Spacetime and Gravitational Influence

Our listeners love puzzles, paradoxes, and hidden patterns almost as much as we do. On TikTok, those fascinations come to life People are breaking down physics, exploring geology, and explaining why the world works the way it does. You'll see impressive experiments, explanations that finally make sense, and connections you didn't expect. It's like having a lab, a lecture hall, and science museum in your pocket. TikTok is where wonder is shared where curiosity turns into discovery and where millions learn something new every day Ayenware's backack to schoolchool event is the perfect time to score top gaming gear with incredible features and advanced engineering to go beyond performance Start your Alienware journey with the AlienWare fifteen gaming laptop featuring Intel core processors, game, live stream and multitask for hours on end Pair your incredibly smooth gaming experience with immersive visuals and sound by saving on sleek alienware monitors, headsets and more This limited time sale awaits you now at alienware. com slash deals. Paul, that was a good set of questions. Oh my gos. It's amazing. you know, we learned a lot about sponges and webs and all sorts of things. Coming up anotherother installment of Cosm Query's Grab Bag edition. Welcome Dark talk Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide ar talk begins right now This is Star Talk, CosmicQueries Eedition. This time I got Paul Makcurio, Paul. Welcome back, dude. Ali, good to see you again. Neil, how are you buddy? All right, Paul at some point somebody Chrened you Barren. aul M. That is true. and had we had a ceremony, which was quite well in your office. if you remember, you did we use my excalibra Exc calibber store. Yes. We did the whole thing. Yeah. I still would.. For some reason, there's no red carpet here, but, you know. And are you you still have your traveling show Pmission to speak I do, yeah. This is a theater show, right? It's a wagon and I sell medicines. I'm a medicine man now because I'm going to be out of a job at the late show. So yes, toururing with that. I've got my podcast inside out with Paul Mcurio because it's the law and everyone's supposed to have a podcast now. And you've been in the busiz a while. Yeah, I go back I go back to the Daily showow and of original guys on that and we even p dating John Start. John Stewart, that tiny little man. Yes. he's he's only this big. A lot of people don't know The cameras are amazing that we would have. Yes with Craig Kilborne. and then and Lewis Black was on and we would have all this crazy fun and nobody knew what they were doing, but They were letting us, we were like, you know, you would appreciate this. We were like in the lab just they just said, just go make it and blow things up. And then we'd get yelled at by the president of the network every once in a while because we went too far. He would literally yell at you like your father would yell at you like couldn't Why did you think that that could be okay on TV? And he's like screaming at you. We got a grab bag this session. Yeah. So that means great quest by the way, some really good questions. Whatever subjects just sort of landed in your lap And these are questions asked by our Patreon members. And whenever I do these, I'm always and this isn't falls praise, like you're the fans of our show just How smart they are about this stuff, like they really great questions. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. ye, it's like, oh my gosh We try to hand it out degrees Except for this first guy. this first guy's an idiot now I'm just kiding. Okay, so what you got for me? This is Faruk from Uzbekistan, writing from Norwich, UK. It's my favorite movie Instellar. afterfter I've seen your interview with Kip Thorne. There's something that bothers me now When they were on Miller's planet with giant water waves next to the black hole being immensely time dilated relative to one of their crew that remained behind on the ship and aged faster, what if they had telescopes and looked through the windows of the ship at their crewmate aging years for their minutes. wouldouldn't they be able to see the faster passage of time Or would it have well, or what would it have looked like Or is light itself affected and won't allow this to happen? So if you had a telescope and looked down at them near the surface of the black hole, everything would be going in slow motion I understand, but it's also kind of insensitive.ist they're looking through the telescope. Hey guys, look at this Look at he's aging so fast. just he just took out a reverse mortgage on his house. like He's turning gray in while we watch it. Yeah. I just had a sandwich and during that time, he's been divorced three times and he doesn't have any visitation rights. what They would look down and see them moving slowly. And when you're near a black hole, you see the rest of the universe unfold in rapid speed And so yeah, you there's nothing special about the light that happens. It arrives to you at a different Pace depending on how deep into a gravitational well you are. And the reason why that orbit was chosen to be very close to the black hole, was to maximize the time dilation. It's called time dilation when you create this difference in the rate of time. By the way, that exists for our GPS satellites We are closer to the center of the earth than the GPS satellites are. So we experience slower time than they do Yet we get our precise time from them So when they send down their time, Orbit They pre correct it for Einstein's general theory of relativity so that our time works at our location. on Earth's surface Got So but in saying you looking through the telescope, you're seeing things in slow motion, essentially, Is that right? If you're looking at their behavior on the planet, yeah. Oh yeah. Because it because even if the guy becausecause light itself gets stretched. and so it looks like he's buffering basically. Is that what we're saying? Buffering. That's an interesting word to bring into relativity. I have to think about that. So no, just the timeline. So here's the thing You are a prisoner of the present forever transitioning between your inaccessible past and your unknowable future That's all you know about your own timeline. There are other timelines that are proceeding at different cases than your timeline depending on how fast they're moving in space relative to you, and depending on how much gravity they're subjected to So time is not absolute. That's that this was the big discovery of Einstein Isaac Newton is turning in his grave upon hearing this could who's present are we it's basically like whoses present are we talking about, right? Does this relativity does this mean there's no shared now? So the idea of watching someone age across frames is already kind of the wrong question in a way. Yeah some of those you're right. Some of those questions just kind of lose meaning. Like what is the now for everybody if your timeline is unfolding more slowly than mine, Right rightight because you can't watch them age and fast forward because the universe won't let you skip ahead the con It won't let you skip ahead, but you can watch a timeline unfold faster than yours And if time is that dilated, does that mean You couldn't actually watch him aging and fast forward because the light carrying that information is stretched and delayed as well to the universse who Yeah, I think if you're tracking time, The stretching of the so rather than think of stretching of the light, think of light pulses ot. And so what's the interval between pulses and that's a nice way to sort of Tick out the time The pulses you would see down on the the planet I guess was called Miller's planet. I didn't remember the name of it. Yes. Millish. If you all agreed, let's pulse every second And then you see their pulses down there and their pulses happen every two or three seconds, even though according to their watches is every one second. So it's not that the light stretches so much as the pace. at which time unfolds shifts. And so yeah, and they did it right He did it right Mark Phillips of Florescent Missouri. Hi, doror Tyson. this is Mark Phillips. s fllorescent F O F L O R I SSA N or fluoresccent. fl. Okay. If we are living in in a simulation Would you want to know And would you choose to embrace your place or attempt to break the cycle and communicate to the overlords knowing you, Neil, you'll need to communicate because it's gone a lot of that I love that question. And what and third part of the question, what would you wish to gain from contact with them? Or have you already And you are just controlling us I'm not authorized to comment That's a great question. I love it. I embrace all objective truths No matter what. I mean, it's not that long ago in the era of our grandparents, perhaps where it was perfectly acceptable. for the doctor to lie to you tellell you you don't have terminal cancer And no, you're not going to be dead in six months That was somehow accepted That's right, you're right In fact, I think there was such a scene in was it a streetcar named Desire? What's the story that has Big Daddy in it U Oh, that's mendacity. That's a cat on a hot tin roof? Well, Kat on hot cat on a hot roof. I don't know why I confuse those two. So Kat on a hot t roof, Big daddy, or whatever his name was. he alive to Everyone else knew he was going die and the doctor told him he was like just fine.. That's To me, that is today completely unacceptable, at least for me I want to know all truth Wh know that? I can reckon with that truth, in whatever way I See fit who live alive. is to not fully be in touch with all that controls your life all that matters, all that So yeah, maybe that's because I'm a scientist. Some people just say lie to me lie to me. That happens a lot of politics, right? Le to me. Tell me there is no global warming. tellell me we're not tellell me just lie to me and everything will be better. And that's okay temporarily and then it catches up with you and by then it's too late So ye, I would want to know if I was in a simulation. I agree. I would want to know. B. I totally want to talk to the overlords. Absolutely I want to talk to the manager. I have questions. You want be care Wh's in charge? Who's in charge? First of all, who picked my avatar? Why don't I have a better body? That would be one. You had infinite rendering power and you chose to make me a guy who pulls a hamstring tying his shoe. That would be number two. Why did you give me mild acid reflux? I have a lot of issues with this overlord person And with our luck, it's a fourteen year old kid who's gets like a triple ag It's an alien kid. a parents basement. Yeah. List, if we're in a simulation, I just want the patch notes. That's all I want. Okay. The programmer of the simulation in which we live gave you freedom. to join A fitness center. happen It is obvious to me you've never stepped into a fitness center. Wow. Okay. This is why I don't want to know all truths. This is why There are there are some things I don't want to know. So what would you change? No, no questionions is, what would I ask? and would I would ask is every bit of this universe knowable through laws of physics Or is there's something you just got lazy programming and it will never make sense to anybody and no one can never create a law for it because you just pulled it out of your ass That's what I'd want to know. because if they didn't, then I would still continue to explore la Well, it's funny becausecause in my mind, when I read this question before we came on the air, it was like it's sort of maybe the other side of the coin of what you just said, which is Is there only a simulation or is there some being or power, Ephemeral ethereials that has some hand in how we exist Do that I don't know that we would ever be able to Deduce the difference Well, but could you that's the point, right? So the simulation maybe only exists because of this Greater power being, right you'll never know the answer.or is the greater powerful being Yeah, But that's deal with But that's yeah, but but we don't know what the is the simulator a human being? Is it is it an alien of some kind? Like what is who is the simulator? Does't matter? I mean, I'm saying it's someone vastly smarter than us That's whoa. It's like answ Speak for yourself, buddy, mister insecure, low IQ guy. I can c first of all, in this one question, you told me I have arms likeg limp spaghetti noodles in terms of my body's height and I'm dumb as a stump. Is this how we're gonna do the whole show? O is tal your arms I didn't talk about your brain. You have a brilliant brain As vety noodle arms No no, that's what I would do. I would say, shall I continue as a scientist, exploring the noability of the universe Oras there some point where you just gave up and it's all random That's what I want to know But here's here it has good precedent There was a day before Newton, you'd look up and the planets would move against the background stars and the moon and the sun. and no one really understood it We can sort of trace it But an understanding eluded us, but that was okay because the sky was the realm could you possibly understand the mind of God And then Isaac Newton says, here it is, it's three equations. Okay And some accused Newton of heresy For for for stepping where previously only God had tread And so In this case is God a deity as known through religious texts or is God a programmer in an alien basement? Either case, Whatever's going on is created by them and it is vastly more complex than we are And we are just inside of it just poke in the Well what is it? I mean, if it's so sophisticated that it can create all of this, one question I would have in all seriousness is why have you created so many imperfections when you have this amazing ability to create this simulation Okay, so I have answer to that. I have answer OkayK Okay just when everything is going fine just when everything is going fine. The programmer gets bored. They say, let's throw in COVID. stir the Yes. Okay. I know Let's throw in the feature where Paul has to get up three times a night to pee. How about that? Let's throw that in there just to make it like, you know It's TMI, Paul. I don't need to know about your bladder condition So then we finally get through COVID, okay And we have the vaccine that Ben A billionaire New York real estate developer becomes the most powerful person in the world Stir the box some more. 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All right search Hi, I'm Ernie Carducci from Columbus, Ohio I'm here with my son, Ernie, because we listen to Star Talk every night and support Star Talk on Patreon. This is St T witho D Gras. Ohaw, here's an interesting fact H If we reach the point where in our exploration of the universe, where it's all random because the programmer got lazy Right Thats that's interesting H At that point, science loses all utility Science exists only because something I figure out here applies over there And I can predict its behavior and understand it and manipulate it and use it in the service of my own survival. and If if it were all random, there would be no such thing as science. Well, but no, but couldn't you use science to help explore and try to explain the randomness and the chaos H Seriously. So so you want you want a scientist to say, Okaykay, Paul Tod Your whole day will be chaotic. I predict that. Go forth. What are you expecting? No, no, no, no, but you can't you make the argument that you could use science to sort of explain Chaos I mean, isn't they' truly random. I mean, chaos is a very specific thing R And in mematical mathematically and The interesting thing about chaos is You can predict with precision how uncertain certain quantities will become Over time, and You can watch the chaotic regime unfold This is what makes weather predicting so challenging because there's so many variables. the heat from the sun, the absorption of the Eth, the reflectivity of the Eth, the Oceans, which are a different temperature from the land, how much moisture is in the air, all of these factors come together And the more they come together and the more in the future you try to understand it the more chaotic it becomes. So we try to get handles on it. That's why they say u the models We have this model and we have that model. and here's where they agree. So you go where they agree Right to try to boost your chances of understanding the objective reality in the system I'm just saying if if not if the If no laws discovered here apply over there And it doesn't matter where here is and it doesn't matter where there is And that undermines the entire profession of science ight I may say The fact that I tell you that on Earth as it is in the heavens laws of physics on Earth applied to the moons, planets, stars and galaxies not only across space But through time That is not an assumption That is a measurement we have made And that's extraordinary. Is any reason is there a tablet in the sky that says that must be so? I don't know I'm delighted we live in a universe that it is so Absolutely. All right, let's move on to the next question. This is Michael from Canada. since it's around three Kelvin in space Could an asteroid be a superconductor? And if so wouldould it get stuck if it went too close to a huge magnetic field like the suns or ours U there you go I love that question. veryery clever What's the person's name This is Miael. Michael So thank you for that question. Michuel knows that metals, certain metals and other materials, when you reduce the temperature in which they're immersed, the behavior of electron changes so they no longer act separately from one another As the temperature drops, as they get cooler Wavelength of each electron grows bigger and bigger and bigger. until it reaches I'm simplifying this, but it's basically what's happening. until the temperure so low, By the way, this is a quantum it's a quantum phenomenon Was that absoluteo is that absolute zero? No three degrees above absolute zero, right. So no more heat can be taken out. When it gets to zero, right. So as you drop the temperature, the wavelength of the electrons gets bigger and bigger. Quantum mechanics dictates this to a point where the wavelength is so large all the electrons behave as one electron because their waves overlap and synchronize. And when that happens Electrical current passes through without any resistance at all And so it's called supercondnductivity A three degrees ought to get some supercondnductivity and some metals. I haven't checked the chart Matelely, at who goes superconducting at what temperature Some go superconducting at even cooler than three degrees, Kelvin. So let's start with that. So great question I'd have to check my numbers to see who would be superconducting those temperatures. A. B, it's not entirely three degrees if you're near a star So the asteroids are orbiting the Sun Many of them are very dark Snlight gets absorbed, raising their temperature. So you're only going hit three degrees like an intergalactic space We are so far away from nearby stars that there's very little heat added to your to your to your rock temperature. Jason Ashton from Liverpool Liverpool The Beatles are from Liverpool. yeah, no. Yes. Wa, wa, if he's from Liverpool, you have to read it with a Liverpool accent Oh, please J That's not Liverpool. That's like Irish or something. Yeah, Oh, The home of the Beatles. Yeah. I like Yono Yoko. You know, I had Pul Macrney on my podcast, you know Along with you. Do you know that Okay, let's move on.. I've been a Patreon member for over a year and finally have a question that is probably more basic than my and your expectations are. So I'm feeling a little bit dumb here. If the moon left Earth's orbit W the oceans no longer have tides They would still have tides caused by the sun Yes. The sun's tides are about one third the strengths of the moon's tides or to put more precisely, whatever is the height of the tide that you measure A third of that height is attributable to the sun Yeahser less dramatic. It's like what I like to call decaf get gravity. It's a decaf. That works. that works. And what's more important here. and by the way, it's a perfectly legitimate question I love it. and All, so In fact there's a whole book. written by a colleague of mine called What if there were No Moon And then the whole book just goes talks about the consequences of that And we probably wouldn't have months ' a't after the moon That's true. Yeah. Yeah, we have some other sort of reckoning of time. So the moon has the dominant tidal bulge, All right? So there it is and the Earth turns in and out of that bulge. That bt is always there However And it's always in the same place. Well, it's a little bit ahead of the moon in the Moon's orbit Right, But we rotate faster than Moon's orbit around us So we rotate into and out of the tital bulge And because the moon still moves around us, high tide shifts each day by about forty five or fifty minutes because of this effect It's all one synchrony of because the effect of the tidal bulge being slightly ahead of us. It It's slightly ahead of the moon, but the moon is orbiting the Earth. So how far does the moon go in a day goes about you know, one, you know, forty, five, fifty minutes worth of your clock time around the earth. So therefore the tidal bulge has shifted by that much. But that's not even my point. Theul the bulge is always there When we line up with the sun The sun's high tide adds to the mooon's high tide and you get full moon high tide So when people think the The full moon has some extra tidal forces on us. sun is the sunln added to the moon's tide and the moon's tide is just always there And that son adds to it And so it's a delusion. We think, oh, the rays of the sun, the moon. We have werewolves, we have all like canthropic stories that have been written. We've got all of this about moonlight And plus, the mooon is only reflected sunlight So if the werewolf turns into a werewolf under full moon. It should definitely do it under sunlight and a lot faster and with a lot more hair Bigger teeth, bigigger fangs. But what so what is the remind us The full moon high tide which means sort of the sun and the moon have sort of align That happens every how often. What is the frequency of that Once a month Well, actually twice a month. so it'll work for full moon because Earth Moon and suun are lined up and it works for new Mon where the moon is on the other side And we get the title bulge So you get the highest of the high tides during new moon and full moon So people aren't thinking that the new moon has special powers, even though it's making tides just as high as full moon becausecause you can't see the new moon So people are very influenced by what they see and what they think is true rather than all that they can't see and what we otherwise know is true s Yeah, that is Yeah, there's a lot there This sort of Hello from Fletcherton, Ontario. not going to be a part of the fifty first state Canada But we need your we need your healthcare We need your health carere, your pleasant qualities, your lovely manner with people, your maple syrup. We've only got a couple of states that really generate that. Come on. Right Vermont, New York. It's from N Hampshire. Yeah. from Maine to. Neil, my thirteen year old son was so blown away by our experience at your show He wanted me to pass on this question Why are your t shirts so expensive after the show? No, that's not the question. I don't sell t shirts after the show. I have no merch people said I should But there's no merch.s no. sell those Neil de Grasyson you sell those Neil degras Tyson fake mustaches for fifteen dollars each. I know you do. All right. Neil, my thirteen year old son was so blown away by with our experience at your show. He wanted me to pass on this question. Could you ask if he thinks your memories and consciousness are made from atoms Love you guys and keep the laughs coming, Andrew Nisker So there's my favorite joke that's safe for elementary school. Good say neverever Trust Adam They make up everything. A That's safe for like third graders. we're good there So Yeah. I mean We we so want to believe that there are forces and things going on that defy account or description or investigation by the laws of physics. Birds is very strong because you'll never you might explain you know, language, whatever, but you'll never explain love You know, they and I say, is it because you don't want us to ever explain why? Would you have some reason for thinking that this is really true So A couple of things about our consciousness or our thoughts. Let's just talk with our thoughts. We have come to learn that The brain operates with v electrochemical signals between the synapses of our nerve cells, of the brain cells, in your head. Okaykay And There it is By the way, the medical profession could not have known that before the discovery and the harnessing of electricity Think about that So much of physics has fed the medical professions powers. to diagnose and treat the human body that if anyone says, okay, we're done with physics, now let's invest all in medicine that yet there's a limit to how far that'll go given how much they've tapped discoveries by my people in my field. Okay. So when you know that that thoughts are communicated through electrochemical signals And then you stick a probe in there and stimulate a part of the brain that you know behaves in a certain way. And then you see the person React. you kind of know what's going on there. This is Aoms atoms are the building blocks of everything Atoms are the building blocks of cells and the cells are the building blocks of our neurophysiology Okay. So so but the real evidence here because you can't just experiment on people's brains that you don't really can't do that.. Hang on a second. All right, let them go. We can't. That kids your kids in the l box. Yeah, get them out of the box and give them some peanuts and hit them to that. We can't do the experiment. Go ahead, sry. People who have mini strokes Right? So a stroke of broken blood vessel there' oxygen doesn't get to a part of the brain. We had many strokes The identity of the person begins to fade depending on what part of their brain was touched by the stroke And so is it their facial recognition? Is it their spacial recognition? Is it their appetite for food? Is it their ability to speak Is it it is that there' Hearing sight, locomotion. If you have a series of mini strokes, bits in pieces of you basically disappear So everyone who says, What happens to your consciousness when you die A series of min strokes are min deaths of your brain. And as far as we can tell that's what's happening to you When you die, none of that works So Now, that's not very comforting T people, especially not to religious people, have a whole story of what happens to you when you die All I'm saying is if you're going to ask a scientist to answer that question The point is Once your brain ceases to undergo electrochemical changes then you don't exist anymore. Everything we know about you no longer exists. So I mean, dementia is sort of in that family, right? So that Well for example, correct. And that's not even a stroke. I should have included. But it's in that family of, you know, so my mother has it right now and you can see there's just pieces of it. But the fascinating thing is her long term memory is insanely accurate. It's stored differently and possibly even in a different place. I would introduce you to her and ten minutes later, she'd be like, do how do you know my son again? But then she can in the same breath relay a story when she was twelve of spending a day with her father with great exactitude. And so It Is it the shifting of the atoms in the cells? Is it the shifting of the atoms of the cells that's happening there? Is it the death of some atoms and cells? like what is Well the atoms don't have life or death. They just comprise larger molecules and the cells are composed of the molecules. So you can't blame atoms directly. You you have to credit We're blamed the functioning of living Tissue Okay, that's really what it is. The atom is just an atom. All right Now, if I may, I mean no disrespect, but I heard this joke told by another comedian. Hs said Yeahah, that that if you're a comedian Being around people with dementia is Excellent because you could tell the same joke every ten minutes Absolutely sure short term memory dementia.. It also helps with guilt because like you could say to your mother Welloy I haven't seen you in a while. No, I was just here yesterday. Oh, that's right. You know what I mean? So like you don't have to feel so bad. You know I. Yeah, exactly. It's like, oh, you're such a good son. I know. I was here yesterday and I painted the whole house. Point is Adams Everything that is not empty space or energy in the form of photons represents as particles in the universe. and certain combinations of particles we call atoms. If you have a nucleus and at least one electron It's an atom And so Atoms comprise Every. That's hence the joke. Don't never trust Aams. They make up everything If you go down to like a snowflake and a snowflake is six sided snowflake, that's a crystalline structure of the water molecule. waterater is H two O. You break that apart. You have two hydrogen atoms, one oxygen atom. So atoms are everywhere. But atoms don't have agency They're just, well, sorry, they might want to combine with other atoms to make molecules Bat. That is a very simple. arere we mating or not It's not otherwise, let me give Paul Miccurio dreams That happens based on life experience and leftover neurosynaptic history of your brain and stuff you unresolved, trauma that might have happened in your life, joys. So yeah, atoms are everywhere. But there's nothing like an action packed summer blockbuster, right? Well, Pluto TV has heart pounding movies streaming for free. Everything from topop Gun Maverick, to Transformers Rise of the Beasts, to dungeons and Dragons honor Among Thieves. Find your favorite fighter pilots, bounty hunters, alien invasions, heists, heroes, meane Girls, and dreamgirls all landing on Pluto TV all summer long Pluto TV. Stream now? pay never Introducing Toyota's family of full electric rides as cool as you are The adventurous BZ Woodland, the trend setting CHR, and the versatile BZ. Zip around town in the BZ with a smooth and sporty driving dynamic. Explore the outdoors in the BZ Woodland with dual motors and available all terrain tyires. Be bold on the road with the CHR's sharp handling. Imagine what you can do with an all electric vehicle that you Learn more about the new all electric family at Toyota. com Toyota Let's go places Insurance isn't one size fits all. That's why drivers have trusted progressives name your price tool for years. Just tell Progressive what you want to pay and they'll show you coverage options that fit your budget. Visit progressive. com to find a car insurance rate that works for you. Progressive casualty insurance compompany and affiliates, price and coverage match limited by state law So Paul, we got enough time for like a lightning round. This is Todd Chambers from Ua City, California. and the system of the universe What is or are the purposes of a black hole? Do they recycle matter and energy To speak of purpose implies intent And in physics, we generally don't thinkink of The universe is having intent They're just laws and forces And things flow according to those forces guided by the laws of physics as we've come to describe them. So you can ask what role they play And if you wander too close to a black hole, that's all she wrote youll you'll get pulled in, spaghettified And you won't be able to tell anybody about it. So to think of a role, no, there there's roles that nobody there aren't no roles It's just what it does And by the way, if the sun became a black hole today Earth would plunge into darkness fact, we can still continue to orbit around it in just the same way we are right now We would be pulled in. Yeah, black holes are not giant sucking machines But there's stronger gravitational force only at its surface Don't disagree with me.'t don' know what you'reking about. No I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just simply saying you're wrong There' a differe. Piticians will disagree. Yes. But if one person is wrong, you're just wrong. It's not that we disagree. I just flat are wrong. Yeah Okay. we're going Yeah, so it doesn't become a giant sucking machine.'ll we speak of the high gravity of a black hole because of the high surface gravity Because the buckle is so small, you get really close to its center and that's where the extreme gravitational phenomenon occurs. Okay, right me wr. We'll keep going here. Liam Corchoran. Hi Neo, this is Liam from Rhode Island, my home state The best little state in the Union. Is there anywhere in the universe that you could be outside the gravitational influence of any matter besides your own And would this be the closest you could get to experiencing pure space timee Tottally unwarped by matter. I love that question I love that question. So There is, oh, I forgot what the metric is called. There's There are approximations we make when we doing some calculations. We assume space has no matter or energy in it, so that it's perfectly flat Okay? And then you can do some calculations more easily than if you admit that there are stars or planets or black holes distorting that spacet time. The mathematics becomes much more complicated the spaceet timee is curved then if it's flat So now in nineteen sixty eight If memory serves, Walter Kronkite The anchor for CBS News was describing in December the voyage of Apollo eight to the Mon. And he says, as of nine twenty two this afternoon, Apollo eight astronauts have left the gravity of Earth And I rememberered here and I was like, what? They're on their way to the Mon. And last I check, the Moon orbits Earth So so I know what he meant? But that's not what he should have said Okay. What he meant was we reached the point where the Mon's gravity pulling it in is stronger than our gravity trying to come back to Earth so that the moon's gravity takes over and it just falls towards the moon That's not the end Earth's gravity extends to infinity as does every other gravitational field cannot escape the extent of gravity No matter what. But it over time, the farther you get away from Earth it dissipates in strength. The weaker and weaker it is, but it doesn't it's never zero. And that's true for everything. The sun, the galaxy