, I'm gonna say Jesus. No, um- The way you said that, that very Southern Baptist. Well, that's the only way- Jesus. Well, no, I mean, um, I ate food and- You ate food, period. People say, they look at food, and if the calorie count does something bad- Yeah. Calories is the energy- That's energy. that you're using. All right. Do you know what the word for energy is in French? No. Calorie. Calorie. Ba-da-doh. Okay. So when you die, you stop eating. Right. Well, there, there's a reason why. Sorry. You don't choose to stop eating when you die. I don't see too many corpses like, "God, I am so hungry." "Man! Hey, why don't you eat? Why don't What are you doing, man? You're not taking care of yourself? Just as you're dead, you-" So I said it back, I'm sorry. I said it the wrong way. Um, so, but when you're dead, there's no more metabolism in you. Right. Okay? And you begin to decay. Right. You become disorder. You, you're moving to entropy. Yes. Right. There it is. Yeah. Because you, you, you are now a closed system. Right. See, as long as you got a pie hole to shove food into- you're not a closed system. Very cool. Yeah.
All right. This is Nicholas Hayes. He says, "Hello, Neil and Chuck. My name is Nick, and I'm an industrial designer-" Love him. " in North Bend, Washington." Love him. "My question is, if I, in my super advanced starship, were traveling close to the speed of light and blew past a planet moving in the opposite direction, would it, would I appear to be traveling faster than the speed of light to anyone watching me from the planet? Or would my reference frame constantly change based on what is being passed by?" Yeah, no. Okay. N- next, next question. All right. No, no, so here's how it works. So at low speeds, you can just sort of add velocities- And you, so if you're in a car going 60 miles an hour one way, a car going 60 miles an hour another way, you will pass each other at- 120 miles an hour. Thank you. Yes. 120 miles an hour, okay. What's really fun is, in an airplane where you see the ground, you know, going by slowly 'cause it's, you, high up, right? When another plane is coming towards you if the, the opposite direction, the relative 'Cause you're going maybe 500 miles an hour, six, and they're going 500 miles an hour, it's passing you at 1,000 miles an hour. Mm. If you wanna see what, like, a supersonic jet would look like to you if you were just standing there, and it's, it's, it's- Right. It's really Just check, check it out next time. Yeah. When you're You keep looking out the window, you will find planes coming the other way. Yeah. And they go by fast. Very fast, and they're pretty far away, and they're still zipping by you, man. Zipping by, zipping by. Yeah. So the formula to add velocities is very simple. It's this one plus that one, and that's your relative velocity. As you go faster, that formula breaks down- Really? And you need to use a relativity formula- Oh. To add velocities. Oh, please tell, 'cause I'm, I'm not, I'm not familiar with this. You didn't know about that? Okay. I do not know. So- This is so cool. And the relativity formula, uh, y- it is not how fast you're going, it's how fast you're going relative to the speed of light. Aha. And that f- ratio is in the formula. Oh. Okay? Very cool. Yeah. And so when that ratio is near 0, the formula just becomes 2 numbers added. But as that ratio gets higher, it's a more complicated formula. It becomes a more complicated formula. And so at, at half the speed of light and half the speed of light, you would see the other thing going maybe at 2 thirds the speed of light, not 'Cause half and half would be a full speed of light. Right. Right? Go in the opposite direction. Yes. So, uh, if you're going 99% that way and 99% this way, you'd r- you, you invoke the formula, you're never gonna get higher than the speed of light. Gotcha. Yeah. Right. So the answer is no. 'Cause if, let's say, you were going, I don't know, 9, 910ths the speed of light- Mm-hmm. Without the formula, you'd be going much faster than the speed of light when you pass each other. Correct. And you can't do that. You can't do that. So you can't violate that law. Correct. And so because you can't violate that principle of physics or, or the, the universe- Uh-huh. You gotta have this formula. It's not just a can't. It's that's what we observe. Right. And so this is the formula that describes what we observe. What we're observing. Right. Gotcha. The universe is not obeying our formulas. Right, right. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, we've actually made a formula to tell us what the universe is doing. Correct. I gotcha. And it's a, it's an important distinction. It is, yeah. Go ahead. We, I will occasionally loosely say, uh, uh, "The planet is following Newton's laws." Right. No, N- Newton's laws are following the planet. Right. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's funny. Yeah. All right, that was ve Oh, man. What a great question, Nicholas Hayes. I, I, I can't recite it off the top of my head, but I'm sure there's a Wiki page on- On the w- uh, on adding relativistic velocities. Relativistic velocities. Adding relativistic. Add and rel- You, you just go there. And the, the formula has, you know, some squares and square roots in it. It's not complicated. It ain't crazy. It's not crazy. Right. 'Cause we can go crazy if you wanna go crazy. But so- Yeah. You can do it if you ha- have had elementary arithmetic, elementary algebra. Sorry.
This is John. Stay um He says, "Hi, Neil and Chuck. This is John from Tampa, Florida. Uh, we describe space as being 3-dimensional like a cube. Is the fabric of space better described as a 4-dimensional or a tesseract because it is also expanding? What could happen if the universe stopped expanding? Would time or the speed of light be affected?" We do not know what of what we measure is fundamentally linked to the expanding universe. Oh. It has been suggested- Mm. that the second law of thermodynamics, since we just went in and out of that, might be a property of an expanding universe. Mm. And that if the universe slowed down and re-collapsed, maybe isolated systems achieve order rather than disorder. Or, does the second law of thermodynamics pass through an expanding and a collapsing universe? Do the laws of physics not change? So these are unknown questions. We make some assumptions, but they're not tested, and so we do not know. Our time dimension is not a space dimension, so it's- Okay. It's not a tesseract. Right. Tesseract is 4D, 4 spatial dimensions. Right. And, uh, time is different. We need it as a coordinate, but it's not the same as the other coordinates, because as I've said, we are a prisoner of the present. Hmm. Forever transitioning between our inaccessible past and our unknowable future. So that is not a coordinate we can move back and forth on. Right. But X, Y, and Z, we can go forward and backward, left, right. Any way we want on that. Right. We have full access. So it's correct to say we live in 4 dimensions, but one of those is space. It's a very different world from one where 4 space dimensions exist, and then you have time on top of that. That would be the 5th dimension. Oh, watch out. Uh- Did I tell you the arranger of the 5th Dimension was a family cousin? Who? The arranger, his name is Rene DeNite, was Rene DeNite. Oh, really? Yeah. And every time the 5th Dimension came through New York, we got tickets. Oh, that's very cool. I was a k- little kid but we The, the Ed Sullivan Theater, the way they performed- Oh, the 5th Dimension is huge. They're huge. They were huge, they were worldwide. Like- Oh. << The moon >> << Moon is in the 7th house, and Jupiter aligns with Mars. >> << Moon is in the 7th house, and Jupiter aligns with Mars. >> << And peace >> I don't know the rest. << Will guide the planets, and love >> I don't, I don't know how to sing. << Love will steer the stars. >> << This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius. >> << This is the dawning of the age of >> Wait. 5th Dimension. Yep. All right. 5th Dimension. Yep. That's, that was for all you Aquarians out there. We, we know how needy you are.
All right, this is Marcus Gustafson. Gustafson? Gustafson. Is it 2 Fs? Yep. No, one F. One F. Gustafson. Gustafson. Okay. Yeah. Or is it 2 S's? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there you go. Gustafson. I got the wrong double there, good. He says, "Hello, everyone. Marcus here, from Sweden." Um You think? Gustafson. He says, "I have a question about the value of scientific understanding." Love it. Love it. "I've always valued gaining knowledge about the universe after following after and following Star Talk for years, and reading books on the subject, that I find my life has gained something for doing so. But, I have a difficult-" Notice he didn't say he read my books. No. He just said he read books, just l- let the record show. Okay. Yeah, I'm, I'm sure you're in there somewhere. Right. Okay. In, in his choices. He says, "But I have had a difficult time exactly pinpointing what. I believe I have gained scientific literacy, which comes with a different perspective on how to know what is true and the value of quantifying my ignorance, as well as getting humbled. What would you say are some more important things a person gains from scientific understanding, aside from knowledge alone?" Well, brother, you just named 2 huge- It's huge. Huge- It's huge. Things to learn. Okay, so here it is, the number one thing is, the number one feature of science literacy? Yeah? It empowers you to know when someone else is full of shit. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It that You, it's empowerment. If someone says, "Oh, I have these crystals, rub them, and you" If you understand crystals, and you understand m- m- medicine, you understand, you're not gonna buy the crystal from the person. Right. All right? You are a victim of charlatans, which implies the person selling it to you knows better. Or you're the victim of other people who themselves are victims. Mm-hmm. So he wants more out of this. Ain't that enough? Yeah, I mean, and by the way, quanti- you know, quantifying your ignorance is a huge- Huge. Self-awareness that most people- Huge. Never, ever get. Now where I thought he was going with the question was- What? There are things that we can measure but don't understand. Okay. We, we measure dark matter- Right. We don't know what's causing it. We don't know what it is. We measure dark energy. Right. We don't know what's causing it. Right. We know we're alive, we don't know how we got from organic molecules to self-replicating life. Right. We, we don't know. Just because you can measure it doesn't mean you understand it. In fact, my favorite example here is once telescopes and cameras became Once cameras Once film became sensitive enough to If you look at any old photo, like from the 1920s, 1930s, somebody's blurred in it. 'Cause you have, the f- camera wasn't sensitive enough to light. Yeah. The film wasn't sensitive to light. And you need long exposures for everything. Through long exposures you can say, you can say, "Hold it. Hold the position." Right. Okay? And there's always some, especially if it's a kid in a family photo, the kid is blurred. Right. It was very hard to get astro-worthy photographs, because the image is very dim. When we did, we knew that when you take star- starlight and pass it through a prism, you get i- important information about the light. Chemical composition Well, there's features in the light we didn't know. There's features in the light, there are bright lines and dark lines. It's a spectrum. In the 1910s and '20s- We started taking spectra of stars, knowing that one day that's gonna be important, even though we don't understand it. Right. Okay? Even though we don't really know what's going on. Super cool. And so huge data sets came down the pipe, and we have laboratory counterparts to the spectrum. So we think that's hydrogen. Oh- oh, we think that's carbon. We think 'cause it's over here and we see it there. Right. And- That's un- I mean, unbelievable. No, no, it's, it's amazing. Yeah, it is. It's ama- it's amazing. It's so great. And we And finally, the 1920s come along, quantum physics gets developed. We understand the fricking atom. Yeah. What electrons are doing- Right. What they do to light. Right. If white light passes through it, or any kind of light passes through it. And all the data we had been collecting and not understanding what the hell it was telling us became the foundations for our understanding of stellar evolution. Wow. And it's one of the great triumphs of 20th century astrophysics. Wow. Yeah, man. That is very, very cool. Mm-hmm.
All right. This is Alejandro Guardado. That's a different Alejandro. It is. We had a Alejandro- Reynoso. Reynoso. That's right. And he's- Alejandro Reynoso. Reynoso. And this one is? Alejandro Guardado. Guardado. Okay. Yes. He is- He coming in from where? Alejandro from-
Washington State. At least the other Alejandro was from Monterrey, Mexico. Yes, Monterrey. Monterrey, Mexico. Mexico. Wasn't he- wasn't he from Mexico? Yes, he was from- Yeah, he was Mexican. Yeah, Mexico. Okay. So maybe- Uh- it's just A- Alex. They call him. You can call me Alex, though. Hey, guys. What you doing? Can I- Can I join?
Hey, got a question for you dudes. The uncoolest person in the room. You go from the, the, the, uh, the, the most, the most interesting man in the world- Right. to Right. Hey, call me Alex. Okay. Alejandro from Washington State, what do we have? From Washington State. He says, "I'm a new Patreon member." Oh, nice. Wel- welcome to the- Thanks, buddy. Can I get back into my voice? Welcome to the universe. There you go. Oh, yeah. You've been officially birthed into our family, bro.
Uh- And by the way, I think you do get a lower voice than me, but you, you don't sustain it. I can't. You have that whiskey voice. Uh, that's why I, I can't sustain it. Oh. 'Cause it's I'm drunk right now. No. He says, uh, "My question is, what are good ways to wrap your head around partial or even complete vacuums? For example, space." I'm still trying to wrap my head around fans not working in space and- and I'm wondering- That's a weird thought. It is. Why don't fans work in space? And I'm wondering why these- 'Cause the rotor's spinning. Yeah, yeah, that's it. And I can't I'm up high. It's so It's so hot. I don't understand how I'm hot and it's only like 3 degrees Kelvin in here. Anyway, he says, uh, uh, "I'm wondering why these things work the way they do." What, what is the vacuum of space? I mean, that's a very weird, like- There's a deeper question there. Go ahead. And it's, what is nothing? What is nothing? Yeah.
The best vacuum we've ever created was in the detector, was it, of the Large Hadron Collider. Oh, cool. 'Cause you don't want those particles hitting stuff they don't want them to hit. That's right. They, they- No, you gotta suck everything out of there, man. Suck it all out. And one of the problems is material. I did this when I was in college, I worked at Bell Labs for one summer. And we, uh, we explored different vacuums, uh, because we were testing for, uh, superconducting materials. Mm-hmm. And you want a very sort of pristine environment for that to But anyhow, so, so you can We have a cavity and you suck out all the, the gas until the pump can't pump out any more out. And you say, "That's pretty good." Here's what you do next. You heat the walls. They're gas particles that got stuck in the texture of the surface of the cavity. You heat the walls, they all jump out. You see the pressure go back up just by heating it. Then you suck that out. Now you cool it down, then- then you have a way better vacuum than you otherwise would have. But still, the particles left over there. So, we do okay with our vacuums. You leave our atmosphere very far, between the planets, that's an even better vacuum. Mm. You go outside the solar system, between the stars, that's an even better vacuum. You go outside the galaxy, between the galaxies, that's an even better vacuum. And last I ran the numbers on that, that vacuum has one particle every cubic meter. That's cra- And- And you're t- One particle? Yeah, yeah. One particle per cubic meter. So, leave your fan at home. Mm-hmm. That's the lesson here.
But if you take away that particle, then what is that? Is there nothing there? No, there is still something there. Mm. The laws of physics are still there. If you want a- a place where there's nothing, shouldn't you be removing the laws of physics as well? Now- now we talking, like, we- we're- we're outside of Matrix stuff now. Because that's All right. Let me not even get there yet. That's not even a loading program anymore. Let's not even get there yet. Now, there's no particles there. Okay. There is light passing through it. The cosmic microwave background- Oh. visiting the region. Right. Okay? And there's something called virtual particles- That pop in and out of existence. popping in and out of existence. The quantum physics dictates this. And so, there's a vacuum of no regular particles, but other stuff is happening. And through that volume is the fabric of space and time. So, a real place A real vacuum should have not only no particles, it should have no virtual particles. It should not even have a spacetime continuum. And if it doesn't even have that, maybe that's how you get rid of the laws of physics. You took away the spacetime. Oh. Maybe laws of physics are a part of spacetime. So, yeah, this is the kind of stuff you like over a beer, you know? You Yeah. But make sure it's a zero calorie beer. No, I know I said beer, because you would have said weed, right? That's a weed conversa- Yeah. I don't I never smoke, so I don't- Yeah. I don't I can't relate to what that might be. That is definitely a weed conversation, man. I'm- I'm And by the way, and I forgot which one of my 2 Merlin books. Uh, they just got republished, one last year and- Nice. and one is coming out in a few days, actually. The someone asked Merlin that very s- Merlin was my pen name for a column that I wrote for, like, 10 years. Right. And p- people ask, the public asks ques- So, I'm very comfortable in this Q&A environment. Mm-hmm. Just in case, I don't know, you didn't know that. Well, you know, I We've been working together for a little while now, so I figured that out. You figured that out? So- so, one of the questions was, what- what's the best vacuum? And so Merlin, is my pen name, goes through all the various vacuums. Oh, really? Yeah. And how many particles per cubic, you know, meter. You know, there's a lot, and then less and less and less. And so, it's in there, very cleanly described. Very nice. Yeah.
All right. That's all the time we have. All right. Oh my gosh. And all these were asked by Patreon members. That's right. Thank you all the patreon people. Okay. Yes. We- we love our Patreon supporters. And you can go to patreon.com and- and- and join the, uh, Star Talk family, uh, for, uh, for as little as $5 a month. Uh, you too can save a comedian. << In the arms of an angel >> You need puppy eyes? No. You gotta be looking through a gate or something. Yeah, we need a chain link fence right here and I'm just like All right. No, that's not where the money goes to. Oh. It goes to, uh, experiments that we conduct. Yeah. To try to- It allows us to expand the show. Expand the show in ways that- That's right. are not quite commercially viable yet. Right. Yeah. And work on it and get people's input. And so, yeah. No, we- we appreciate you is the- is the point. That's right. And we got Star Talk Plus channel now. Yes, which- And YouTube. Because of Patreon. Yeah. Because Star Talk Plus makes no money at all. Not yet. We're working on it. Well, yeah. I mean- We're working out what works in there. Maybe one day, but- Yeah, maybe one We're working on it. Okay, that's it, Chuck. Yeah, man. Another episode of- A grab bag, baby. Star Talk Grab Bag. That's right. All right. So this has been yet another episode of Cosmic Queries: Grab Bag Edition. Chuck, always good to have you. Always a pleasure. All right. Neil deGrasse Tyson here, as always, bidding you to keep looking up.