SYSK TRENDING -The Intriguing Mysteries of the Universe

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1:23The universe is filled with things we still don't understand. We don't really know what dark matter is. We're not quite sure why the universe is expanding faster and faster. We don't know what happened before the Big Bang, or even if there was a before. And then there's the question of whether we're the only intelligent life out there. These are big questions, and that's why today's SYSK trending topic is the intriguing mysteries of the universe. My guest is astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, and he's going to take us through some of the biggest mysteries and best-kept secrets of the cosmos. What we know, what we think we know, and what continues to completely stub scientists.

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4:00Have you ever thought about why you're here and how you got here to this point in time in the universe? And where are we all going? These are some big heady questions that can sometimes be fun to contemplate and even more fun to discuss with someone like Neil deGrasse Tyson. So let's do that. You know, people sometimes say they like my voice. I get that a lot. One of the voices I like to listen to is the voice of Neil deGrasse Tyson. And you can hear his voice in a lot of places. He has a podcast called Star Talk, and he's also on TV a lot. I find that after I listen to him speak, I just feel a little bit smarter, like I understand the world and the universe a little bit better.

4:47See if you don't feel the same way in about 20 minutes when we're done. In addition to all of his other work, Neil deGrasse Tyson is the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City. And he has a new book out called Cosmic Queries, StarTalk's guide to who we are, how we got here, and where we're going. Hi, Neil. Thanks for being here. Excellent. Thank you for having me. So, let's just dive right in. How did we get here? Not on this podcast, but I mean in this universe. How did we get here? Why are we here?

5:24Neil deGrasse Tyson: There are a lot of ways to answer that. There are people who like thinking of the universe as this haven for life and its perfect laws of physics come together to enable life. But first of all, the universe would have gone nearly a billion years before Earth even formed. So if the universe were made for life, such as what we have here on Earth, It has a really delayed way of showing it. All right. And so that's my first comment. Second, um, the elements in our bodies, the, the, you know, the carbon, the nitrogen, the oxygen, the, the foundations of our biochemistry that was not available at the beginning of the universe that had to be made later in the cores of stars.

6:10Neil deGrasse Tyson: And we see this happening. These are stars that then explode, scattering their enriched guts across the galaxy, out of which you make the next generation of stars with planets, at least one of which has life. But then you make the planet and you have all these ingredients. How do you go from just organic molecules to self-replicating life? That remains a mystery. We've got top people working on it. But one of the things about cosmic queries is we are not choosing questions based on what we have answers to. We're choosing questions based on what people have asked. And then we, and it's laid bare.

6:52All right.

6:52Neil deGrasse Tyson: I can tell you how, where we got the atoms. I can tell you how the atoms function later on, but how we go from molecules to life. That's a mystery. Other mysteries, what was around before the big bang? Don't know. We have some ideas and here they are, but we don't know. Do we have any sense of, you know cells come from other cells so where did the first cell come from you know chicken or egg okay well so first the chicken egg question does have an answer so i'm trying to rid the world of people analogizing such questions to the chicken and egg so would you like me to give you that answer please okay so the egg came first from where by a bird that you would not have called a chicken.

7:36Neil deGrasse Tyson: Okay? This is what you get by sort of the evolution of species. So there's some bird and it's not a chicken. And then there's some distortion in its offspring from a defect in the DNA. We'll call it a defect because what comes out is not what it started with, right? And it's some new kind of variation. Now, in practice, it would have taken many, many generations for this to happen. But at some point, you're calling the bird a not chicken, and then the egg that hatches out a chicken. And at that point, the chicken was laid by a bird that was not a chicken. Okay. So the egg came first. Well, that sounds easier than if cells come from other cells, where did the first cell come from?

8:21Neil deGrasse Tyson: Oh, yes, that is easier. Yes. So now getting back to that one, a cell is a living thing. So that's my point. How do you go from organic molecules to self-replicating life. That's a mystery. We have top people working on it. So I know you talk about questions that are not the right question, that we can try to answer the question, but if you're asking the wrong question, you're not going to get anywhere. So what are some questions that are the wrong questions? Oh, okay. I got one for you. I'll give you two examples. Here's one that you know not to ask because it's illegal in our own universe. You ready?

9:01Neil deGrasse Tyson: So you go visit Santa Claus on the North Pole and you say, Santa, please point me north of here. The problem is every direction Santa points in is due south. There is no east or west either. So to say what is north of the North Pole is a sentence that has no meaning. Here's another one, okay? How about Pinocchio? You tell me what will happen if Pinocchio declares, if Pinocchio says, my nose is about to grow, you tell me what happens next. Well, his nose can't grow or can it? I don't know. Okay, if his nose doesn't grow, then he was lying because he just said his nose is about to grow. If he lies, it means his nose has to grow.

9:49Neil deGrasse Tyson: If he says it and his nose grows, that meant saying his nose was about to grow was true. And if it's true, that means his nose wouldn't grow. So that's a simple statement that actually has no meaning in the Pinocchio universe. So all I'm saying is, in the universe in which we live, I take you to the precipice and dangle you over the abyss of the unknown, and I ask you, what's the next question? You might come up with a question, but there's no guarantee that that question is even valid in the universe that you're now on the doorstep of discovering. Well, the question a lot of people ask, and have been asking for a long time, is, is there life elsewhere?

10:38And you would say?

10:39Neil deGrasse Tyson: I would say highly likely, for several reasons, coming together. The universe is old. The ingredients of life are everywhere. If life on Earth were made of really rare things, I would say, yeah, life is probably rare. But the most common atom in the universe is hydrogen. It's the most common atom in life. The next most common atom in the universe is, after helium, which is chemically inert, so that's not useful, the next most common is oxygen. That's the next most common atom in life. The next most common is carbon. That's what's next in life. So what's next in the universe? Nitrogen. That's what's next in life.

11:24Neil deGrasse Tyson: The top four chemically active ingredients of the universe are the top four atoms in the human body and in life on Earth. So maybe life is an inevitable consequence of organic chemistry. We don't know. So there's that. And also, life got started really fast. On Earth, you look at the data, life from non-life to life took maybe 100 million years. You say, well, that's a long time, Dr. Tyson. Well, not really if Earth is 4.5 billion years old. 100 million is pittance relative to that timeline. So Earth made life almost as soon as it possibly could have and didn't seem to have trouble accomplishing it, even if we have trouble in the lab.

12:11Neil deGrasse Tyson: Combine all those factors. Life happened quickly, common ingredients, and the universe is old. I wouldn't be surprised if life wasn't teeming everywhere in the universe, just for those factors alone. Intelligent life? That's different, because look at all the life forms Earth has had. Millions, I think. I don't remember the exact number, but it's huge, most of which are now extinct for all manner of various reasons over the history of the Tree of Life. But, oh, by the way, who defined us as intelligent? That's an important question. We defined ourselves as intelligent. So would we be intelligent to an alien species who has the technology to jet between galaxies?

12:56Neil deGrasse Tyson: Could they be so intelligent that human intelligence pales in comparison the way, you know, you don't, the hubris of people saying the aliens are watching us. They care about us. It's like when you walk past worms, are you saying, gee, I wonder what that worm is thinking? Gee, I'm completely interested in this worm. Unless you're a nematode specialist, you're probably not caring what the worm is thinking about. So to believe we are so interesting that they'll perform sex experiments on us and draw circles in wheat fields all for our benefit, that's thinking you're really in the center of the universe.

13:35Neil deGrasse Tyson: So let's assume we are intelligent, even by alien standards. We are one life form out of a million on Earth, one species. Intelligence doesn't seem to be all that important for life. Otherwise, it would have shown up many more times in the fossil record, like locomotion, like sight, like hearing, like the ability to manipulate your environment. These have shown up many ways, many times in the fossil record. and intelligence has not. So what's clear to me about that is intelligence is not all that important. Intelligence, as we define it for ourselves, is not all that important for our survival, for the survival of a life form.

14:16Neil deGrasse Tyson: Otherwise, it would have evolved many more times in the fossil record. So it could be that our intelligence is extremely rare in the universe. Or if it's not rare, we are nowhere near the measure of intelligence that the universe manifests. We're talking about the universe, And my guest is Neil deGrasse Tyson. He is host of the podcast StarTalk. And he is the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City and author of the book Cosmic Queries. So here's a question. How well did you eat in the last 24 hours? Did you get enough protein, fiber, greens, and all the things you're supposed to be getting?

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17:50Neil deGrasse Tyson: Any period of great discovery, discoveries happen exponentially. So I can be more precise about that. I have a book from 1890 on the sun. And the first edition of that book was like 1886 or something, something like that, around there. And well, why did the second edition come out four years later? Well, the author writes, I paraphrase, Scientific advances in our understanding of the sun has been so great We had to put out another edition to catch up on things This person in 1890 is glorifying the pace of scientific discovery When you are on an exponential curve of discovery Every moment you look at it, it looks like all the greatest advances Happened in the recent years That's what being on an exponential curve means so Yeah, if it looks like you're living in special times that is the hallmark of X of a period of exponential discovery What do you think was like the big game changer if there was one or maybe two like?

18:58everything changed I would say Isaac Newton

19:03Neil deGrasse Tyson: Demonstrating that the universe was mathematically knowable That was profound You can write down an equation and make a prediction about something you've never seen before because you have connected the mathematics to the operations of nature. That was a game changer. Well, knowing that we don't know what we don't know, how much do we know compared to what we probably don't know? Four percent. You said that like… You can quantify our ignorance. You said that with some authority, so where did the number come from? Let's not call it authority. Let's just call it knowledge. Authority is telling you what to think and believe, whether or not it's true.

19:45Neil deGrasse Tyson: Authority has the power to make that happen. But if it's just knowledge, anybody could have it and share it. So all the chemistry and biology and physics that you know and love, that is taught in the schools, drives 4 % of the phenomenon of the universe. The remaining 96 % is dark matter and dark energy, about which we know nothing. We can measure its existence. We can see its effect gravitationally on objects. We don't know where it came from. We don't know what it is. We don't know why it's there. We can't even characterize it. So our airplanes, our rocket ships, our energy, our civilizations are all living in 4 % of the known universe.

20:32So this may or may not be a fair question, but because you've taken in all this knowledge and you have synthesized it, and you're well known for being able to explain it in a very interesting and compelling and fortunately for many of us a simple way, Does all of that make you more spiritual or less spiritual?

20:57Neil deGrasse Tyson: I would say more spiritual. Spiritual in the sense of, it's spiritual sort of capital S. So spirit, I think from the Latin, is your breath, right? And your breath was equated to being alive, right, for the longest time. They would hold up a mirror in front of your dying body. And the moment you no longer fogged the mirror, you would declare dead. so your spirit left your body so when I think of gazing on the darkened universe on a mountaintop where I have a telescope that I'm about to use for scientific means but before I enter the dome a gaze upon the limitlessness of it and the majesty of it that's that's a spiritual moment I think and the sort of the glory of the universe and I bet it taps I don't know this for sure, but I bet it taps similar parts of my brain that religious experiences tap in people's brains who have experienced those.

21:57Neil deGrasse Tyson: If that's the case, I have no hesitation calling them spiritual experiences. But when I use the word spiritual, I am in no way invoking a God who made the universe in six days and cares about who you sleep with, right? This is not my usage of the term. So how does this all end? Where does the universe go when it goes? Yeah, so often when people say how will it end, they're really only thinking about Earth. And there's some fun, interesting scenarios to get rid of Earth. Basically, the sun will absorb it and vaporize it in about 5, 6 billion years. So we need to find another planet by then if our species survives that long.

22:44Neil deGrasse Tyson: So that's cool. I mean, it's not cool. I mean, it's just the reality of it as the sun expands to engulf the orbits of Mercury and Venus and bringing the oceans of Earth into a rolling boil. That's a bad day for Earth. So at the end of Earth is vapor inside the sun. But the end of the universe is more intriguing because the universe can take any one of a dozen pathways, and we don't know enough to land on which pathway is highly likely. So that's why we give all the scenarios in it. And the ending that terrifies me the most is the one where we end up expanding, because the expansion is growing exponentially, the expansion of the universe.

23:33Neil deGrasse Tyson: So eventually the expansion will rip all the galaxies from our night sky and then it'll rip the stars from our night sky. Then it'll start ripping molecules from your body. And then it starts ripping the structures of the atoms from the molecules and then the atoms themselves, the particles within the atoms themselves. And when you do that, there's no other way the expansion of the universe can accommodate it. And it's called the big rip, which is terrifying to me. The big rip, where it's like you're stretching some flexi cloth, and then there's a point where it no longer stretches, and what does it do?

24:14Neil deGrasse Tyson: It rips. I can't even picture what that would look like or what it would be. But it's nonetheless terrifying to me. Sounds horrible. But it's not happening anytime soon, so don't lose sleep over it. Yeah, not this week or anything. So can you explain, because we hear this often, that the universe is expanding, and it's expanding exponentially, you said. What does that mean, and what's it expanding into? Yeah, that's a perfect honest question to ask. It depends on what kind of multiverse it is. if it's the simplest of multiverses, then the full extent of the actual universe is vastly greater than the universe you can see.

25:03Neil deGrasse Tyson: And so our pocket that's expanding is simply expanding into other parts of our universe. Okay? So as would be any Big Bang manifested in the rest of this multiverse. so the problem is if we if the new if multiple universes invokes higher dimensions so that it's creating a whole of the universe with other laws of physics then first that would be really dangerous to visit you take your health into your own hands by doing so because the charge on the electron could be different and you walk across the proscenium and then you collapse into a pile of goo because the molecular forces are no longer apply so in that universe that's in another dimension.

25:46Neil deGrasse Tyson: And so we would expand, but never interact with that other universe. You might say, well, how can you expand forever, but not bump into another universe? Well, I can have a sheet of paper that's flat, obviously, and I can stretch it in the two dimensions. If I layer another sheet of paper right on top of, not touching it, but above it, I can stretch both sheets of paper to infinity and they'll never intersect each other. So that's obvious because they're not in the same plane. Well, going from three dimensions to higher, in a higher dimension, the lower dimension entities can expand forever and not end up colliding.

26:25Neil deGrasse Tyson: So if you're eager to get a parallel universe, we might have a twin of you, don't hold your breath about whether it's one we can interact with. That's very hard to grasp, that there's parallel universes. Yeah, I mean most of it is hard to grasp. I've said many times that the universe is under no obligation to make sense to you. So what matters is whether it satisfies experiment and observation. Well, I wish it would make sense. It would make it easier to make sense of it all. No, but you can't because your senses were developed on the plains of the Serengeti to not get eaten by a lion. They're not designed for math or probability or statistics or fundamental physics.

27:12Neil deGrasse Tyson: So, yeah, it's a problem. It's a problem. We're stuck with our own biology. It's pretty exciting stuff. And it's just amazing when you stop and look up at the sky. And I do this often and just think, how amazing is it that I am here right now at this time in this place? It's hard to fathom. Yeah, it's quite the, and it's, dare I use the word, it's a miracle that you're even alive, given how many possible humans there could be that will never be born. That's something to contemplate. Wow. Well, it's always a pleasure to hear you speak. I enjoy the chance to interact with you, and I always feel a little bit smarter afterwards.

27:55Neil deGrasse Tyson has been my guest. He is the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City. His podcast is called StarTalk, and his new book is called Cosmic Queries, StarTalk's Guide to Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We're Going. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thank you, Neil. Appreciate you being here. Yeah, thanks for your interest. It's been a pleasure. And that's it for today's SYSK Trending episode. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.