Spacetime as a Super Solid

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I got a headache from some of the questions. Check us out and find out what gives Paul a headache on Star Talks Welcome Star Tal. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide our talk begin. rightight now This is Star Talk, CosmicQueries. I got with me, Paul Mcurio. What's up, my man? Good to see you again. Welcome back. Always great to be here. collected the questions from our Patreon members. Always great. We got some really fun ones, goodood mix. And I never see them in advance. No. like this is like Karnac where you hold the envelope and now you go neck. now you're going're dating you're dating from fifty years ago, Carn. You know what? It's okay for viewers to not know something and then know something. That's like saying I'm only going teach science that goes back ten years. I am fed up with this. All right, go ahead. Let's continue. I want to just take a moment to just reflect on the privilege it is to have you in this role, you're a multi Emy winning Comedy writer. Yeah comedian, comedy writer Gmmies. We're talking aboutual Emmies and peeabody awards. And peeabody. Yeah. That's the best one. Peabody. Yeah, it's small, but it's large. If you know what I mean. And thank you for taking time out of your day. Youre kidding, I love doing this. It's so fun. Well you also work on Colbert and his days are numbered. Yeah. time out of your day ot be such a tenent. Yeah, what are they gonna do? Fire me? I'm already fired. It might not be so stressful to take I'm out of your day. Yeah we're counting down an. And I am available for kids parties. I can do balloon animals. Pretty much I can do a doachshin, but just the body part No head, ears or to legs or t legs or anything. And on this show, you've been knighted barren. Yes, by yours truly. So I'm honored. I'm honored. I did that with my excalibur. You did sword. You did. You cut my juggler, but I'm okay now. So you brought questions in and this is a grab bag. This is a grab bag Fan favorite, grab bags. The fans are amazing. I mean, I always say that listen know it's saying like this smart. Ohious You know what? it's a borderline annoying. And by the way, I judge how smart someone is not by how much they know. level of curiosity.. Yes. And that's the only thing That's the hungry mind. Yes in search. And I always say if I had you as a science teacher, I'd probably be doing something in science. entusias and everything else Yeah. right. I don't care that you're taller than I am. That's annoying. Monopoly world. Hello. I'm just curious about where the differences are Who is this?? It just says mononopoly Monopoly world. That's all it is. You know, the person wants to be secretive about this. Bring it. I'm just curious about where the differences and or similarities are between Wormhole and a black hole Oh I mean, just because the word hole shows up in both You know, chill out. D don't over don't oversthink it. Don't be a wholeo about it. Now for me, one of the fun things about a black hole, because our word hole two dimensional idea Think about it There's a hole in the ground. you fall through the hole. Rep and it's's just a hole. It's that circle and you fall through. Okay? Right. Whereas a black hole is a whole in every direction you approach it whichich is why once you get sucked into it, you do not There's no path out into the black hole. Right, Right. And so it's a region of space where gravity is so high that the speed of light is insufficient to escape. And just to put this in context, sometimes I make too many assumptions about what people might know. So me back up just a little bit. Okay. All right. You know the old saying what goes up must come down? Yes That's bullshit Sorry. And did you write a paper on? Iot. And that was a conclusion.ation. early. how is it that we can go to the moon? if you're going to say what goes up must come down? Right. Okay. So it turns out there is a speed above which If you leave Earth, you'll never come back. And that is sensibly called the escape velocity. Right Fom Earth's surface, it's seven miles per second. So grandma's adage works for anything anybody would have thrown. Right. You throw it, it goes up. But if you have rockets? Yeah,'re not beholding a grandma's adage with some kick ass boosters andight, right you're not beholden.. So it will never come back ever. It willll go to the edge of the universe before it thinks about coming back to Earth. So you can ask If it's seven miles per second on Earth's surface, you can imagine objects planets with higher gravity, where the escape velochity is higher than seven miles per second.. Everything would weigh more. So that makes sense T continue this line of reasoning, you get to a point where escape velocity is the speed of light itself The speed of light is insufficient to carry the beam out of the black hole So if you fall in, you ain't never coming out. com light's not coming out. Is there a better term for it than black hole. No, I think you're right. But both come from general relativity, right? And both involve extremeving What's the other one the worm hole? Yeah the worm hole. So the wormhole, I had some early ideas about what that could be or what it might be.. If you look at the math that gives us a black hole, The solution There's a second solution to it, which is the mathematical opposite of a black hole which you might call a Wormho o ahead and say it again. I really wasn't paying attention If you were to name the mathematical opposite of a black hole, when would you call it? A white. Thank you. A white hole. That's a solution to the equations. And it's the mathematical opposite of a black hole. Right. All right. So black hole sucks everything in, a white hole would probably do what? Push everything. push everything out. So we said, let's look for that in the universe couldn't find anything that resembled anything rememotely what a white hole should look like. Okay. So we don't think they exist. But how would they connect? It say would they connect with a wormhole? connecting the black hole in the white hole. But since black holes are naturally formed from collapsing matter, is there any sort of known process in the universe till that could naturally create some kind of a wormhole. That's not We don't know, and we don't think so. We think you're gonna have to make one on your own time. We know how to make a wormhole. We just don't have the right ingredients. What we need is neegative gravity stuff Not the same as antimatter. anntimatter has ordinary gravity. Okay. An antiproton has the same gravity as a proton. Negative gravity stuff. becausecause what does gravity do? It collapses spaceetime. A wormhole you're try to pry it open. Right. So you want the o and travel through it. Yeah that's that's that's get you do that for free. Once it opens the hole, you just step through That doesn't quite just open the hole. And you get sucked through. There's no sucking. You just step through if you can pry it open. But if a black hole is millions and billions of miles away from another loocate Isn't it warm h connect? There' a tunnel in. connected by a wormhole, watchatch where you're stepping when you go through the other side 'ause you don't know what Get one of those mirrors. Do one of those look under the car mirrors. Do that through it. Oh, I know that. I'm Italian. I know that.. Do you need easy passass in a wormhole? And what do they? That some municipality will put one up in the first wormhole. But you can naturally create a ormal? so or no. Aliens, for example, if they have access to materials that we don't and they discover a negative gravity thing then They, if they're smart, will know how to configure it to pry open a hole through the fabric of space and time. You step through and you land in another place and another time. So it's sort of like wormhole versus Black hole, it's like you. Blackole, you'reckking the hotel, you ain't checking out. It's a what they called the Roch Motel so youreck don' check out. in wormhole, you're checking out of the hotel, but you end up in a worse hotel with a lousy buffet breakfast. Speaking of checking in and out, I think a lot about wormholes And you know, the closest we have to wormholes in our civilization an elevator. There's like whatever's out here, you walk into this room. It's a box It's a little box. So it pushes some buttons.ight. And then the door' open and it's a whole other place. Right. But what people don't explain and science will never is why I have to make small talk during that wormhole travel where I want to kill myself.se Brims with mystery. So so I think of that all the time. pllus if you're coming from an elevator that Oens to the outdoors, and you come in and then you're not outdoors anymore. You're in some other place. And if I don't tell you where you are, you have no idea. If I bring an alien into an elevator, it'll have no clue. Be what I just did your time and it doesn't know It doesn't know what I just did withacialreckn. As far as it' concerned it'll be wormhole. Just to finish this up, we'll move on, the stuff that you refer to We don't know what it could be or what it is.im it exist. Are we close to s? No, Nothing close neegative gravity? Come on man if weat if we had that We wouldn't need rockets. Do you think we'll ever get there Do think nothing in the universe looks like it's operating under negative gravity. But I know the way science operates Keep your mind open to every and any all possible. It is and we're looking in the universe, we don't see any it open is, oh, we can't explain that. I wonder if it's negative gravity That would be a way to think about There's nothing out there that needs negative gravity to account for it. So I'm skeptical, but it's nonetheless fun to think about. It is. And maybe in the end we just need magic like Dror Strange Okay, but I kind of want to solve it with Rick Rick and Mortning because he uses real science. It's sort of, yeah,'s we've talked about that. It's completely real science. Morty. The wormhoope, it's theoretically possible, but science is like we're on our coffee break. Don't ask us to do it. Natasha Shaal Davis. Hello, doctor Tyson. This is Natasha from New Mexico. I'm currently at Band Club with other medical students and our mics are broken. So with you out of wear? She's at BAand Club Band club Band BND. That's a thing. She plays it yes, there's a cl they play in a band. And people admit to this.es. I a band club. Yes. She was writing this while she was getting beaten up. Yeah They can't beat them up too much because then they can't perform for the game. Not the fingers, not the fingers. No, this is literally hilarious to me because she's writing this as she's at band club And she's a medical student. so apparently you have time in medical school to be in a band, which is troubling to me. I am not coming to you, Miss. Davis for any medical treatment because I don't want you to play your flute while you're working on me. Okay. So I'm currently a band club with other medical students. Our mkics are broken, so while other instruments are cool, I must yell How quietly should a singer whisper to affect one quark at a time. What about just one atom Any good uses of my nonsense? Thank you, both. this question. Okay. So I mean, it's not about whispering. You can divide the universe up into four forces So the obvious one is gravity, we all know about that. Another one is the electromagnetic force. That's what holds all our model atoms and molecules together. The third is Plymcurio chararisma That's a No, No, I checked fact I double checked. It's not there. That's negative gravity. Then there's the weak nuclear force which operates within particles that describes how they decay into other particles. And then there's the strong nuclear force in the nucleus of an atom We don't have access to the strong nuclear force But we weve gott to be like ten million degrees to get in there. We have corarkks that come up out of.ang We don't have access to that. The weak nuclear force, we're not really messing with that either. We can interact with gravity And we interact with the electromagnetic force. All right. Whatever you do, That's what you're doing Okay. Now we had someone in this chair took a hit of acid before you came here. What am I supposed to do with that? Whatever you do, that's what you're doing. We had someone in this chair, Betul Katar who said something I'd never heard before. I had to pause and reflect on it and say, wow, that's deep. The world is simply Electrons looking for a place to rest Wow. And I didn't want to embrace that until I kept thinking about it. And it's like, yeah, that's what's going on at all times. That's what happens and when atoms get together with atoms to make molecules, the electrons are finding a place to hang out. Okay, I have this pen. This is a solid. It's held together by molecules and the electrons that bind enabling it. First of all, did you wash your hands before you touched that I lick my hand cleam. But no, there's you're saying electrons are in motion within that At all times At all times in everything. So there's the electrons, that's the electromagnetic force. But she's talking about quarks Right You ain't getting in a cork. cors are they're locked up. So it's like Legos make up a brick building. within the Lego, you've got atoms and you within the atoms. you're not getting you're not getting into the cor without higher power than what we have access to. But she wants to still influence it. And it's kind of a metaphysical question. Whatever you do ever at all You were invoking electromagnetic fields. Right Forces. But the issue here is wavelength and it's not about loudness. It's about the fact that the collective wavelength. I don't care if she are too large to localize into a quart. If she breates. That's true That was good Come on, h? That was good. I have peabody awwards. The point is she wants to whisper at some volume level that will somehow tickle Quirks. The fact that, by the way, is a fun parlor game. Tickling quarks?. If you do anything at all, you are moving around electrons. And you're bringing the quarks with you in the nuclei of the atoms that are parts of the molecules that comprise you. So you cannot do anything without setting into motion Electrons and quirks. So eitherre bound into the molecules that move because as she whispers, vibrations go into the air And the molecules of the air vibrate carrying it to another location. So a whisper doesn't target anything, it just bothers everything equally like the human resources depepartment I mean, they're there for your own protection. Yes, that's true. We have to worry about this in science all the time If the mics are down and everyone is screaming at each other and she wants to be heard, the background level of conversation creates what we call a noise level Okay, That's the random sounds that are out there. If she wants to be noticed, She has to break through that noise. either in frequency or intensity In order to get noticed by anybody. you define intensity as loudness loud volum And frequency is If she comes at it with a frequency that no one else is communicating with, everybody will hear.. So you have a deep voice. If everybody's higher, your voice is going to cut through.. My voice is going to cut through. R. And if I come in a high, pitch voice That'll get heard in the din of other noises. Well, but if the atomic scale does sound stop being a precise tool and become like more of like a shove, like a statistical shove of some kind? No, it's always just, it's a pressure wave moving through a medium att all times Yeah Are we alone in the universe or just early to the party? In my latest book Take me to your leader I explore how aliens might find us they be like and what we should do next? Curious? You should be Take me to yourour leader is available now in print and in audiobooks which I narrated. Don't wait until after you've had your first alien encounter grab a copy of Take Me too yourour Leer because then it would be too late. Oce was a magic. Sorry, at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, we don't do fairy tales. We do real like real adventures to Mars, or real journeys into the future to see how imagination can really take us to strange new worlds, and real trips into the past, where we meet heroes and legends way ahead of their time Real rockets, real astronauts, real adventure, all at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Discover something real When it comes to cancer care, you deserve to be seen and heard. At Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, we see you, not just the cancer With expertise across more than four hundred different types of cancer We'll make sure you understand all of your options to care for your health and your life That's why people treated for cancer at MSK live better Monger. This is what we do Learn more at msK. org slash start here Lots of places can expose you to identity theft. Oh no That's why Lifeelock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats to your identity, which is way more than anyone can do on their own. If we find anything suspicious, like new loans or changes to your financial accounts, we alert you right away, all through text phone, email, or the Lifeelock app, get the alerts that could make all the difference. Save up to thirty percent your first year at lifeifelock dot com slash special offer. Terms apply. Kale Boysbert Hello Guardians of the Geeks. Nice. I'm Mkauel from Canada. No right. If I submerge my arm in a sink full of water First of all, you need to get a hobb Orop getet in a swimming pool. Damn, you cold we come on. people coming in out of their honest home experiments.y you know and you're gonna talk smack about it. sccrew you and the quirk you didn't ride in on. If I submerge my arm in a sink full of water or get in a swimming pool, I don't really feel squeezed by the water However, if I do the same with rubber gloves say on washing dishes or getting in a river wearing a waterproof fishing waiter. and I hope you're fishing and it's not some weird thing. I feel disturbingly squeezed. What's up with that? Shouldn't I feel less having something rigid in terms of material around me He put on mittens and then submerge's not gonna you putting on latex gloves. O course they're gonna squeeze it. Okay. That's what I mean. My guy needs a hobby If you're putting on rubber gloves, they're gonna squeeze your hand. Yeah. Well, because it doesn't feel like it's squeezing, you're just pushing your body No, so here's the thing. water air pressure is comere between Right now, you're in equilibrium with the air pressure. You know how I know that? becauseuse you're not shrinking, you're not expanding. Thank you. So all pressure is equal on all parts of your body. R. I know that. Okay rightight now.. Okay. Here's a cool thing you can do If you're sitting in a pool, we're approaching summer now, just sit at the edge of the pool up to your neck. like sit on the step up to your neck then Inhale, a very deep breath and your body comes up a little. in the water. Oh, I was a swimmer. Because you're getting less dense Why does my bathing suit get air in it and it just fills up? Because you're farting in yours. No one told you that.' a practical question. I've been a swimmer my whole life. becausecause you're wearing speedos and there's no air exchange. And becomes a waiters, man, I just do a speedo Everybody take that in at home. drink that in. So here's the thing. Glove traps air And when the air get on a squeeze, the glove tightens. Okay So and that's what he's saying you. have something underwater. is squeezable The water pressure will squeeze it If you have a plastic bag, and put anything in it okay ahead Doesn't matter. It won't matter what you put in it. Okay. That's what the word anything means. Okay the air inside the bag is in equal pressure with the air in the atmosphere. So the bag is just the bag. We don't even think about it. If you take that bag and immerse it without letting water get in. So you seal the bag. No Don't seal it. Don't leeave it open up top. Okay. and lower it into the water beforefore the point where to stop away the water doesn cr. Okay. That bag will collapse completely around what you put in it That's air pressure. It is water pressure winning out over air pressure pressure between the heads. It's going to take all between all the heads that are in the duffle bag. It will will it will it will squeeze out all of the air in that bag. Okay. Then you zip it and now you have a basically a vacuum sealed bag. So like water itself is chilled, there's no pressure, but you put a gl. How do you say that? I'm working my way to that. I'm just saying that if you have a glove Typically there's air between your hand and the glove. If you put your hand in the water, So water is going to press the air out and it'll feel like the glove is squeezing on your hand. But it's not, it's taking the air out.. Okay, so a watch. If you go deeper then water pressure becomes significant. And there's a point where your body cannot resist the water pressure and your eard drums will pop. your lungs will collapse. And if you go deep enough You just implode. Its like it's like the water is the mafia and your body owes the water money and it's squeezing you Is that the exact analogy to what I? I think that work I said earlier I'm talking from experience. And we were talking about heads in a duffle bag. I know a guy who knows a guy and I owe somebody money. So so it's fun to watch this happen. Just take a bag like a ziplck bag, but leave it unzipped. and just dip it into the water, just watch all the air come out snug onto what's in there, then zip it up. I get a ip How to get all the air out of it? I get I get a Ziplox sandwich bag. I put something in it and if I squeeze the air out, what it does is it forms the bag forms pretty closely around that object. Correct. You can get water to do that for you for free, but you have to set it up to make that happen. Okay So that's water pressure getting the air out, but five inches into the water, that's not enough water pressure for you to feel that as the pressure on your body. Here's what'll happen as you submerge, there's pressure on you. You have skinight? sk is pretty good But your eardrums, they are sensitive to pressure Your capacity to breathe against pressure is We' be challenged. So fighting pressure. As you're fighting it as you get lower and lower. Right. So It's fast pressure is a fun, not fun. It's a Fascinating feature It's a little unsettling, but I'll keep it in mind. Lee Robertson, greetings, gentlefolk of the universe. Lee from Florida here. What is a determination for an object to be affected by the Re limit I know Saturn's rings were likely made by one of its former moons being destroyed by the planet's Roche limit. But how are we able to maintain orbit around Earth with our own Roche limit? The Roche limit Matters for objects that are held together by the force of gravity If you're just a solid object The roast limit is irrelevant to you Okay, You're a solid object. You are not held together by the forces of gravity. Wait, if I push the bounds of the Roche limit, are I going You can just walk across the Roche limit and laugh in the face of cra which I've wanted to do for a long time. Of obbjects that are gravitationally bound. you could just laugh as you walk by them. So why the distinction on solid objects versus nonslid? I'm going tell you So let's distinguish solid objects that are rigid and solid objects that are held together by gravity We think of Earth as a solid object But it's held together by gravity. All right. How do you know if something's held together by gravity It's spherical Always Yes. prettyty much Yes. Why does it have to be sphher? Because that's what gravity does. to something when it in charge. I'm going to go back to this pen cap, Isn't this held together by gravity? No it's held together by electromagnetic forces, which swamp the effects of gravity That's why that's not falling apart, evenven though we're within the roach limit of Eth. You can walk around and not get torn apart. becausecause crossing the Rach limit Earth is not really tearing you apart It feels like it looks like that's what's happening, but that's not what's happening. I would tell you what's happening. You ready? Yeah. Okay. The closer you get to an object, the stronger its tidal forces are and tidal forces go up as the inverse cube of your distance. If you are one third the distance to an object that you used to be What's the inverse of one third ree Three, CQbit, what do you get? Three times three times three. What do you get? twenty seven. twenty seven. The tidital forces are twenty seven times higher. If you're one third the distance than they used to be. If you're one fifth the distance, it's one hundred and twenty five times higher. So these are tidal forces. All that means is it's pulling on one side, the side closest to the planet, way more than it is on the other side. So at the Roche limit The title fource simply exceeds The gravity. And what is that point? How do we How do we calculate where that is? If it exceeds the gravity, but it's different for every el. If it exceeds the gravity of the object that's holding it together en. Gravity loses Tital forces win And so mountains just float up. And because they're not held down by gravity anymore. Rocks flat up. and the whole thing just breaks apart. It doesn't break. It just lifts apart from itself. because the ro limit is kicking ass symbols is the better term than break apart. I like kicking the ass. ' nothing breaks. A rock is still going to be a rock. but if the rock were sitting on Earth, it's no longer attached to Earth because rock is held together, not by gravity. electromag for. And you have this fetish about your pen. So your pen would survive a crossing of the road slope intact. Hang on, I love you. love you. Fetish is a little strong. I mean, really. But so is it sort of like pulling bread apart and at some point you're pulling it apart to the point where it It becomes disconnected from itself and then that's it's to be the Rache limit at that point. If the stretchy part of the bread is what we're thinking of as gravity Th then there's a point where your force exceeds the gravity and the bradge just pulls apart. L the Roche limit is like the ultimate relationship boundary. like where you're getting closer and closer, it doesn't mean anything because you just want to turn your relationship with the confetti. Well, up until that point You are both independent strong entities Within the Rchlobe You get torn apart. No, you get now I use a different word. you get Dassembled. Everything you once were is now in pieces. So it's like you're in a bar Things start to happen. There's a guy. you get a little close Roch limit's like, let's take it outside. I'm going to dismember. Only if you're talking to his woman, does that happen? Exactly. It doesnn't just happen. No, I'm in my speedo in the bar. he's checking me out. I'm not asking for trouble and the Roche limit kicks in and we have to go outside. So So the Roche limit sort of exceeds gravity power or strength and then Eactly. And so it's a very natural place where that would happen anythingything that's held together electromagnetically is intact. Rocks, boulders No problem. your panca You and the electromagnetic force is forty orders of magnitude, forty powers of ten, stronger than gravity. Therefore, Roch limit has no effect on something that's held together by electromagnetic forces likeike rocks. But if you arere a rubble pile That's all held together by gravity and you come near the rush slope, it'll totally The rocks themselves within the rubble will stay will stay. But they'll break apart. So another two rocks here. We don't know Whether some asteroids are just rubble piles or whether they're solid, whichich matters if we're going to deflect them on route to hitting us. Be you're going to push it out the way. I need like twenty Ben Affleck. What Ben Afflelck the right. He was part of that. Was he? Yeah. he goes on the thing with he was B Bruce Will was Bruceill Bruce Willis is the old salty guy and then Ben' like Buse, but then Ben's end up being the guy liift high and she helped out too. Oh my God. You need something to come back to. Yes Eactly. I don't know if you know, but we recently did an explainer onn the Roache limit. Oh, perfect. So anyone who was confused by what I just said. Or by what you said. Well the reason this question got asked after your explainer is the buzz on social media is your explainer was e was it was Roche Limit bad. So you just catch it in our archives.. I think we do well on our explainers. check on everything, Are you kidding? All right. When you care Bev, happppy galactic gumbo to you, dor. Tyson. If you could delete one overus sci fi movie trope, what would it be? Thank you for keeping the educational Eernal Flame strong. Bev, a one syllable name from Alabama. I've given up on this, so I'm going to mention it, but not that I think it'll ever happen. They should stop you should stop hearing explosions in space It would be completely silent. because there's no air in space to propagate the sound the w fromom wherever it is to where you are Completely silent So it makes for much less drama If they're just Okay, that's all good and technical. Can I have one now? Yeah, what's your. Can we delete the speech where they save humanity? Have you met humanity? It's annoying. We don't need to save it. Well, how about the one where the astronaut is like Are they lost in space? orre they gonna to save somebody or not save somebody? And there's always the video of the kid that was just born and the touching the video screen. B back on Eth. Yeah. You know, Really, come on, canan we move on from that, please? You know hopefully's just Anybody who has like a nine month old kid, keep him on Earth. Yeah. You'll send him into space. No. he doesn't need to be on a video at nine He's gonna be doing that the rest of his life. How about the fact that when they show up, the aliens, they immediately speak perfect English, okay? Meanwhile, you can't understand the guy from Glasgow, Scotland right now. right? And suddenly right now, seriously like you' got an octopus alien study. No, the alien studied. Well, no, it doesn't wash for me. They're smart. they can learn They're smart. Why are we always assuming that we're dumb and they're smart? Because that's another trope. Because they arrived here. Well, but but we we cheer on people who ascend a hundred kilometers above Earth's surface which is the equivalent of two dimes above The schoolroom globe. They go up and come back and we celebrate them as astronauts. We have an alien coming from across the gal. I know they just it took them a long time to figure it out. Why do we give them credit? I'm just saying They come across the galaxy I'm thinking they're smarter than us. I'm thinking they have higher technology. I'm thinking they could read a dictionary and be fluent right after they read it But they could read the dictionary and just say, this is a really stupid race and it's not worth it. They can do that too. In fact, they likely will. Exactly. So those are your tropes, you have any others that come in? Yeah So those with the touching the screen of the newborn infant from your spouse at home. and what about someere space.be astronuts are floating in. That's fine. That's fine. That's fine But then there go ahead. you have. So there's another one. They have these sort of laser weapons? okay And again, they're making noise. Tun, tun. Yeah. That's why I I've giving up. I let them make the tune, t. So you seeop my noise. And you see the laser. goingo from the ship to the target No, the lasers' headed to the target If you can see the laser, that means it's sending light sideways . It means there's something there reflecting the light. It would be like the kid went like this with the chalkboard eraser Okay, now do the lasers so we can see the laser beam. It's not how It w The laser beam has an endpoint that it hits the object. Yeah you'll see it explode on the other side. But you're not seeing the beam. you won't see the beam it's light. It's light and unless you can reflect it out of the beam to your eyes. How do you know that there's not something happening in space in time that is doing that that you don't understand It happens to be in the middle of a big gas cloud to make that happen. And then you'd have particles reflecting. Is that sort of the chalk in the thing? Yeah that's the equivalent of the chalk. All right. I don't think we need to save humanity. That's all I know. Kurt Guide. Hey, Neil and Paul. Paul on your show permission to Speak, you've spent years. pulling the extraordinary out of ordinary people From a cosmic perspective, Neil always says we're all made of stardusts After hearing so many different life stories, what's the atomic common thread you found that proves well all part of the same human constellation? I love that And so that reminds me that your stage show is not just you on stage. a fundamental part is you interacting withith the audience. Yeah, just pourn out of my standup and liking to talk to audiences and getting these amazing sts. peopleople caught on and now they leave the front rows empty. It's like Yes, it's like going to a Gallagher show where keep smashing f downer for those who are Oh, come on. fifty. My job isam open people up. You act like you're young. You're seventy eight He prostate. I know. I talk to your doctor. G my prostate out of this. It's what you do only works. if because you never met these people before. No. You can although I do get asked if it's a pre plan, if they've been scripted I get you. I know you're talented. don that. I get that. So you read the audience by whatever metrics and you know what thread will work through them so that you have a meaningful exchange of content and humor. Yes. And so Is this because you know human nature so well Be I have my counterpart to that just as an educator, but I want to hear because the comedian is way closer than the educator is I think that people want to be heard and I think people want to be heard in a context where they feel safe. I define safe as like not worrying about political correctness and what you could say, and also that they're not going to be made fun of. That would mean emotionally safe. physically safe... And then although they are there are we do this over an alligator pit. so there's a physical safety issue And lavaava Of course, hello. For me what I've been told and I can't speak to this, I do have this natural curiosity. I'm not just asking the questions as part of an act. and when you get to that second third and fourth question, you get these amazing stories. And I think the reason that it works is because There's something that I call we all have beautiful imperfection And what I say in my show It like that. We're imperfect and we should embrace that. you know, In other words, we want to think that life comes in nice neat boxes and everything's black and white, but life would be boring. But in the imperfection That's what's interesting. That's where you get crazy stories, funny stories, howf stories because we're all making imperfect decisions all the time, but that's okay. And I think what happens is And a connection happens with people in the audience that night because they're sitting there going consciously or subconsciously, This guy's as imperfect as I am, and I feel pretty good about that. Maybe we should redefine those imperfections perfections If they're fundamental to what it is to be alive. Wow And's lot deer than I thought of it, so it's in the same vein of that is if everyone is special, then no one is special. Right. It's the same kind Yeahah. But if everyone has imperfections, then that's what the perfection. The Kurt asks about common thread. and I think the common thread is that people want to be connected, especially now, things are divisive and they seem to only be getting worse, but it's not a political show, but I think people want to be connected and they get connected through these stories And I think the other thing that happens is I think it gets us out of our silos to be aware that there are other people out there different from us in a way that's good to know. You don't have to agree with it, like it or understand. And you have to know in advance that they're going to like that And I'm going gonna to get up and walk out of the show. They do. Okay. I mean,ve I've had stories where you're like, oh my go. I mean I've had two heroin addicts on stage. one recovering and one didn't want to brring them up on stage. Oh yeah, they come on stage. Okay. I bring them up in groups. six, four, six people at a time and then we just start. That's brave. I've seen you do that at the beginning of Colbert. Yeah. Yeah. And then what ends up warming up And what ends up happening is It really turns into like we're hanging out in somebody's big basement having drinks and telling stories for people we've never met before, because then people from the audience will start to yell out questions, which is fine with me. And then the beautiful thing for me is They don't leave right after the show's over, they come over to somebody and they' say, you're from Portland. I'm from Portland. and they'll start to conn They learn that about them. Yeah Yeah. And they were drawn in by the conversation. So I think it's the common thread of sort of We're all imperfect, and we're all figuring it out. So we need to send you to the Middle East. Wha. and bring peace to the world. Oh yes, okay. I'm the one. You know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna to go in my S speedo That'll make people throw up actually Exactly. Nobody can fight because they're all throwing up. But thank you for asking that question. It gives me a chance to explain the show a little bit. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. So my version of that, I don't know if I got asked it as well. Yeah, I think it's for both. Yeah. I On an assumption that everyone is fundamentally curious at some level. And if they forgot how to be curious, there are embers that just need to be fanned that can then reignite in their adulthood embers that were there as child as children. And there's nothing more satisfying to an educator than to watch an adult have resurfaced feeling of wonder about the world that kids have every day because every day in a kid's life is new. So here's what you do. We talked about emotional safety in my show. What you do is what I'll call intellectual safety. Like I never feel stupid And I don't think I I've been trying to move. I've been failing at that. let me go back and try. You really suck at that. No, you give You give intellectual safety and I never. In those two things together, you can draw people in emotionally with enthusiasm and not being pedantic and talking down to them. You never make somebody feel Fear displaying their ignorance Exactly. Yeah. Okaykay. And so when look, I mean we will attack you. I will attack you if You don't know that you're ignorant Eer Yeah comoming out right out of the gates strong. Right. exxactly. Be then you're in this place where listen you you know enough to think you're right. Right. And you don't know enough to know you're wrong. And then you're aggressive. I don't, you know, Yeahah, everybody watching, everybody listening and you and I have had a moment Where you go I don't want to ask that quest. I'm gonna feel it's gonna sound It would be you and me L you and I. Okay, see, this is why people don't socialize with you. This is why you're alone a lot. sitting there pulling bread apart doing the Roche limits I'm just saying. So I think that that's a common thing, especially when you're younger, it's like, I want to ask this question and I feel stupid to ask you. then you ask it and the person goes It's great you asked that 'cause five other people had the same question. You never create an environment where you feel like you could ask a stupid question and you have enthusiasm. So you give what I'll call intellectual safety in that way. Thank you for thinking about it that way. I think it's really important. All right. Yeah. o, good. Yeah. done with our mutual Appreciation Society. great. I'm still not hanging out with you all this. Time for a couple more questions. Absolutely. When comes to canancer careare, you deserve to be seen and heard At Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, we see you, not just the cancer. With expertise across more than four hundred different types of cancer, We'll make sure you understand all of your options to care for your health and your life That's why people treated for cancer at MSK live better Monger. This is what we do Learn more at msK. org slash start here Paramount Plus is now the home of all your BET favorites. That sounds nice. W all new episodes of all the Queen's men. You stand up when you talk to the quQueen. Plus a whole new world of movies like Gladiator two. I must have power. Original series like The Shy. Life comes at you fast, whether you ready for it or not. In live sports like UFC.believable! New home, Welcome to Paradise. Same family. That's all that matters to me. Your BET favorites are now on Paramount Plus. Subscribe now R Brian Reynolds here from MintMobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same premium wireless for fifteen dollars a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to MintMobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do at mintmobile dot com slash switch. Up frront payment of forty five dollars for per three month plan equivalent to fifteen dollars per month required. intntro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. Feful terms at mintMobile dot com d I'm Oicon Hemorrhs And I support Star Talk on Patreon This is St Talks Neil DeGras Tyson. Hi, Dr. Tyson. If space itself is expanding faster than light What's really stopping us from ever out rununning the universe and is the limit or just our current understanding of it Alan Rayer here, in Indian turning in Vilmius Lithuania. Oh, Okaykay. So if I understand that question, You If space is expanding And the fastest you can travel in the space is the speed of light. And space is expanding faster than the speed of light. Just seven miles seven. That's theescape phvelocityy ofcape gl go ahead Okay. Yeah. S speed of one hundred eighty six thousand R two hundred and eighty two miles per second. If the space is expanding faster than light, and within space, the fastest you can move is the speed of light You're not out running the universe Is it ever possible? No You're not outrunning the universe That's not happening. And is it is it do we know that or do we just think that there's science out there that we don't understand We're not out running the universe. If the universe re collapsed and is not then stretching at faster than the speed of light, then yeah, you can get wherever you want. It could every place you see, you can get there.ight att the speed of light or less. Right now, we're live in a universe where there's a distance at which it's receding from us faster than the speed of light. And it's not a problem because that's Einstein's general theory of relativity, which places no spepeed limits What is causing it to recede faster than the speed of light? Do we know two things, the original energy of expansion was greater than the escape velocity of the universe itself. That's another way to think about that. will expand forever. But we also found dark energy This this negative pressure that's forcing the expansion to accelerate And so that puts it out of reach. Negative pressure. I thought you were talking about your personality. Okay. All right, we're gonna to do another one. So you're not out run in the universe. So just chill out on that one. we want to get a couple more in here as we finished up. Diego Caldoron. Hello, doctor Tyson. I'm Diego Calderon from the world's longest and narrowest country, home to some of the world's most advanced telescopes I'm a new Patreon member and someone deeply curious about the universe. Our telescopes can detect parts of reality. We are completely blind to radio waves, infrared, X rays, and gamma rays But they always translate them into forms our senses can understand. If humans could develop one extra sense to better discover the universe What sense would you choose Greetings from. Where Chile. There you go. Santag's Chile and then it's not Caldderon, it's Caldaron Oh, Diego Caldoron.. I feel like you're hitting on me right now Oh we got a tango. The Andes mountain range goes like practically the fullength of Chile. and so all the great elescopes in South America landed in Chile for that reason. There's also very good atmospheric stability because the mountains are right on the ocean shore. And so the way the air comes in and interacts with the mountain range, it creates for a very stable observ environment Range is so It's hal relative to that and the air is cool off the ocean. So it all combines Advantages they get in Hawaii and big observatories. We should go on a vacation there together the Andes. You and me? And, you know, brring the wives I don't know if they're gonna wantan to come Leave your speed over it. So yeah, if you One. Do you know itd be? Better discover what we. I know what it' be Commonense. Yes. me, giveive me that right there. Mine was, know what you're talking about No. Common sense We don't need, I mean, I feel a little privileged here as a scientist because scientists have dozens of senses. like just like Diego commented. We can see infrared, ultraviolet, X rays, gamma rays, radio waves without our physiology enabling that because we have detectors. That's what science is. It's how to probe the world beyond the capacity of our physiology to accomplish that. So because I can do it with with with my Tools. I'm not thinking that I'm deficient Right. That's not he's talking about not through tools, but just a natural. I know. I'm just saying I don't feel the deficiency that he's asking. Right. because I have Yes, my science yes And if there's, I think common sense Is' something humans lack A common which means it's not common I just pick the ability to detect, you know, when someone actually actually knows what they're talking about or is just a bag of hot air How about that? No that's science literacy, which empowers you to know when someone else is f. I don't need a sense of dark matter. I need a sense that tells me where the hell my phone is so I don't tear my house apart like I'm a rabid dinosaur looking for some meat I don't know. I'm getting angry now. I don't make sense when I get angry. So you lose your phone in your own home Yes. you haven't done that? says anybody O No, here we go. Here we go. So common sense is actually a good one. Yeah, because I'm content with the senses that my methods and tools of science. But this get back towise bring to me. This is where we go back to we were talking about before when we talked about intellectual safety. sort person you don't like and I agree is the one that will just come in, you know, Well in a China shop like I know everything and doesn't want to hear anything. And I don't mind someone doing that if they actually know everything. But generally when you do know everything, you're not that aggressive. No, exactly. Yeah, becausecause you're comfortable with. You're not overcompensated. You not overcompensated.s way you do. I mean, wait, what? Well, that was a great question. Yeah, really good. I think a more time for a couple more. I'll slip another one. hereere we go. Hello, Dr. Tyson. In popular fiction, we experience time travel from one perspective, either a single person traveling through time or multiple people traveling to a specific time in a single event We rarely, if ever hear of multiple people traveling from multiple perspectives How would the universe handle these separate events? Thanks from Austin Town, Ohio, Bob W The universe can't handle the truth. Well it's conflicting cause and effect. No, no. If one person goes to one place and that's what the story is about, fine But you can make another story about somebody going somewhere else and let there be a hundred stories about people going throughout. So maybe the question is If someone is about to disrupt a timeline of events It gets highly complicated if somebody else is in a different part of that timeline with similar capacity to influence the timeline of events Yeah. And then you then it gets very Chaotic But wait, the universe would have to either force all of those perspectives into one consistent story, split them into separate realitiesce them or prevent situation entirely. It would just become one story We don't have to force anything. Okay, so then if time travel were possible, would multiple travelers from different points in time necessily would really converge into contradictions? They would wreak havoc on the timeline we have come to know and love. They would turn it into a new timeline That had them as part of that timeline to begin with. Yeah, but that's not science fiction. That's like the universe opening up too many tabs and everything crashing. It's a universe with too many tabs. I like that. Yeah. That's a perfect analogy. BeCause I did my thesis in Chile over that. It's so weird. Whenere were you there It seems it seems contradictory to me. No, I'm just, I think the issue is How much of a maeleststrom would unfold if more than one person me meding this We're medding in the timeline S. Can multiple conflicting pasts be all true at the same time? or no. Not in the same universe. No Okay, but you they can be through time what does conflict mean, right? So you can't have a universe where Hitler rises to power And in the same universe, Hitler doesn't rise to power Pick one And so this is why people are thinking that timeline splits, you actually split universes This allows them to So contradictory things can exist in two different universes That's the only way to get out of that. That's conundrum. That's conundrum, rightight?. And there are plenty of people who want to think that way about univers is The the timeline splits into two universes I would time travel with you. You would? Yeah.. He didn't talk. As longce you leave your speedoos behind, you. I think we did a nice job here. We got a lot of questions. Yeah. One quick one and I'll answer quick. Quick one. Okay, let me find a quick quick. Patrick here, Dr. Tyson, Patrick, just another science nerd. from South East Texas What if spacetime behaves like a super solid, meaning it has both fluid like flow and crystal like structure black holes actually be long lived topological defects in that medium rather than singularities? And if so instead of destroying information, Might they encode it in stable patterns or scars in spacetime itself, potentially releasing it later as structured gravitational wave echoes or even retro casual signals This is a really basic question. And I wish this guy would be a little smarter. Wow. That's a great question. That question is so trivial, I'll let you take it. Well, you know what, I'm a big fan of crystal light. It's likely lemonade, but it doesn't have all whole of calories. Is that what we're talking about. So'd the notion that something we think of as