Cosmic Queries – Back to School Edition

0:00Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk Cosmic Queries Edition. Chuck, co-host, always good to have you, man. Always a pleasure to be here. How are you? Yeah, this one I figured, let's do an homage to going back to school. Okay. Why not? So this is the back to school edition. Not only people who are actually going back to school, but people who might, I don't know how many out there feel this way, who might look nostalgically on having been in school. Your only job in life was to learn. Yes. See, that's a thing.

0:50To the two of you out there. The two people. Who feel that way. Because everyone else is a fan of Alice Cooper. School's out for summer. Yes. School's out for summer. Never. Yeah, those folks were learning there. He's lied because school is never out. That's what people don't. Oh, provided they instill a level of curiosity in you so that you can become a lifelong learner. I disagree. I disagree. You are a lifelong learner, whether you want to be or not. It just depends on how you want to learn. No, I've met some ossified people. They ain't learning a damn thing. So don't tell me that. Nah, yeah, well.

1:34No, it's like, no, they're learning the hard way. Oh, the hard way. There you go. The hard way. That's all. So what do you got? So for this back to school edition, we're expanding our reach, going to our TikTok following and our Twitter following. Okay. Yeah. Yes, exactly. So they might become Patreon members one day. So we'll reach there. Well, you know what? Give a taste of what's otherwise behind the protected space. Right. So if you want to, go to patreon.com slash star talk, and you can support us, and then you will receive what we're doing right now as a command performance, a private show just for you where Neil answers all of our Patreon patrons' questions.

2:22Yeah. But this time, we're extending it to anybody on TikTok and Instagram. Of our fan base in those platforms, yes. Everybody gets one free. Okay, plus you're not supposed to ask for money before we did anything for them. So you got to like, we got to do the show. And then... You're speaking like a person who has confidence.

2:48I like to get the money up front. Up front, I got you. Okay, up front. We solicited the questions with a... It was, is there anything you wished you had learned in school or want to still learn? Did we pose that question? Okay, so here it is. Basically, yeah. There we go. Anything you wish you had learned, want to still learn, or just maybe curious about now. Yeah, let's do it. So here we go. This is Travel for Real from TikTok. And Travel for Real says, by the way, his name is Josh. And he says, is there any scientific evidence for what happens before or after this life. Oh, yes. Uh-huh. Yes, well, in the sense that everything we know about who you are as an individual, everything emanates from the electrochemical phenomena in your brain.

3:46And we know this because people who get a series of mini strokes, little bits of them begin to go away. First, you know, kinetically with their muscles, but also in their mind. And so they slowly go away. Then whoever you remember to be there, bit by bit, is being disassembled by the loss of electrochemical functions in the brain. Right. And so you get to a point where a person totally strokes out. And their body might even still be alive, the rest of their body, but they don't function. their pupils don't dilate or constrict. They're brain dead, basically, at that point. But the very deep part of the brain that keeps the body alive, the body is still doing what it's doing.

4:33Okay, so as far as we know, when you die, since all of the neurosynaptic phenomena cease, you enter a state of non-existence. Okay. Period. And is that any different from your state of non-existence that was before you were born. Chuck, before you were born, you know, 10 years before you were born, you're not saying, where am I? How come I'm not in the world? I was. That's how I got here. You snuck in the back. Exactly. So you're not lamenting your state of non-existence before you were born. And all evidence points that after you die, you re-enter a state of non-existence. It's that simple. And so people, by the way, there are many people who don't like that answer.

5:28No, they don't. That's what science tells us, but they don't like the answer. No. They need there to be things after you die. Paradise. Paradise of any kind, described in multiple religions. Yes. And if you're into reincarnation, you will believe you were a life form before your current one. so there are belief systems out there that say all kinds of things about before you're born and after you die but if you're going to ask a scientist that's the answer you're going to get so what that tells me is as a scientist that I have to make this life count because there's not one that's after it this life is more than just a read through which is the chili peppers way of saying it oh a real read through that's right you have power an agency over your ambitions, your goals, where you land, where you launch from.

6:21This ain't no rehearsal, baby. That's it. The one and the only. Make it count. Alright. Keep it going. Oh, by the way, there's a whole chapter in my next book on life and death where all these topics are addressed in case you want to read up on them even further. Yes, if you want to be more depressed than you are now. That's right. Yeah. So there you go. All right, that's very cool. This is Josh, and Josh says this. Okay, I'm just reading them, and I don't judge. He says— You kind of are, just I'm saying, but go on. No, okay. All right, okay, go. You called me out, so I can't— All right, go, go, go, go.

7:03Go, Josh. He says, what was first, dinosaur or water or trees? and did the comet really take out the dinosaurs? Okay. All right. So water was around. Always first. Yeah, water was there from the beginning of things. In space. In space. Water is in space. In space. We got water. Water is a comet. It's because hydrogen and oxygen are both common in the universe. So putting them together to make H2O, you got that one for free. Right. Next came trees. Then came dinosaurs. Right. in that order. And the cool part is there was a time when we had trees but no microbes to digest the wood. Right. So a tree would grow, fall over, and die, and there would be nothing for it to decompose.

7:57We are so accustomed to seeing a fallen tree in the forest that is crumbling back to soil. Right. In the presence of microbes and insects. and if it's old enough, you can take your hand and just crush it. Crush it. Crush it into dust, okay? Look how strong I am. That did not happen. There's a point when that did not happen. All the trees accumulated and there's an entire layer in the geologic strata called the Carboniferous Era where all the trees and other vegetation collapsed and did not decompose. Wow. And out of that Carboniferous Era, we get our coal and oil. Right. There it is. And that's why, yeah.

8:41And everybody says this. I'm glad you just said this. Out of the Carbon in the First Era, we get coal and oil because fossil fuels means buried. It doesn't mean dinosaur. Oh, right, right. In fact, the oil, you know, we used to think that there was an ad for, what's the oil company that used a Brontosaurus? who was a Sinclair. So Sinclair had a Brontosaurus. And I think one of their commercials implied that all the oil came from dead dinosaurs. But it's mostly from vegetation. From vegetation. That never decomposed. In the usual way, gets buried and under long times of pressure and temperature, there's a chemical change that boosts it with the kind of energy you want for an industrialized civilization.

9:30There you go. Yeah. Oh, by the way, and dinosaurs, they're still around. They're called birds. That's true, right? Yeah. Okay. That's very... You know, yeah, that's the... I didn't see it, but I hear that's the whole big reveal in the latest Jurassic Park is that the dinosaurs have feathers. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. And that would be the likely link between the modern-day birds and what they were. That's right. But, by the way, trees are not the oldest things around. There are other sort of vertebrate life forms that predate trees. Right. So sharks are older than trees, for example. Wow. So, yeah.

10:12So anyhow, it's fascinating, the history of life on Earth and who came first and who didn't. Here's one for you. You ready? We all don't—we all—nobody doesn't love Stegosaurus, right? Of course. Okay. He looks like his own castle. Yes, or his own armor. His own armor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Stegosaurus. and so we are, so Stegosaurus predates T-Rex. Okay. By how much? I don't know. By more than T-Rex predates us. Oh my goodness. Right? So Stegosaurus is like the old man of the dinosaurs. Stegosaurus is the OG dinosaur. Right. The OG. So we are closer in time to T-Rex than T-Rex is to the Stegosaurus.

11:00I thought I'd throw that out there. There you go. Let's show some respect, T-Rex. That's right. You don't know who you're messing with. Stegosaurus. That's kind of dope. It's totally the OG of dinosaurs. Who knew that? I did not know that. That's a long time. That's a long time. Okay. And you know what upset me? What? When we did more calculations with the stability of Saturn's rings, which is just a swarm of particles in orbit, not entirely stable, that there was some talk that Saturn's rings were only around for maybe 50 million years, at most 100 million years. So there's a chance that if the dinosaurs had a telescope and they looked up at Saturn, they would see no ring at all.

11:43Wow. Yeah. That would be sad. That would be sad for me if I was a dinosaur because I love Saturn. Yeah. It was probably sadder for T-Rex because his arms are too short to try and use a telescope. Okay. arms are too short for everything. Yeah, it's just like, you know, God, why can't I get this?

12:07All right. Yo, that's okay. Very cool. Very cool. Very cool. Let's go to Lenscape via TikTok. Oh, all right. Lenscape just wants to jump into, like, a whole bath of goodness all at once. Let's do that. Neil, are we living in a simulation? I am not as convinced as other people are. And again, I hate to sound like a broken record, but in my book, I give an argument. I call it the inanity defense for why we're not a simulation. Because every computer we've ever programmed to do any task at all is vastly more logical than we have ever been. Vastly more sensible. Vastly more traceable in the causes and effects of what it does.

13:03So, if we're a simulation, someone would have to program the computer for its characters to make completely irrational, stupid decisions that we make every day of our lives. And who would do that? That's all I'm saying. So I'm thinking a simulated universe, all of its life forms would be way more logical and rational than any evidence humans have ever given for behaving that way. So that's where I'm coming from here. I call it the inanity defense. Right. But here's the thing.

13:41The inanity is far more interesting. So if you're a designer, why wouldn't you do that? Yeah, but you wouldn't need to do it to this depth. I mean, you could throw in a few irrational players, right? And everybody's got to deal with them. Yeah. But the extent, the breadth, and the depth of which it appears, clearly no computer was involved. That's all I got to say. Yeah, okay. I got you. Yeah, okay. It's like there's crazy, and then there's us. Thank you. That's basically what it comes down to. No computer could be this crazy. They can't. They got silicon chips that have, you know, logical circuitry.

14:24Right, right. So there you go.

14:35Hello, I'm Finky Broke-Allen, and I support StarTalk on Patreon. This is StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

14:54Here we go. This is Seth Pascual says this, 25, Seth Pascual, 25. What sound does space make if you were to float around in it? Oh, okay. So in other words, what would you hear if you're in the nothingness of space?

15:18You'll hear Darth Vader. No. That was a bad Darth Vader. Sorry. You'll hear nothing. There's no medium to communicate sound from any place in space to your ears. So what you'll begin to hear are things inside your body. Right. So I was in the quietest place on Earth. And it is a room at Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. And every bit of sound that would be exterior to the room doesn't get in. And any sound that you make gets completely deadened against the walls. You're not even standing on a floor. You're standing on a mesh that is equidistant between a ceiling and a floor.

16:01And the floor below you, which is also made of specially designed acoustic materials. else. So I'm standing in there and you don't hear anything. You don't hear anything. I started hearing blood pumping through my ear canal. Wow. Now, are you sure you weren't having a stroke? No, I hope not. Being from New York and for the first time hearing absolutely nothing. Your brain just couldn't take it. Your brain started to explode or implode. Yeah, so at the end of the day, allow me to say there is no such thing as the sound of silence other than blood moving within your skull. Oh, man. Simon and Garfunkel hates you right there.

16:43Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I don't know. There you go. So you hear yourself. That's the sound of silence, which is... Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Another way to say it is the sound of silence is the sound of things that were always making noise that you never noticed before. Ooh. How about that? Look at that. Far more profound. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, in other words, you need to Miyagi this and listen to yourself a little closer. Okay. And one other thing. There's a saying attributed to Nietzsche. Okay. And this I quote in the book, too. Damn, my life just is the book. No, right now it is. It's those who were dancing were deemed insane by those who could not hear the music.

17:29There you go. and just think about if you watch people behind a glass screen dancing and you can't hear the music they're they're they're crazy people they look insane right they look insane they're jumping up and down flailing their arms and legs so i think there's a lot in that quote in terms of what is the reality that you experience versus that of others and what is it that you define as that which is objectively true. And always think twice before you pass judgment of what you see others doing. Maybe it's because they hear the music and you do not. Right. Ooh. All right, here we go. This is Zalmarian from TikTok.

18:11Zalmarian says, how old do you think our star really is? Is it possible that it's older than we think? is it okay? I mean, is it lying about its age? I mean, is our soul, our star going like, you know. The sun is telling us how old it is. And Chuck, right, it could be lying. I don't know the issues with stars, but if they have social issues that where this matters. Most stars, most stars lie about the age. So, all, all the evidence we have tells us that our star is about 4.5 to 4.6 billion years old, slightly older than Earth-Moon system itself. And we expect it to live another 5 billion years in good health.

19:04There you go. Before it expands and then engulfs the orbits of Mercury, Venus, and Earth, vaporizing the oceans and then the atmosphere and then all life as we know it. So have a nice day. There you go. And that's our show, people. Oh, that's right. Sleep well, sleep well. There you go. All right. That's very cool. So now how old is the Earth? 4.55. Five, yeah. 4.55 billion years. We all, everything kind of coalesced in that time, right? Exactly. So you can ask, what are the chances of that being wrong? I suppose there's a chance, but it has so much supporting evidence that we're on to the next questions.

19:45No longer even judging whether those estimates are false. any further because they're so successful. That's right. Got it. There you go. All right, here's Lil Toenail. Okay. That's the name of a user? Okay. That's Lil Toenail from TikTok. All right. You got to love that. Okay, here's the deal. Lil Toenail says, I cannot wrap my head around time dilation. Can you please explain it to me? And I'm like, who knew Lil Toenail had a head? Okay, fine. You're scraping the bottom of the barrel for that one. I don't know. No, I'm just saying, something's going on with that foot. If the foot is doing that thing, what's the big toe thinking?

20:31What is the big toe thinking? If your toenail is worried about time dilation. Oh, what the hell is big toe? So here's the thing. We have two coordinates that define us, where we are in space and where we are in time. If you sit your butt in one place, you are moving forward in time, but you're stationary in space. Mm-hmm. Okay? If you are a speed of light, you are moving forward in space, but you're stationary in time. Right. Time does not tick for light. If you are anything in between those two extremes, there'll be a combination of your space changing and your time changing. The rate at which time ticks.

21:25Okay. Because both of those matter to figure out where everything is and where it's going in the universe. So you can think of it as two axes, a space axis and a time axis. and light moves along the space axis, okay? And again, if you are sitting there not moving at all, you move perfectly along the time axis. You can find other places in that chart where space and time are moving at various rates relative to each other. Okay. And so the GPS satellites, for example, they are in a different place. They're farther away from Earth's gravity. so their space-time diagram means time ticks more slowly for them than it does for us.

22:11Right. So when they tell you what time it is, we have to pre-correct it with an Einsteinian equation so that the time you get on Earth's surface matches what everybody else is using. It's amazing. It's completely amazing. That's right. So cool. God, that is so cool! So trippy! And Einstein didn't even get the Nobel Prize for that. He got it from much lesser work. Had they totally done his Nobel Prize some justice, he would have had like eight Nobel Prizes. Yeah. Because, I mean, yeah, figuring out that time ticks more slowly. Correct. Is, you know, I mean, that's beyond mind-blowing. That is beyond, that is a tectonic perspective shift on the entire universe itself.

22:57Yes, it is. Einstein changed the cosmic perspective. God! It's just amazing. All right. I feel so stupid right now. No.

23:11All right. Oh, man, I just love, I love that so much. I can never get enough of that. Wait, wait, don't confuse being stupid and not knowing with being curious and eager to find out. Can I be both and? No, no, I'm not giving you that. I have more confidence in you. Okay, good. All right. This is Maddie Rose Madden. Okay. Maddie Rose Madden from TikTok. Okay. Check this out. You get in the middle of perhaps a spousal argument here, Neil. Uh-oh. Okay. Just letting you know right now. All right. Do we live in or on the earth? My husband says that we live in the earth because of the atmosphere. I say we live on the earth because the earth's atmosphere is on the earth.

24:12Okay. All right. What do we got here? I mean. I'm going to settle this. All right. You must bring peace to this home. You ready? Okay. Before 1970. No, before 1968. If you said, draw Earth, people would draw a globe, and they would draw oceans, and they'd draw the continents. Correct. Nobody drew clouds. That's right. Take a look at any old image of Earth. There are no clouds on it. Not even Star Trek, which should have known better. How does it begin? Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages. and you see Earth in the background, there's no clouds on it. So no one thought about our atmosphere as something fundamental to the identity of Earth.

25:03Until 1968, with Apollo 8, went to the moon, looked back, took a picture of the Earth, and there it was. As only nature intended you to see it. With oceans, land, and clouds. Yes. Do you realize, after 1968, That was December 68. There was legislation to create and was ultimately signed a year and a half later, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. NOAA. Before then, no one had connected the oceans and the air before. At Mars, yep. Hadn't been done yet. There were atmosphere people and there were ocean people. And you had land people. And then you had people studying lights. And so you had the geologists and the biologists.

25:48Now we find that life is thriving throughout the earth, on rocks, down through the crust of the earth. And that oceans interact with our land masses, changing their shapes. And where does the ocean, where does the atmosphere get its water? It gets it from the ocean. This is an entire system. So, since then, nobody draws earth without clouds. So, I declare, by authority vested in me, by the universe, and most specifically by the cosmic perspective, that if someone wants to say that living on Earth's surface, beneath 15 pounds per square inch of atmospheric mass, if they want to say we live in the Earth, I'm all for it.

26:41Oh, whoa. otherwise you'd have to say earth does not include the atmosphere and i'm not prepared to do that so we do but i think i i think i i justified it right i didn't just say we have my opinion no just fight about it here's why it makes sense and by the way earth's atmosphere is so thin earth's atmosphere is to earth as the skin of an apple is to the apples that's just terrible okay i mean the way we treat the atmosphere that's why i say it's terrible oh yeah yeah right right you think it you think you're in the bottom of a large ocean no you're at the bottom of a really skinny skinny thing and just because you're little that it looks big right but when you're big it looks little wow it is so we live in earth people in earth yeah which makes sense because this is a spaceship hurling through space correct so we You wouldn't travel on a spaceship.

27:40You'd travel in a spaceship. Yes, correct. As George Carlin clearly noted, where he gets, you might be getting on the plane. He's getting in the plane. Yes. I didn't. I never heard that. You never heard that. Oh, that's in his airplane segment. Yeah. Okay. I like it. All right. Okay. Look at that. Sorry, Maddie Rose Madden. You're going to be mad when you hear this, but. Wait, wait, wait. I got another one. So do you live in a city or on a city? Well, see, I live in a city. No, no. See, the city has a grid, and you're standing on the grid of the city, right? Yeah. You're in three dimensions. If you were flat and you crossed the border of the city, you'd be in the city.

28:20But you stand up above the city. You're on the city. Okay. Well, I'm down to be on the city. What do you think of that? I'm on the town, baby. Okay. All right. All right. That sounds good.