Cosmic Queries – Multiverse Nesting Dolls

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Speaker 2 Jasla horror, mi gente.

Speaker 3 Paul, people love themselves in black hole.

Speaker 4 Yeah, and I think it's because it's sort of the unknown, right?

Speaker 3 Because it can eat you. Yes.
And that gives you, that forces you to respect them.

Speaker 4 Yeah, exactly. It's like it's like a street thing.

Speaker 3 Coming up on Star Talk, Cosmic Aquarius.

Speaker 3 Welcome to Star Talk.

Speaker 3 your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide.

Speaker 3 Star Talk begins right now.

Speaker 3 This is Star Talk. Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist.
We're doing a CosmicQuarries grab bag today with Paul Mercurio. Paul.
Hi.

Speaker 4 Well, first, nice to see you.

Speaker 4 Thank you. We got the correct.
I am Baron Paul McCurio.

Speaker 4 did that happen united me and i oh okay thanks for reminding me where are the trumpets i

Speaker 3 i just forgot baron

Speaker 4 baron paul mercurio thank you for that reminder and the nice thing is you created problems at my house because now my wife and son have to call me that all the time

Speaker 3 i think i use my excalibur to you did it was a big thing and not a picture responded online and on the wall there one person said maybe you should come whatever but you didn't thank god no it's great to see you great to be back all right and uh you got a podcast yeah what's the name of that podcast inside out with paul mccurius i've been on it

Speaker 4 fun one-on-one interviews with folks yeah paul mccartney and colbert and i perform on that show yeah no it's all good yeah yeah and you perform on colbert do you also write for him as well no just but you used to write for the daily show i wrote for the daily show yeah for a long time yep and um and then touring with my stand-up and my uh off-broadway show directed by frank oz permission to speak and so i love frank oz yeah nobody doesn't love frank oz he's He's like such a mensch, as they say.

Speaker 4 Yeah, he's so sweet. And he's Yoda, so it's very intimidating to work with the original Yoda.

Speaker 3 Does he give stage directions and Yoda speaks?

Speaker 4 So long wants him to go backwards. When he orders, though, he orders backwards.
Steak I will have. I'm like, all right.
We get it, Frank. You're Yoda.
Stop.

Speaker 3 We're in a diner. Okay.

Speaker 4 No, he's the sweetest human being and so talented. Really good.

Speaker 3 Yeah. We've actually had him on Star Talk.
If you dig him up, he'll be in our archives somewhere. Oh, I didn't know you had him on.
Long ago. Yeah, Yeah, we had everybody.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah, he doesn't live far from here. We should go to his house.

Speaker 3 Here is my office at the

Speaker 3 show up with the puppet at the Hayden Planetarium. Yeah.
Yeah, I went to reach for Minnie Neal.

Speaker 3 There we go. How's this going? The hand goes up the butt or something.

Speaker 4 Oh, you can move the. Oh, look at you.

Speaker 3 Yeah, my mustache is coming up. Yeah, you look.

Speaker 4 You look like a bandit of some kind that's going to

Speaker 4 be 19th century that's holding up a train.

Speaker 3 Who are are you talking to?

Speaker 3 So,

Speaker 3 Cosmic Queries. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Grab bag. We got some fun ones.

Speaker 3 You got them all right in front of me.

Speaker 4 You got them all in front of me. All right.
Jump in. I haven't seen these.

Speaker 3 I might not know some of them. I mean, I don't know.
So we good? Yeah, yeah. Go for it.
All right, man. All right.
If I don't know an answer, I'll just say I don't know.

Speaker 4 Maybe you know. To know, stop.
You know. Okay.

Speaker 4 Adam Schmidt. Hello, Dr.
Tyson. Greetings from Adam in Atlanta.
I loved your video on the possibility our universe is inside a black hole.

Speaker 3 So did a lot of people. It's weird.

Speaker 4 In our universe, we have detected dozens of black hole mergers. If we're inside a black hole, what would that event look like if our black hole merged with another black hole on our parent universe?

Speaker 3 That's very cool.

Speaker 4 Okay, I got what? Why don't we?

Speaker 4 There's more to the question. You want to stop there and then I'll go.
No, no, go on.

Speaker 3 Go on, go on.

Speaker 4 Okay, what would evidence of something like that in our past look like? Could our parent black hole's continued accretion of matter explain why we're continuing to expand?

Speaker 3 I can't answer with precision all of those points, but I can say a couple of things. A black hole is black from the outside.

Speaker 3 If you're on the inside, you see light coming in

Speaker 3 from,

Speaker 3 you see what's going on outside. It's all coming down to you.
It's funneled to a very narrow field of view, but you see it coming in.

Speaker 4 To the point of singularity.

Speaker 3 So you would

Speaker 3 see the other black hole collide with you.

Speaker 3 You should be able to see that.

Speaker 4 Would you see it or feel it?

Speaker 4 It's like nesting dolls, right? In a way? Like in the sense that like a black hole.

Speaker 3 Well, once they're together, they become one. Right.
All right. And you don't, you lose track that there were once two of them.

Speaker 3 So you'll see it come in. The event horizons will merge into one larger event horizon and all of its matter will join you in your black hole.

Speaker 3 And they would say the same thing about them because it's relative, right? You'll join each other, have a common envelope, a common event horizon, and you'll see the matter collapsing down.

Speaker 3 If there's a singularity there, everybody's headed towards the singularity.

Speaker 4 But now there's a theory in that singularity.

Speaker 3 Well, the singularities go to each other. Right.

Speaker 4 Yeah. But there's a theory within the back hole that the singularity doesn't necessarily, it could mean that another universe is created

Speaker 4 from that. So it's sort of.

Speaker 3 Not from it, just the black hole mathematics gives you an entire other space-time inside of it.

Speaker 4 So it's like this cosmic family tree where we have.

Speaker 3 Oh, you mean it's nesting. That's what you mean by the nesting dogs.
Yeah. Right, right.
There's a universe inside the universe inside the universe, and it's universes all the way down.

Speaker 4 And it's like one, we have just one unmarried single parent. It's like we're an illegitimate child

Speaker 4 and nobody remembers anybody's birthday. Like, that's pretty much how the family functions, right?

Speaker 3 I hadn't thought of that. There's the one starter universe, and the black holes within are universes within our universes within.
So yeah, that's a curious consideration.

Speaker 3 The point of there being another space-time in front of you is that as you pass into the black hole,

Speaker 3 time slows down for you relative to the rest of the universe, which means to you, the rest of the universe speeds up. Right.

Speaker 3 Looking out to the rest of the universe, you will see the entire future history of the universe unfold before your eyes.

Speaker 4 Well, my understanding is also if I'm looking at you as you approach the event horizon,

Speaker 4 it's looking like it's slowing down. Correct.
But it's not.

Speaker 3 But I'm looking at you and you're speeding up. Correct.

Speaker 4 Right. But there's spaghettification happening.

Speaker 3 No, that only happens down near the singularity.

Speaker 4 On the singularity.

Speaker 3 I mean, it's funner to think that crossing the event horizon is where you get all torn up. Right.
No. No.
It's just this region of space. You'll pass right through it like

Speaker 3 you didn't know or care that it was there. You'll realize once you're in, you can't get out.

Speaker 3 And depending on whether the black hole is spinning and how big it is, your path could go straight to the singularity. And that's all she wrote.

Speaker 4 But it's chaos within it because it's consuming its light and stars and gases.

Speaker 4 It's inescapable. It's like every family Thanksgiving dinner in my house.

Speaker 4 You cannot get out and it's complete chaos and you have an annoying brother-in-law there. And you know who I'm talking about.

Speaker 3 No, they're not brother-in-law. They're uncles and aunts.
Those are the crazy ones are the uncles and aunts. Yeah.

Speaker 3 So maybe, I mean, sure,

Speaker 3 there'd be a lot of different things there, a cacophony of cosmic objects.

Speaker 4 Let's go to Alex M. Zabetta

Speaker 4 from Houston. What is beyond the black holes? Explain.

Speaker 3 What is beyond the black hole?

Speaker 4 Dunkin' Donut franchise. Everywhere.

Speaker 3 They're everywhere.

Speaker 3 Well, like we just discussed,

Speaker 3 there's a singularity down in the middle.

Speaker 3 But to the extent that you can avoid the singularity, which it's not clear if you can,

Speaker 3 let's say you're rotating black holes where what's going on inside is a little different. But like I said, there's an entire universe opening up inside of it.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 there's something, there's a colleague of mine who considered the natural selection.

Speaker 3 of universes.

Speaker 3 And he said that we are most likely to live in a universe where the laws of physics favor the creation of black holes.

Speaker 4 Through massive stars.

Speaker 3 By whatever mechanism. Right.

Speaker 3 Because

Speaker 3 that universe that has black holes, each of those black holes is a universe within.

Speaker 3 And if those laws of physics make universes within that, so which universe are we most likely to be in?

Speaker 3 The universe where there's a lot of black holes, because we would be in one of those black holes.

Speaker 3 If there's a universe that doesn't make any black holes, we'd have to be in that universe native, right? With that, because it's not making any other universes with its black holes.

Speaker 4 It's sort of like a pregnant cosmic pinata where you break it and then many universes come from that.

Speaker 3 That's obscure, but okay.

Speaker 3 How about I get a better one? How about

Speaker 3 cosmic triples? Oh, there you go. You know triples.
Oh, yeah, Star Trek. Yeah.
Yeah. Do you remember what the secret was about them? I don't.
They're born pregnant. Wow.
Yes.

Speaker 3 I got a triple right here. Oh,

Speaker 3 look at that. Look at that.

Speaker 4 And the

Speaker 4 triple is pregnant when it's born.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it is so fertile, they're born pregnant.

Speaker 3 Right.

Speaker 3 So a universe that natively makes black holes, it's going to make other universes, you know, easy. Right.

Speaker 4 Easy. But is there anything that can sort of...

Speaker 4 Where is science in terms of being able to confirm any of that at this point?

Speaker 3 Are you speaking to me right now? Because I'm just.

Speaker 3 You're really loving that.

Speaker 3 Have you seen the episode? Everybody just stand there and squeeze them. I know.
And there's a lot of them. There's a lot of them.
And they make a little sound.

Speaker 4 Was it water that killed them or something?

Speaker 3 Oh, no. What happened was they were eating the grain of the ship.
Oh.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 they were delivering food to some location, and then they were dying. And it turned out the grain was poisoned by some evil.

Speaker 4 No, it just proves that carbs are bad for them.

Speaker 3 Is that what it is?

Speaker 4 You don't want to eat too much. You don't want to eat too much bread, people.

Speaker 3 That's the theory behind it. If I remember the storyline, I think that was it.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

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Speaker 1 The holidays are back at Starbucks, so share the season with a peppermint mocha.

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Speaker 4 All right, so we're going to move on to our next question, which is

Speaker 4 a really terrific question from Hennek Tedesi,

Speaker 3 and he is from Ethiopia.

Speaker 4 Thanks for truly making the sublime and fascinating part of everyday discussions. Here's my question.
How is Stephen Hawking's theory about the accretion disk around black holes proven?

Speaker 4 How does one go about proving theories about something so far away and not directly observable? And what current theory or study of black holes excites you? I love it.

Speaker 3 Okay, so first,

Speaker 3 I think he's referring to Hawking radiation. Because otherwise the accretion disk, that's a whole other thing.

Speaker 3 Black holes can have accretion disks, but Stephen Hawking wasn't there.

Speaker 3 He cares about black holes evaporating

Speaker 3 by creating particles

Speaker 3 out of the gravitational field that surrounds the black hole.

Speaker 3 So I'm a black hole and I have this gravitational field. It's an intense gravitational field.
And occasionally, my field will create a particle-antiparticle pair. And they'll fly apart.
One

Speaker 3 typically falls back in to the black hole and the other escapes. Well, if this keeps up, what's the future of this?

Speaker 3 You run the math, and the particles inside the black hole are what are escaping by this mechanism out of the gravitational field.

Speaker 3 The gravitational field has a built-in inventory of what particles were absorbed by the black hole to begin with, had fallen into the black hole. The question was,

Speaker 3 do you lose all the information by particles falling in?

Speaker 3 No, it's retained, apparently.

Speaker 3 The Hawking radiation recovers all that fell into the black hole, it recovers it.

Speaker 3 And so the black hole gets smaller and smaller and smaller without ever having to reach in through the event horizon. That's what's amazing here.

Speaker 3 Stuff is coming out of the black hole because it's birthed outside of the black hole, right? To Nawatch.

Speaker 3 So,

Speaker 3 how do we know this is happening?

Speaker 3 We don't.

Speaker 3 Quantum physics is the most

Speaker 3 successful theory of physics there has ever been.

Speaker 3 We have yet to see any edges where it begins to fail us.

Speaker 3 Newton's laws fail us at high speeds and high gravity.

Speaker 3 We needed Einstein to come in, to

Speaker 4 cut that some slack.

Speaker 3 Okay? Well, how about this? That was a limit of Newton's theories. How about Einstein's? There's a limit limit to Einstein's.

Speaker 3 What happens in the center of a black hole? What happens at the singularity of the Big Bang?

Speaker 3 Einstein's equations fail there.

Speaker 3 It's sometimes described as where God is dividing by zero. Remember, you're not supposed to divide by zero in your math class? Yeah.
You try doing that on your calculator.

Speaker 3 It just doesn't like doesn't like you. No.

Speaker 3 It's like you go back and take some math.

Speaker 4 You have fire in your hand.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 the thing with quantum physics is it is so effective and so potent that if you discover an effect in quantum physics just by manipulating the tenets of quantum physics and the equations,

Speaker 3 that prediction, we take that as gospel.

Speaker 4 Because quantum physics has yet to fail us. Correct.

Speaker 3 That's why we all believe that.

Speaker 4 That doesn't mean it's infallible.

Speaker 3 Correct. But that's why we all are on board with Hawking radiation.
We're all on board with it.

Speaker 4 And the part of his question question

Speaker 4 about, well, I'm, you know, speak for yourself,

Speaker 3 except for you.

Speaker 4 Yeah, Mr. Tribble.

Speaker 4 How do you prove theories about something so far away goes to the way that, you know, sort of that the photo from 2019 of the black hole.

Speaker 4 They look at stars orbiting invisible masses. They caught heat and x-rays from mass.

Speaker 3 That's how you know the black hole is there, how big it is and what it does to its environment.

Speaker 4 LIGO and

Speaker 3 gravitational waves, all of that. So these are observations.
You don't have to be there. You just need a telescope.
That's what makes telescopes useful. How do I know you were home?

Speaker 3 Because I looked in your window with my telescope. Okay.

Speaker 4 Right, but it's sort of like you know there's a,

Speaker 4 you speculate there's a black hole out there, but you can't see it, but you see all of sort of the chaos around it. It's like that co-worker you never see leaves a mess everywhere.
They do.

Speaker 4 And you got to clean up after yourself.

Speaker 3 There's always somebody that needs to clean it up after. You know what I'm saying? Right, right.
They break it after touching it.

Speaker 4 The stars are orbiting something you can't even see. It's like a dog chasing an emotional tennis ball, right? Just in a circle.

Speaker 3 Oh, I hadn't thought of that. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Well, that's why I'm here.

Speaker 3 An emotional tennis ball. Yeah.
Okay. You're going to be thinking about that later.
I don't want to think about it.

Speaker 3 So the environment of a black hole, we understand pretty well enough to look for what it predicts. Right.
In fact, the first x-ray telescopes were...

Speaker 3 targeting objects that we thought, could there be a black hole here?

Speaker 3 Is this signature of a black hole? You do the math, a black hole with an accretion disk, as was mentioned here, would radiate x-rays. Let's look for x-rays.

Speaker 4 And those x-rays showed, because you got something back from black holes through x-rays, right?

Speaker 3 And it wasn't the black hole that emitted it. It was the material around it.

Speaker 4 Around it, but it told you, because that x-ray basically said, that's like the black hole chewing with its mouth open, right?

Speaker 3 Look, I'm eating. You can hear

Speaker 4 in a way. I think that's a correct, that's accurate.
You know, I mean, that's the scientist that we're talking right now. All right, we're going to move on.
Elites.

Speaker 3 All right.

Speaker 4 Greetings, Dr. Tyson.
My name is Caleb Ferguson from Lebanon, Virginia.

Speaker 4 In the movie The Martian, there is a maneuver called slingshot, which use the gravity assistance of Earth to help accelerate a ship back towards Mars.

Speaker 4 My question is, is this technique used in real life? And if so, do you think it would be possible to attempt this maneuver using a black hole?

Speaker 3 So, first of all, a slingshot is used in 100% of our missions to the outer planets.

Speaker 4 Right. Voyager 1 and 2, Cassini, Junior.

Speaker 3 100% of them. Right.
Right. Cassini, Voyager 1 and 2, Pioneer 1 and 2,

Speaker 3 sorry, Pioneer 10 and 11. There's no other way we want to get to the outer solar system.
The value is you get extra bang for your buck. I don't need to have rocket fuel get me that speed.

Speaker 3 I can come up behind a planet, fall towards the planet while it's in orbit, and come out the other side. And having gained

Speaker 4 energy. Because the gravity of that planet is pulling it in and shooting at it.

Speaker 3 It's no, if it's just pure gravity, it's symmetric. This is a subtle point that most people don't get.
So if you just have the planet there, you'll fall in and it'll accelerate you.

Speaker 3 And how about on the other side? You try to get out, but it'll pull back on you. That entire scenario is precisely symmetric.

Speaker 3 You don't gain anything if it's just you're just falling into the planet and trying to climb back out of the planet. It's symmetric.

Speaker 3 It accelerates you at just the rate that it slows you down on the other side. The reason why a slingshot works is the planet is in orbit around the sun.

Speaker 3 And as you approach the planet, yes, the gravity will pull you in, but the gravity is pulling you into a moving planet.

Speaker 4 So that's pulling you into it. Yes.
It's like sort of like having two horses.

Speaker 3 It's like exactly. So one, it's just the pure gravity, but that's going to cancel out on the other side.
But that's bringing you into the reference frame of the planet itself.

Speaker 3 And that extra energy gets boosted to you. And now you can get farther, faster in the solar system without without having a rocket that was big enough to have to do that.

Speaker 3 So slingshots are, everyone uses a slingshot.

Speaker 4 So part of his question is about black hole using a black hole. That to me is like trying to get

Speaker 4 energy for a bike by riding behind the jet engine.

Speaker 3 It seems like you're going to be.

Speaker 3 Let me remind me to tell you something about when I was drafting off a truck, which I don't recommend anyone do.

Speaker 4 Were you on a skateboard?

Speaker 3 No, I was in a car, but I'll tell you about it in a minute. So it has nothing to to do with the gravity of the object.

Speaker 3 So, a black hole would only be useful to you is if the black hole is moving in the direction that you want to be moving when you come out the other side.

Speaker 4 Because, again, just like the planet,

Speaker 4 it's not enough to just have the gravity pull.

Speaker 3 Because the gravity is symmetrical.

Speaker 4 It's symmetrical.

Speaker 3 It'll eat you on the other side.

Speaker 4 So, but when we're slingshotting, it's almost, it's like you're sort of borrowing energy from a planet.

Speaker 3 You're not borrowing steel, you're ain't giving it back.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 you're not reimbursing through Venomo.

Speaker 3 You're just

Speaker 3 screwing the ball. It would be be cool if you could.

Speaker 4 So rockets.

Speaker 3 You've just stolen orbital energy from the planet. And we

Speaker 3 proceed on the assumption that the planet doesn't mind. Yeah.

Speaker 4 They're like teenagers, these rockets. They never have enough energy.
They're always asking their parents for a boost. They're a mess.

Speaker 3 And we got to help them out wherever we can. They flirt with the planets.

Speaker 4 They go up to the planet. They get cute with the planet.

Speaker 3 Get close to it. Right, right.

Speaker 4 Get close to it. And then next thing you know, gone, never see them again.

Speaker 3 Onto the outer turbulence. I'm sorry.

Speaker 4 I'm just personalizing a lot of this. I've had a lot of time.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I don't know. Have you been in therapy about this? Tell me about this car drafting.
Oh, no, no.

Speaker 3 So I forgot which car a go of mine this was, but it was the first time I was able to, it was able to tell me what my miles per gallon was.

Speaker 3 Oh, it had this little

Speaker 3 miles per gallon.

Speaker 4 Probably one of the first computerized cars.

Speaker 3 Maybe. It was in there.

Speaker 3 And so I noticed that when I floored the accelerator, miles per gallon dropped. to like three miles a gallon or something.

Speaker 3 Then when I was cruising, it went back up, gently pressing the, you know, so it was pretty much consistent with the sticker information about the miles per gallon that I was getting. All right.

Speaker 5 So

Speaker 3 I said, I wonder what would happen if I drafted behind a truck. All right, big old 18-wheeler truck.
So I'm on a hype on the freeway, and I start pulling up behind the truck,

Speaker 3 and I start seeing

Speaker 3 the mileage go up, the gas mileage, the miles per gallon go up.

Speaker 4 I thought you were going to say you got mesmerized by the mud flaps with

Speaker 3 girl on

Speaker 3 so it's so it went from 20 miles per gallon to 30 to 40 then i got within maybe 15 feet very dangerous i don't recommend anybody doing 50 feet of a truck going 60 miles an hour yeah and a guy who does this for a living is like why this and why is this annoying guy behind me you're lucky he didn't hit on the brake i got within about 20 feet and it went to 99 miles per gallon and didn't go higher than that.

Speaker 3 So basically it went to infinity on the.

Speaker 3 So I was completely enclosed. And I just want to say drafting the draft air of the truck.

Speaker 4 And just for the Star Talk fans out there, whenever I go on a car trip with Neil, it's really annoying because he'll only draft behind trucks because he's too cheap for gas.

Speaker 3 So it's really frightening.

Speaker 4 They're holding on.

Speaker 3 It's brutal.

Speaker 3 And then he saved money.

Speaker 2 Last time I take you on the road.

Speaker 4 Trotty, save money. Still not buying your hamburger at the McDonald's when you stop.

Speaker 3 You're on your own.

Speaker 4 All right. The guy's working it both ways.
That's what I'm saying. Okay, this was a very good question.
These are great questions.

Speaker 3 One thing that most people, I think.

Speaker 4 I'm sorry, we're done.

Speaker 3 You can't know about drafting.

Speaker 3 I am

Speaker 3 creating a more lame or flow of air behind the truck than it otherwise would. Well, because

Speaker 4 there's a vacuum there.

Speaker 3 Correct. And I am.

Speaker 4 So you don't have anything pushing against. Correct.

Speaker 3 But I am making the air behind the truck come off the truck more smoothly, which means

Speaker 3 when I'm drafting off the truck, the truck's gas mileage is improving as well.

Speaker 4 But why would what's happening in the back of the truck affect the gas? Because is it pushing down and then pushing up?

Speaker 3 Because there's no longer a partial vacuum behind the truck, because I'm inside that pocket.

Speaker 4 But why does a partial vacuum hurt?

Speaker 3 Because it's sucking against, the truck is trying to pull against what would otherwise be a lower pressure air.

Speaker 4 But now you've got a vacuum behind your car.

Speaker 3 Well, it depends on how the air flows. Don't disagree with me.
Just say you're right. No, it wouldn't have to be a vacuum if the air comes smoothly.

Speaker 3 Vacuum is when it's turbulent.

Speaker 3 Okay, so now watch. So on bike races where people draft off of others,

Speaker 3 people say, get off my back. I don't want to tow you.
They're not towing them. You actually would ride faster if someone is drafting off you.
But it's there.

Speaker 3 But the person that's drafting off you is using even less energy than you.

Speaker 4 MX Self-Destruct.

Speaker 4 Aloha, Dr. Tyson.
Samus from Los Angeles. Dr.

Speaker 4 Tyson, I've heard you describe the process of spaghetification before, and there are lots of theories about what one would see as they fall into a black hole.

Speaker 4 However, we know that as gravity increases, an observer's perception of time slows down.

Speaker 4 Since the gravity of an event horizon is infinite, wouldn't this mean that time would effectively stop for anything falling in, and so nothing ever actually crosses into the black hole itself.

Speaker 4 If you could maintain molecular cohesion, wouldn't you just see it evaporate away as you get closer until it's eventually gone?

Speaker 3 Back in the early 70s, when black holes were finally making their way into our mathematics and our ideas and understandings of the universe,

Speaker 3 the science writer for the New York Times wrote a book titled Frozen Star. And he was referring to black holes.
His name was Walter Sullivan. And I read a lot of his work.

Speaker 3 I mean, I appreciated people writing for the public when I'm there as a middle schooler learning about science. And so he, among others,

Speaker 3 were early influences in my life. I would clip articles he wrote in the New York Times on the latest discoveries.

Speaker 3 Anyhow, frozen star, referencing the fact that if you watch someone fall into a black hole, they move slower and slower and slower. And right before the event horizon, everything stops.

Speaker 3 So it's frozen.

Speaker 4 That person is frozen. Anything.

Speaker 3 is frozen, except it's not, but that's what was considered at the time.

Speaker 3 I would learn from Jana, Jana Levin, sitting in that chair, that as you come closer and closer to the black hole, what happens is the event horizon encloses you.

Speaker 3 There's some phenomena that happens where you're not actually passing through it. You are joining the event horizon as you get absorbed.
So if the black hole is... So you actually do pass through.

Speaker 4 They're a trampoline with a giant, and I'm being serious, a ball that creates sort of the effect of a black hole, and you're approaching the edge of that trampoline.

Speaker 3 Why is it a trampoline? It's a rubber sheet that's curved.

Speaker 4 Listen, it's my analogy.

Speaker 3 I get to do what I want. Brackle's not bouncing back.

Speaker 4 No. And so when you have, so you're approaching that event horizon, from the viewer, from the person looking from the outside.

Speaker 3 Outside observer,

Speaker 4 you're frozen.

Speaker 4 That person looks like.

Speaker 3 As was understood in the early 70s,

Speaker 3 you get absorbed into the event horizon itself, then you pass through without incident.

Speaker 4 But that's, what isn't, where does spaghettification come in?

Speaker 3 It's en route to the singularity.

Speaker 4 So your feet are getting pulled and you're getting stronger.

Speaker 3 On route to the singularity. At big black holes,

Speaker 3 there's not much tidal forces crossing the event horizon. You just fall right through and you'll be fine.

Speaker 3 It's as you start approaching the singularity deep in the center of the black hole where these effects become significant.

Speaker 4 And there is this sort of chaos that's happening within the black hole at all times.

Speaker 3 Well,

Speaker 3 it's eating things voraciously anything that comes near so i i don't know what the inside of a black hole looks like

Speaker 4 you should get on that less time drafting behind trucks more time doing some work you know what i'm saying buddy so the so in a sense the black hole is sort of this sort of like time slows down right

Speaker 3 in the vicinity of the black hole yes right and and so as seen by an observer from outside a very famous scene in the movie interstellar where the people are on the black hole planet for 15 minutes and the guy ages 15 years or some crazy ratio of time evolving for the two of them.

Speaker 3 You come back, he's got gray hair.

Speaker 3 I wouldn't have waited that long.

Speaker 4 So as gravity increases, time slows down.

Speaker 3 Yes. Right?

Speaker 4 Yes. Which is why I guess a lot of work meetings feel like they're right next to a black hole.

Speaker 3 True. You don't know time is slowing down for you.

Speaker 4 Well, when you're on a plane, the clock is going a little faster than on earth right isn't this doesn't speed up a little bit uh

Speaker 3 well

Speaker 3 not significantly but it does it for the gps satellites right yeah gps satellites in fact is not slowing down it's speeding up because we are in a higher gravity field than the gps satellites So their time ticks faster than ours.

Speaker 4 Because the gravity is a little weaker.

Speaker 3 Weaker there than here. Right.
Right, right. So the GPS satellites pre-correct the time they give you by saying, we're ahead of you.
I'm going to subtract that.

Speaker 3 Then I'm going to give all your cell phone towers the correct time. What's funny is we know and understand that phenomenon because of Einstein's general theory of relativity.

Speaker 3 If his theory of relativity did not exist, we would be measuring that phenomenon and not know why it was happening.

Speaker 4 But just accepting it.

Speaker 3 Because it's real. Yeah, there's a lot we measure and don't understand.

Speaker 4 But quantum physics couldn't explain it?

Speaker 3 Not that. No, it's relativity entirely.

Speaker 4 Dr. Neil Tyson, this is Roger Gamblin.
Roger, coming at you from Eugene, Oregon. Eugene.
My question regards Dr.

Speaker 4 Tyson's true specialty, science education and the public understanding of science, in particular when it comes to people with neurological disabilities.

Speaker 4 I have ADHD, so it's difficult to sit down and read something with consistent focus. For example, I only got about a third of the way through astrophysics for people in a hurry, and I'm with you.

Speaker 4 My question is, What's the best way to learn undergrad level physics without using the book? Let me take this one. I have the answer.
It's called a keg party.

Speaker 4 You will see at a keg party so many laws of physics being defied and more as the keg

Speaker 4 slowly gets consumed. Go ahead.
You can answer now. All right.

Speaker 3 Astrophysics for people in a hurry, that's a relatively short book.

Speaker 3 And if you only got a third of the way through, here's what I would recommend.

Speaker 3 Because I have another book called Letters from an Astrophysicist, where it's just my correspondence with people back when my email was public and I had these conversations with people.

Speaker 4 It's amazing to me that you had a public email.

Speaker 3 In the day. Yeah.
In the day. And there's some interesting other people on the other side of that.

Speaker 3 Some person in San Quentin prison writing, you know,

Speaker 3 there's a... How do I get out?

Speaker 3 He didn't ask that. If I use a file, will it really work?

Speaker 3 He didn't ask that.

Speaker 4 Will a file rust in a cake?

Speaker 3 Or will it rust in a hot dog? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 That book

Speaker 3 can be read in pieces because each letter exchange is just...

Speaker 3 So you can start it, stop it whenever you want.

Speaker 3 So the attention span for the reading, the letter, and the reply

Speaker 3 are

Speaker 3 resonant with someone who might have ADHD.

Speaker 3 In addition,

Speaker 3 What just got published is the sequel to Merlin. Merlin, I had a pen name for Merlin for years where I answered questions from the public, brought it back into the 21st century.

Speaker 3 The second volume of that just got published. It's questions and answers about the universe.

Speaker 4 And they're short, brief, they're short and brief.

Speaker 3 Some are really short.

Speaker 4 So it's like, and I'm not trying to be a short story form book to answer questions about physics.

Speaker 3 It's shorter than short stories, Stephen. Short story might be 100 pages.
Right, right, right, right. So I'd recommend the Merlin books.
There's two of them.

Speaker 3 One came out last year and one came out this year. That has more physics in it than the letters from an astrophysicist does.
That one is people that have existential angst and want to know,

Speaker 3 I grew up in a Christian family and

Speaker 3 then I saw cosmos and then now I'm rejected. What should I do?

Speaker 3 I'm in prison for this and I accept my thing, but my kids are in school.

Speaker 3 What should I do? So it's a lot of existential

Speaker 3 inquiries in the letters from an astrophysics book. But the Merlin books would be right up his alley.
Okay. There's a lot of physics in there.

Speaker 4 Roger, do that. Also, cheat off your neighbor's test.

Speaker 4 I'm just saying, especially after a keg party. Here's the problem.

Speaker 3 You're going to have a headache. Here's the problem.

Speaker 3 School systems value grades more than students value learning.

Speaker 3 Wow.

Speaker 4 You just blew my mind.

Speaker 3 This is why people cheat. Think about it.

Speaker 3 There's no other reason to cheat other than to impress the school with your high grade.

Speaker 4 Right, because you want to achieve and you want to get ahead.

Speaker 3 No, you want to get a high grade.

Speaker 4 Well, that's what I mean. You want to get ahead.

Speaker 3 So you said you want to achieve. The achievement is the knowing of the information without regard to the school.

Speaker 4 Listen, buddy, I've cheated my whole life. Don't tell me why I cheat and why I don't cheat.

Speaker 3 Stop telling.

Speaker 4 Neil, I got to be honest with you. I'm really tired of hearing about your book.

Speaker 3 Well, it's time

Speaker 3 to cheat.

Speaker 3 Look, I love you. I've known you a long time.
More pictures. Go collect your paycheck and leave.
More pictures, buddy. More pictures.
More pictures.

Speaker 3 Okay, by the way, my Pluto book had a lot of pictures in it. Yeah, did it? Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 After the previous two books, I didn't buy it.

Speaker 3 I'm like, I can't do this again. Okay, no.
So if you are somehow have an aversion to what I've created, which was in direct response to what I thought the public needed, let me just say.

Speaker 4 Let me back up. Did anybody write to you and say we need you to write these books?

Speaker 3 No, but I felt it.

Speaker 3 Okay, Yoda.

Speaker 3 Yoda. Felt it.
I did. Yoda with a mustache.

Speaker 3 So if you're not a good reader, maybe you're a good listener.

Speaker 3 Those two Merlin books? Yeah.

Speaker 3 I narrated them. Oh, my God.

Speaker 4 I think that might be worse.

Speaker 3 Welcome to the universe. What do you mean, worse?

Speaker 3 And because it's Q ⁇ A, for me to listen to your book, you talking like that, I would have to turn all the lights off and get a bottle of wine and light candles.

Speaker 3 And my wife would be like, why are you listening to Neil Tyson with candles and wine? Are you having an affair? I'm like, no, but he's talking like Barry White. Barry White.
Yeah, baby.

Speaker 3 Welcome to the universe.

Speaker 3 1970s music vinegar music vine.

Speaker 3 So it includes other people reading the questions because those are other people from the public. There's a kid in there.
We got a kid voice. We got an old person voice.
So

Speaker 3 if you have ADHD with regard to reading, maybe it affects you differently with regard to listening.

Speaker 3 So, so that's

Speaker 3 and other resources online.

Speaker 3 Gotta love the Khan Academy. Very carefully conceived lessons.

Speaker 3 K-A-H-N, Khan Academy. Khan!

Speaker 3 Star Trek.

Speaker 4 Come on, you get to do a Star Trek reference, and I respond, you look at me like I'm crazy. I give it for tribals.

Speaker 3 This is the most famous thing in the series. And you're talking about one at at one movie.

Speaker 3 You've got to look up at the sky. With Riccardo Mantalbar.
Exactly.

Speaker 3 How did he keep working?

Speaker 4 God bless him.

Speaker 4 So to wrap up, you were saying there are all of these. I'm not really paying attention.
I have ADHD.

Speaker 3 So the Khan Academy are educational units online that hand-hold you as necessary

Speaker 3 or not,

Speaker 3 if you don't need it, hand-hold you through lessons on almost everything you would ever find in a college curriculum, including physics. Okay, so that's it.
So, and I've seen it, and in fact,

Speaker 3 my family donates to them. So, because I care about democratizing education,

Speaker 3 just because you went to a fancy school, I don't need to hear that.

Speaker 3 I want everybody to know what you know. Great.

Speaker 4 I hope that helped Roger. So, we've got books, we've got audio books.

Speaker 3 We have Neil's books. Neil's books.

Speaker 3 Nobody else's books.

Speaker 4 If you have any other books, Roger, burn them right now.

Speaker 3 Burn them? That's not what I said.

Speaker 4 And the audio books, and then, you know,

Speaker 4 we would definitely recommend the ones with Neil's sexy voice.

Speaker 3 All right, we're moving on. Thank you, Paul.

Speaker 3 Anytime. Anytime.
Anytime. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 All right.

Speaker 4 William Dusenberry.

Speaker 4 Nietzsche's Eternal Recurrence. Everything that's happening now.

Speaker 4 In the cosmos has happened before and will happen again at infinitum forever and ever, including black holes. What are the odds of it ever even happening once

Speaker 3 yeah so i don't know did nietzi talk like that did he have this is it nietzsche's yeah it's not my favorite quote of nietzsche's although attributed to him i don't know if he actually said this but it's

Speaker 3 those

Speaker 3 who were dancing were deemed insane by those who could not hear the music

Speaker 4 I said, yeah. That's a very deep.

Speaker 3 That works. Yeah, man.
You look through a glass window and people just jumping up and down and you don't hear the music. It's like,

Speaker 3 wow.

Speaker 3 What's wrong with those people?

Speaker 4 I just, I mean, I'm looking at a funny farm right now.

Speaker 3 Funny farm. Right, right, right, right.
So that's my favorite quote of his attributed to him.

Speaker 3 So this sounds like

Speaker 4 cosmic in the multiverse.

Speaker 3 I spoke with Brian Cox about this, actually. Or was it Brian Cox or Brian Greene? Come by Brian's cross-pollinated.

Speaker 3 One of them.

Speaker 3 They're my physicists at large.

Speaker 3 And I reach for them when I need extra physics to back up my astrophysics. So So I didn't know Nietzsche had anything to do with the multiverse,

Speaker 3 but in the multiverse, we are just one of an infinite number of universes being born at all times.

Speaker 3 And apparently that infinity is large enough to include all possible configurations of atoms and molecules so that

Speaker 3 we would be having this conversation in another universe. Yes.

Speaker 3 Or there's a version where you're evil and you have a goatee.

Speaker 4 It's right there sitting next to you.

Speaker 3 It's your evil puppet.

Speaker 4 Well, so it's like if everything's happening over and over again, man, I really wish I'd spent a few

Speaker 4 cycles, the beginning cycles, learning how to fold a fitted sheet because it is brutal. I never learned it.

Speaker 3 Oh, the fitted sheets. Yeah, you have to tuck one corner into the other.
Is that what you do? Yes. Yes, you have to reverse it, tuck it under, and that way the two corners were stayed together.

Speaker 3 Were you a Boy Scout? No.

Speaker 3 I'm just cultured.

Speaker 3 It's like, I I don't know.

Speaker 4 Okay, look, if you want to repeat,

Speaker 4 the idea of repeating life infinitely at infinite item.

Speaker 3 Did you say it's you're there each time? Well, it sounds like a good idea. No, no, no, no.
That's a different Paul Mercurio.

Speaker 4 No, I understand.

Speaker 3 It's all under Adams, but it's not you. You are here now.

Speaker 4 There's a version of me that's still on hold with Comcast.

Speaker 3 I don't want that.

Speaker 3 I don't want that living on at Infinite Item.

Speaker 3 That's not happening to you right now.

Speaker 4 That's not you. How do we know that, though? How do you know that there's not some part of me that's that person because we've already done the experiment

Speaker 4 what are you doing in your basement that we don't know about with human beings we have twins

Speaker 3 identical in every way my father was an identical twin in every way and they're not feeling the pain of the other one they're not having the same thoughts they're different people but they but they're identical so go to another universe and you're identical there and it's not you period i don't think you could be physically identical and not mentally or emotionally similar in some way I don't think it sort of gets parceled out that way.

Speaker 4 My father was an identical twin. Yeah.
Looked alike, aged the same way, identical in every way, same cadence. I can't believe that a physical body can replicate.

Speaker 4 And then in the future, that body, you're telling me that person becomes a twin, the twin of that person. Somehow, emotionally or mentally, there isn't still some DNA of that person.

Speaker 3 It would be identical DNA, but you're not the same person.

Speaker 3 I have the one and only Paul Mercurio that matters to me in this moment. If you are

Speaker 3 if you are in any other universe, I don't give a rap.

Speaker 4 I got to compose myself.

Speaker 3 You're all beclimped.

Speaker 3 So if you're in another universe, I don't care. Look at me.
I love you too.

Speaker 3 Take it in. Take it in.

Speaker 4 All right.

Speaker 4 I think I get that now.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And your father's twin was somebody else.
They weren't the same person.

Speaker 4 I was utterly fascinated because he was like the Elvis version of my father. I'm not kidding.
He wore a diamond pinky ring. He drove El Dorado Cadillacs.

Speaker 4 Yeah, he was my. The twin.
The twin. My father stayed in Rhode Island.
He moved to California and he became like the whole nine yards.

Speaker 4 So it was like someone set my father into central casting and came out.

Speaker 4 But I don't want to take up too much time.

Speaker 3 Meet Saw. His fantasy lineup? Not so great.
A no-name QB and an injured rookie running back. But you know what is great?

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Fees, terms, and restrictions apply. See CricketWireless.com for details.

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Speaker 6 So I've got a question for all the gamers out there. Are you seriously going to miss out on one of Alienware's biggest gaming sales of the year?

Speaker 6 I mean, these are holiday prices we're talking about, so it's not just another sale. I took a look, and this is some pretty big bang for your buck.

Speaker 6 You know, it's Alienware with some of the most advanced engineering out there, with systems at the top of reviewers' lists. And what about a game for yourself?

Speaker 6 Gift yourself a new Alienware 16 Area 51 gaming laptop. I mean, this thing's got performance at the absolute next level with Intel Core ultra processors.

Speaker 6 And even better, you can get it before the holidays. Plus, you can save on all kinds of displays and accessories like the Alienware 324K QD OLED gaming monitor for ultimate visual fidelity.

Speaker 6 These really are incredible deals on PCs with otherworldly performance. So I'd visit alienware.com/slash deals soon and grab what you can before it's too late.

Speaker 4 All right, Vince T. Greetings, Dr.
Tyson. Vincent from Cincinnati with a question.
It's a good town in Cincinnati. They have a nice comedy club there.

Speaker 4 Do you consider atomic fission to be a natural phenomenon? And if so, why is Einstein's theory still a theory and not a law? Isn't the detonation of A-bombs proof of theory?

Speaker 3 We don't use the word law anymore. We don't really.

Speaker 3 It's a little outdated in the following way. You go back to the 19th century and earlier.
we were discovering how the universe worked. We had Newton's laws of optics and laws of gravity and

Speaker 3 thermodynamics, a whole branch of physics that studies heat. And we had

Speaker 3 electrodynamics that would be later. All of this,

Speaker 3 we call them laws

Speaker 3 because they applied everywhere. A law is here and there.
Right.

Speaker 3 Then we found the limits to those laws.

Speaker 4 But why does it not?

Speaker 3 Well, if it's a limit, can it be a law? Should we call it a law if it has limits? That's not a law.

Speaker 4 Well, who said law presupposes that something is absolute?

Speaker 3 That's the assumption, if you say that to somebody. In science.
No, no, no. Well, back to it.

Speaker 3 It was what it was presumed to be. Then we learn

Speaker 3 that these ideas had limits. They still applied in the regimes where they had ever been tested, but they had limits.
So we no longer call them laws. It was just the theory of relativity.

Speaker 3 We have quantum theory.

Speaker 3 so it's all called theories. And a theory is the organizational understanding of how nature works represented by a mathematical imprint of what's going on.

Speaker 3 And so it's not, we're waiting for the theory to become a law. That's not how this works anymore.
No one is, that's not how we think about it anymore.

Speaker 3 So the theory of relativity, it works every place we've ever tested and it has limits at the singularity. We have quantum theory.
It's worked every place we've ever tested it.

Speaker 3 We don't know where to test it where it doesn't work yet.

Speaker 4 But you can't call it a law.

Speaker 3 We're not calling them laws anymore.

Speaker 3 Just not using the term.

Speaker 4 Maybe I am.

Speaker 3 And so nuclear fission doesn't, it's not a thing in the universe because using large, large atoms and breaking them apart, there aren't many large atoms in the universe, but we can make them here on Earth and we can find them and purify them.

Speaker 3 And so, yeah fission is real uh all of that it's all real but it's still the theory of relativity and quantum theory it'll and it'll always be that so when you have people saying well this what we should teach creation in the school because evolution is just a theory

Speaker 3 this that sentence in modern times has no meaning

Speaker 3 there's no there's no such thing as just a theory and

Speaker 3 Even there's some scientists that don't fully

Speaker 3 recognize this distinction, okay?

Speaker 4 Between theory and law.

Speaker 3 But no, between theory and hypothesis, okay? People say, well, I have a theory that if I do this, then that will happen. No, you have a hypothesis that that will happen.

Speaker 3 You're going to test your hypothesis.

Speaker 4 And then it becomes a theory of the world.

Speaker 3 Only if there's that and a hundred other things that come together in a deeper understanding of the world. And if it's all shown to be correct, you have a new theory of the universe.
Got it.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 it's a subtle, but very important point. There's no such thing as it's just a theory.

Speaker 3 And anytime I hear someone say, I have a theory that, I say, no, Einstein had a theory. You have a hypothesis.

Speaker 4 I'm shocked that scientists, bright science and brilliant science, can't make that distinction.

Speaker 3 No, no, because

Speaker 3 it's a pedagogical point. Because people want to think one thing.
And the scientists are just doing what they do, and they don't know how the public is misthinking what they're doing.

Speaker 3 So they don't have the, they're not thinking about how to correct for that. But I think about it all the time.

Speaker 3 plus there's nothing no such thing as proof prove it that's not a thing in science it's give me enough evidence to support what you say so that i no longer need to question it and i go on to the next question but you're always open to it being disproved if something comes up don't use the word prove we're open to shown to be wrong if there's better evidence that comes later however wrong multiple

Speaker 3 multiple experiments getting the same answer then you've got you're you're good to go here and it gets it becomes part of what is objectively true about the world that's

Speaker 3 so newton's laws we went to the moon on quote newton's laws

Speaker 3 because going to the moon didn't test the edges of newton's laws

Speaker 3 but you want to play with black holes you want to build a black hole detector you need einstein to get that to work and still einstein's theory of relativity

Speaker 3 now we could call them newton's theories of matter of but

Speaker 3 those those laws won't work in black hole with the guards. They won't, but what I'm saying is we went centuries calling them laws, and so we just still call them laws.

Speaker 4 Okay, let's move on. That was a great question, by the way.

Speaker 4 Raqqa Darkoda. Good day, Dr.
Tyson. Chris here from the Land Down Under, Australia.
Been listening for a couple of months now while I work.

Speaker 3 Wait, okay.

Speaker 4 First of all, I hope you're not in air traffic control.

Speaker 4 Okay. I don't want to be like, yeah, American Airlines.

Speaker 3 You land wherever. I'm trying to figure out.

Speaker 3 I got Neil on the line here.

Speaker 4 They're trying to figure out this event to rise and stuff and drafting behind trucks like some crazy man. Dr.

Speaker 4 Tyson, do you think it's possible that black holes are actually the ancient remains of collapsed wormholes, kind of like the dead moths of cosmic tunnels that once connected different parts of space-time?

Speaker 4 Could what we call black holes today be fossils from an earlier, more interconnected universe? I love it.

Speaker 3 So wormholes we know are not stable. They have to be actively propped up with some material that does not exist yet that has negative gravity.
Because gravity makes space collapse.

Speaker 3 Negative gravity would make space expand, would make space separate. And so if you want to build a black hole, we know how to make one.
We just don't have the substance that will allow it.

Speaker 3 So you can't just imagine a universe that had these highways called black holes that all collapse because somebody had to have made them.

Speaker 3 Somebody had to make them.

Speaker 4 Well, there's quantum gravity and the string theory, right? And they suggest that wormholes and black holes might be the

Speaker 4 two sides of the same sort of geometry.

Speaker 3 It would be white holes and black holes possibly connected with a wormhole.

Speaker 3 Yeah, but we've never seen a white hole. So it works.

Speaker 4 Maybe you ought to look a little.

Speaker 4 Just try.

Speaker 3 It works arithmetically, but we've, and we

Speaker 3 make a prediction of what it

Speaker 3 look like in space and we've never seen one. So

Speaker 3 it's a mathematical curiosity.

Speaker 4 Well, is the black hole a one-ended wormhole then in some way? Because some have suggested that, right?

Speaker 3 When I see wormholes, I want to step through and end and land somewhere else and be able to step back through. And black holes don't give you that option.

Speaker 3 They don't give you the two-way street option.

Speaker 4 They're very one-dimensional.

Speaker 4 Emotionally very.

Speaker 4 They're a mess.

Speaker 3 But what's cool, it's a hole that you can fall in from any direction. A wormhole.
No. Well, yes, but also a black hole.
From any direction you can fall in.

Speaker 4 But that's true.

Speaker 3 No, it's not. If there's a hole in the ground, you can only fall straight through.

Speaker 4 You step over it, and then you can. So is that gravity causing that?

Speaker 3 Or it's in relation? It's a hole in space-time. So no matter the direction you're in.

Speaker 4 There is no top or bottom. Correct.

Speaker 3 There's no top or bottom.

Speaker 3 You come in from the left, the right, the top, the bottom.

Speaker 4 There's like a top sheet, the bottom sheet, but that's a whole other thing.

Speaker 3 All right. Margot Lane.
That sounds like

Speaker 4 a superhero's girlfriend.

Speaker 3 Margo Lane. Margo Lane.

Speaker 4 Greetings, Neil, from Elk, California, given that the sun will eventually consume us.

Speaker 3 Wow. Shouldn't all of our energy everywhere.

Speaker 3 Woo!

Speaker 3 Oh, my God. You're a real person.

Speaker 4 Margo, you're not getting invited into my parties.

Speaker 4 What's up, everybody? Margo's here.

Speaker 4 Given that the sun will eventually consume us, shouldn't all of our energy everywhere be focused on trying to stay alive? The speculation is 5 billion years will be consumed by the sun.

Speaker 3 How

Speaker 3 optimistic she is.

Speaker 4 For me, the sun is consuming us. Why am I uploading new emojis to my phone on Apple? Why do I care about any of that stuff?

Speaker 3 Because it's in 5 billion years.

Speaker 3 Still, half the people won't use sunscreen and they know they're going to get burned alive. Burned alive.
Actually, the sun in that future will be very red and will not be emitting much ultraviolet.

Speaker 3 So it's not how bright the sun is,

Speaker 3 but it's how much ultraviolet light it's giving.

Speaker 4 Because it's going to be burning out as a star?

Speaker 3 No, just the surface will be cooling. The surface will get cooler, but it'll get so big, like the surface of the sun will be very close to Earth.

Speaker 3 So the

Speaker 3 oceans will come to a rapid boil and then evaporate.

Speaker 3 atmosphere will evaporate and we'll be this charred ember orbiting within the confines of

Speaker 3 me right now i want to kill myself no what it's five billion years what i'm saying is

Speaker 3 happy what i'm saying is five billion years

Speaker 3 that's long enough that we will surely go extinct for 22 other reasons well before then yeah tick tock filters that should be

Speaker 3 less we're gonna die and people are worried about tick tock filters eventually but there are other things for example an asteroid could strike there could be a killer virus there could be all right i'm dying

Speaker 3 i

Speaker 3 out of here. There could be

Speaker 3 plague.

Speaker 3 Yeah, plague, like a killer virus, same thing.

Speaker 3 There could be

Speaker 3 what else could you tell us? Oh, we could just go extinct because climate change and we can't adapt to it. Okay.
You know what the average life expectancy of a mammal species?

Speaker 3 It's about 3 million years

Speaker 3 on average.

Speaker 3 So if we beat that average, good. But if not, we don't have to worry about the sun dying.

Speaker 4 Do you think in 5 billion years there'll be Amazon Prime deals?

Speaker 4 You know, we have three.

Speaker 3 No, because maybe we'll have wormholes and you won't need delivery services. There you go.
No, I fantasize about like, I think about this all the time.

Speaker 4 But they're still going to get it wrong and leave it at the wrong house.

Speaker 3 No, no, because that's not where it's happening. Open your refrigerator and the back of your refrigerator is a door to the grocery.
That's the wormhole from the grocery to your refrigerator. Wow.

Speaker 3 Yeah. So the Amazon delivery is like the Amazon warehouse, and then they pop up.
The way to do it back up.

Speaker 4 In the grocery, you open the door. Is he sleeping with my wife?

Speaker 3 No, no,

Speaker 3 there's a way to unlock it so that they can't just come through

Speaker 3 completely through the hole.

Speaker 3 I have marital issues because okay, so they'll swap out the milk and the eggs, the cheese, whatever is the thing that's going bad. And so that would be the future of wormholes.
And so, yeah,

Speaker 3 I love them. I can't wait.
You'd think well, you wouldn't need roads.

Speaker 4 You just,

Speaker 4 what's transporting me through a wormhole?

Speaker 3 It is the warp in the fabric of space and time. You borrow a hole through and you just step through and then you unwarp space.

Speaker 4 But are my molecules being disassembled and reassembled like Star Trek?

Speaker 3 No, because wormholes are way better than that.

Speaker 3 You never...

Speaker 4 So you will enter dressed.

Speaker 3 It is you.

Speaker 3 We will step through and you come out the other side.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 And you'd still wear that shirt on that side of this?

Speaker 3 All right, good for you. My mother.

Speaker 3 you're visiting the other half the galaxy.

Speaker 3 You wear that shirt?

Speaker 3 You're my son. You are not going to go dress to the other side of the universe like that, young man.
In a wormhole universe, there are no delivery trucks. There's no roads.

Speaker 4 Is there any downside to a wormhole universe?

Speaker 3 Everyone who had a job driving.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 3 That's true.

Speaker 4 You have to put that on your unemployment

Speaker 4 filing every week.

Speaker 3 It might happen well before then as self-driving. It causes your unemployment.

Speaker 4 Damn wormholes.

Speaker 3 We got to wrap it up here. All right.
All right. Dude, thanks for coming through.
Yeah, absolutely. All right.
We'll find you on the In-N-Out or

Speaker 3 Up and Down.

Speaker 4 Yeah, In-N-Out Burger in California. I'm serving French fries.

Speaker 4 Why don't you pay attention when I talk?

Speaker 4 It's Inside Out.

Speaker 4 Inside Out.

Speaker 3 You know all of these things and you can't remember two words.

Speaker 3 Inside Out. That's the name of the Disney movie.
Yeah, you're just a Pixar movie.

Speaker 4 You stepped into a mental wormhole inside out with Paul Mercurio.

Speaker 3 All right.

Speaker 3 And you've been on it.

Speaker 4 It's my podcast. And permission to speak.
My show is online. Yes, yes, we have to show you.
My YouTube channel. People can follow me.

Speaker 3 We love your show. Your live show.
Thanks. All right, dude.
And are you Mercurial?

Speaker 4 You know what? People think I am. Okay.
Yeah. My wife, especially.

Speaker 3 Look up the word.

Speaker 3 That's your SAT word for today. All right.
This has been Star Talk, Cosmic Query's Grab Bag Edition, leaning very heavily to black holes. Yeah.
Very good.

Speaker 3 All right, until next time, Neil deGrasse Tyson. Keep looking up.

Speaker 3 Hear that?

Speaker 7 That's me in Tokyo learning to make sushi from a master.

Speaker 8 How did I get here?

Speaker 7 I invested wisely. Now the only thing I worry about is using too much wasabi.
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