Are We Living In A Simulation? with Neil deGrasse Tyson

Summary

Smart Girl Dumb Questions: Are We Living In A Simulation? with Neil deGrasse Tyson

Release Date: March 14, 2025

In this captivating episode of Smart Girl Dumb Questions, host Nayeema Raza engages in an enlightening conversation with renowned astrophysicist and science communicator Neil deGrasse Tyson. The episode delves into profound topics ranging from asteroid threats and the origins of the universe to the intriguing simulation hypothesis. Below is a detailed summary capturing the essence of their discussion.

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1. Asteroids and Earth’s Safety

The episode kicks off with a discussion about the potential asteroid collision with Earth in 2032.

Nayeema Raza (00:00) mentions an impending asteroid threat, prompting Neil deGrasse Tyson (00:06) to clarify the severity, explaining that the probability of impact rose modestly from 1% to 3%. Tyson emphasizes the media's role in shaping public perception and highlights advancements in asteroid detection technology:

"The good thing about asteroids that might kill us is they are the largest and easiest to detect." (01:42)

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2. Understanding the Universe’s Building Blocks

Transitioning from asteroids, Tyson and Raza explore the fundamental components of the universe. They discuss stars, galaxies, and the vastness of space. Tyson illustrates how light travel time affects our perception of celestial bodies:

“When the light from that object left en route to your retina, I see you right now, not as you are, but as you were 4 billionths of a second ago.” (05:46)

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3. Origins of the Universe: Big Bang and Multiverse

A significant portion of the conversation centers on the origins of the universe. Tyson explains the limitations of observing the Big Bang and introduces the concept of the multiverse—a collection of infinite universes where each could harbor different physical laws.

“Our universe is a natural expression of a larger entity called a multiverse that's making universes forever.” (08:28)

Tyson further elaborates on the mathematical foundations supporting the multiverse theory, emphasizing its rootedness in scientific equations rather than mere speculation.

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4. Communication in Science and Education

The dialogue shifts to the importance of effective communication in science. Tyson underscores the distinction between knowledge, wisdom, and insight, advocating for scientific education that fosters critical thinking.

“Math and physics are the embodiment of a new kind of brain wiring that teaches you not just what to know about the universe, but how to think.” (10:25)

He also reflects on the challenges scientists face in conveying complex ideas to the public, noting that many PhD programs do not prioritize communication skills.

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5. Time Travel and Wormholes

Raza brings up the fascinating topics of time travel and wormholes. Tyson explains wormholes as theoretical passages through spacetime that could connect distant parts of the universe, albeit requiring negative gravity to remain open.

“Wormholes may be the actual stitches in the fabric of spacetime itself.” (18:16)

He discusses the practical and theoretical challenges of utilizing wormholes for travel, including the potential dangers if a wormhole were to collapse.

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6. The Existence of Aliens and the Fermi Paradox

Addressing the age-old question of extraterrestrial life, Tyson discusses the Fermi Paradox—the contradiction between the high probability of alien civilizations and the lack of evidence for them.

“If aliens did it at all, they should have occupied every planet in the galaxy. Where are they?” (43:02)

He speculates that self-destructive tendencies could prevent civilizations from expanding, drawing parallels with human history.

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7. India’s Space Program and Global Competition

The conversation highlights India's impressive strides in space exploration, particularly its achievement of landing softly on the moon's south pole. Tyson praises the rapid advancements made by countries other than the traditional spacefaring nations.

“India was the first country to land softly at the south pole. That's not the headline. That's different and impressive.” (44:30)

He attributes these advancements to national pride and the strategic importance of space security.

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8. Technological Impact: AI and Quantum Computing in Astrophysics

Tyson elaborates on how AI and quantum computing are revolutionizing astrophysics by enabling the modeling of complex systems that were previously unattainable with classical computers.

“With quantum computing, I can model all the stars, every star, every time. The gravitational configuration of everything is different.” (47:52)

He anticipates that these technologies will unlock new insights into galactic formations and cosmic phenomena.

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9. Simulation Hypothesis: Are We Living in a Simulation?

A central theme of the episode is the simulation hypothesis—the proposition that our universe might be an artificial simulation.

Tyson humorously cites geopolitical events as potential "glitches" in the simulation:

“When things are kind of stable, let's have the leader of the free world be a New York City real estate developer... throw a pandemic.” (48:54)

He discusses the possibility of detecting the boundaries of the simulation through astronomical observations, such as analyzing gamma ray bursts for inconsistencies.

“If we find an edge to that, we're above that. There's no more that could be the edge of the simulation.” (51:08)

Tyson also considers the role of advanced civilizations in possibly running these simulations, reflecting on the Fermi Paradox.

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10. Lightning Round: Quick Questions

In a swift segment towards the end, Nayeema poses rapid-fire questions to Tyson:

• Favorite Color: Purple (54:23)
• Why Other Scientists Struggle with Communication: Tyson attributes it to the lack of emphasis on communication skills in scientific training and the prevalence of neurodiversity among scientists (54:33).

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11. Final Reflections

Closing the episode, Raza shares her thoughts on the discussion:

1. Simulation Hypothesis: Tyson's balanced perspective underscores both the possibilities and the challenges in validating the simulation theory.
2. Distrust in Science: She expresses concern over the growing skepticism towards scientific expertise, despite significant advancements achieved through scientific endeavors.
3. Wormhole Research: Raza humorously appeals to researchers funding negative gravity matter, envisioning a future where everyday tasks could be revolutionized by wormholes.

“I was really sad by Neil's answer about our growing distrust and skepticism about the science... It’s hard to think that we're going to let those things go.”

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Notable Quotes

• Neil deGrasse Tyson (01:42): "The good thing about asteroids that might kill us is they are the largest and easiest to detect."
• Neil deGrasse Tyson (10:25): “Math and physics are the embodiment of a new kind of brain wiring that teaches you not just what to know about the universe, but how to think.”
• Neil deGrasse Tyson (08:28): “Our universe is a natural expression of a larger entity called a multiverse that's making universes forever.”
• Neil deGrasse Tyson (48:54): “When things are kind of stable, let's have the leader of the free world be a New York City real estate developer... throw a pandemic.”

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Conclusion

This episode of Smart Girl Dumb Questions offers listeners a thought-provoking exploration of some of the most intriguing questions in modern science. Through Neil deGrasse Tyson's insightful explanations and Nayeema Raza's curious inquiries, the conversation bridges complex astrophysical concepts with everyday curiosity, making science accessible and engaging for all.

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Timestamps Reference

• [00:00] - Introduction to asteroid collision
• [00:06] - Tyson discusses asteroid impact probabilities
• [01:42] - Asteroid detection and media portrayal
• [03:12] - Building blocks of the universe
• [05:46] - Light travel time and perception of stars
• [08:28] - Introduction to the multiverse
• [10:25] - Communication in science and education
• [18:16] - Wormholes and their theoretical implications
• [43:02] - Fermi Paradox and alien civilizations
• [44:30] - India’s achievements in space exploration
• [47:52] - Impact of AI and quantum computing on astrophysics
• [48:54] - Simulation hypothesis discussion
• [51:08] - Detecting the simulation's boundaries
• [54:23] - Lightning round: favorite color
• [54:33] - Communication challenges among scientists

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Note: This summary excludes the sponsored segment related to Tinder ([24:41] - [25:08]), adhering to the request to omit advertisements and non-content sections.

Transcript

[Naeema Reza]

There was an asteroid set to meet the Earth in the year 2032.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

But that's put very politely. Meet the Earth. Generally they collide, but we can say meet and greet the Earth. The press ran with the fact that the likelihood of it hitting Earth went up briefly from like 1% to 3%.

[Naeema Reza]

That was it as a. Oh, you're.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Not into debt bait in the news.

[Naeema Reza]

But 1% is not that different from 3%. So you're saying still might happen.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Well, it's 1/3. And then it went.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah. I feel like it's a very binary situation, this meeting of Earth and the asteroid.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Well, the value of that news cycle.

[Naeema Reza]

Yes.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Is people were trained to follow the scientific progress on the number. That's an important way that the public should be interacting with the moving frontier of science. I'm happy that we went through that episode because that will happen more frequently going forward. We have better data, better telescopes to see asteroids of that size in that way.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah. Previously, we wouldn't have even known the difference between the 0 and the 1%. Kind of like we wouldn't have even.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Known it was there. We might have known it was there, but when it was much closer, like.

[Naeema Reza]

Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, close.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Well, don't get me started on Armageddon. That movie violated more laws of physics per minute than any other science fiction movie ever. Plus an asteroid the size of Texas we would have discovered 200 years ago. That's the good thing about asteroids that might kill us.

[Naeema Reza]

Right.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

If I may, they are the largest and easiest to detect.

[Naeema Reza]

Smart girl, dumb questions. Hi, welcome to Smart Girl, Dumb Questions. I'm Naeema Reza, your smart girl with the dumb questions and that. Telling me the good thing about the asteroids that might kill us, that they're larger and easier to detect is Neil Degrasse Tyson. He's an astrophysicist, a science communicator, an educator, the director of Hayden Planetarium here in New York, and someone whose job it is to help make sense of the universe. Really, for people like me who just don't get it all the time, Neil has written several bestselling books, including Astrophysics for People in a Hurry and Merlin's Tour of the Universe. And I was so excited to talk to Neil because of all the things that I'm dumb about, science really tops the list. Like, I took biology in school, but I couldn't look when the frog got dissected. And I took chemistry, but all I remember is kind of honk, like hydrogen bonds once and oxygen bonds twice and Nitrogen bonds three times and. Oh, my God, I cannot believe I am even telling you this on a podcast. So my dumb question for Neil DeGrasse Tyson was, are we living in a simulation? Like, is this whole universe a simulation? But before we got there, I had to understand what the universe was. And we started small, like Twinkle, twinkle, little star small. And we worked our way up into galaxies and universes and multiverses and aliens and this idea of wormholes, which maybe allow you to cross through space time. That blew my mind. Here's my conversation with Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

So I want to start with the building blocks, the stars.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I'm your servant in this interview.

[Naeema Reza]

You're not anyone's servant.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, I'm a servant of your curiosity. And by the way, it's not for you to judge whether you're asking a dumb question, okay?

[Naeema Reza]

Oh, you want to challenge the whole premise of my show? Wait, what?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

It's. It's whether I give a dumb answer.

[Naeema Reza]

The dumbness is in the eye of the answer.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yes. Because an educator should be sensitive to how a person's tangled mental pathways might be. Be interpreting the world. And when that one gurgles up as a question, then I deeply care about how you thought about the world. And that puts the onus on me to figure out a way to respond such that what I share with you is received by your learning receptors.

[Naeema Reza]

Are you untangling me or are you just sending it down the tangled pipes?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Both.

[Naeema Reza]

Oh, excellent.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, I don't mind navigating a tangled path. Sometimes I'm a bad tangled from life. Right. And so you gotta navigate that.

[Naeema Reza]

At the end of this, I would like an assessment of how tangled I am compared to the most tangled person.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

You're from a person. I post on social media and I see the comment thread. I take that as a neurosynaptic snapshot of how people think about words. I've used phrases I've offered, content I've delivered. If I think I post a tweet, let's say. And if I think it's funny and no one laughs, it's not funny.

[Naeema Reza]

It's not funny. It's like your own personal FMRI in all of America or all of the world.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Very good. Yeah, that's my. It's a social media fmri.

[Naeema Reza]

Okay. Twinkle, twinkle, little star. I was at a roller skating rink the other day, Neil.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

That's a thing.

[Naeema Reza]

That's a thing.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Naeema Reza]

It was a roller skating disco. I was told by somebody there that when you see a star, you look at the star. That star is so far away, both in distance and time, that. That the light I am seeing from that star means that the star may not even be there anymore. Is that correct or. Oh, I can tell by your eyes that this person is incorrect.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

So you learned this at a disco roller skating rink?

[Naeema Reza]

Yes, where all great sciences, great wisdom.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Of the world is dispersed. It's completely correct, but misleading. All right, so because it takes light time to travel between any two points, the world you see is not as it is, but as it once was.

[Naeema Reza]

Right.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

When the light from that object left en route to your retina. I see you right now, not as you are, but as you were 4 billionths of a second ago. Now, I'm not going to then say, I wonder if she's still alive, because 4 billionths of a second is small compared with your life expectancy. So too it is with stars. There's stars that are thousands of light years away. Yes, it could have died, but stars live billions and in some cases trillions of years. Ah, so a thousand year delay that you're not going to catch it in the last thousand years of its life. Now, of course, some stars do explode and die, but at a rate of maybe 2 per century per galaxy, how.

[Naeema Reza]

Long does it take us to know with the telescopes and whatnot?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

The information about the death of the star is en route through space. So let's take the sun, right? If someone plucked the sun out of the middle of the solar system, you wouldn't know for 8 minutes and 20.

[Naeema Reza]

Seconds because that's how far.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Correct. We'd still feel the gravity, we'd still orbit even though there's nothing there.

[Naeema Reza]

Right.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

We'd still do. Well, you wouldn't know there's nothing there. So 8 minutes and 20 seconds go by and then we plunge into darkness, the temperature of the Earth descends and we fly off at a tangent, lost in interstellar space.

[Naeema Reza]

That's the first page of your book. This is like the you what happens if the Earth were to stop rotating? And your answer is to pin yourself down. Unless you want to go at, what is it, 800 miles per hour. I mean, my mind is broken by your book.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

That's a good thing. Then you reassemble it into the laws of physics that guide the universe at.

[Naeema Reza]

The roller skater rink, apparently. Back to the building blocks.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Okay, I want to start at the beginning of the universe.

[Naeema Reza]

No, I don't want to start the universe because the universe is expanding. So if we start at the beginning, by the time we finish, it will Be even bigger than we could get to. Okay. You can look in telescopes. You can see what's happening out there. We cannot see the Big Bang.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

That's correct. But for reasons that are not obvious.

[Naeema Reza]

But yeah, yeah, we see the afterglow.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

We see the afterglow. Correct.

[Naeema Reza]

So what are the reasons that are not obvious?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Is a barrier. The light can't pass through that afterglow. It's opaque to light.

[Naeema Reza]

And there's no technology that we're developing to try to see.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

It's not using light. Before the universe had this opaque barrier, it was active in ways that we have some telescopes that can see through the barrier to those early times. And so one of them is gravitational waves.

[Naeema Reza]

Do we know what happened before the Big Bang?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

No, but we have ideas.

[Naeema Reza]

Do we know that something for sure happened before the Big Bang? Is it possible that the Big Bang is.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

We don't know for sure, but we have ideas.

[Naeema Reza]

What are the ideas?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Our universe is a natural expression of a larger entity called a multiverse that's making universes forever. And there could be an infinite number of multiverses. All that does is move the question earlier.

[Naeema Reza]

Right.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Where do we get the multiverse from?

[Naeema Reza]

Right. Where did that start?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Right. So this is the. This is a big challenge with origins questions, because the origin of something, typically if it's singular, you can't compare it to the origin of something else. However, let's look back in time. The origin of the Earth. People never know the origin of the Earth because you can't go back in time. This is. This was log lobbed against astronomers centuries ago. Until we have telescopes that look at other star systems being born, you can see them making planets. So now I have comparisons. And I said, oh, that must be how our planet got made. These are planets around a star that looks just like ours. And when it's not singular, you can compare and contrast. We found galaxies being born, so now our galaxy is not the whole thing. We only have one universe. We don't know how it was formed, but maybe there are other universes that we can compare it to.

[Naeema Reza]

Do you have a hunch or is that not a thing?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I'm going with the multiverse. It feels right, and it looks good coming out of the equations. We're not just pulling it out of our ass. The equations give us the multiverse.

[Naeema Reza]

Okay.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah.

[Naeema Reza]

And all of this is, like, rooted in math.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, well, it's served by math, I should say. It's rooted in what the universe really is, whatever that is. And we invent math. And it's one of the great miracles of science that this invention we call math has anything at all to do with the universe that we didn't invent.

[Naeema Reza]

It's like our language for trying to understand the universe is math.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Is that is the language of the universe, the way Spanish is the language of Spain.

[Naeema Reza]

Mm. Well, this is great because I interviewed two 11 year olds recently and they said they feel everything they learn is not useful.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

The problem is, when we're in school, the expectation is that what you learn is what will be useful to you later. That implies that the only way we function is by applying discrete knowledge to discrete problems. But no, no, most of the ways you function is you're applying wisdom and insight to a problem you've never seen before. And where does that wisdom and insight come from? The collection of all of the things you learned. Yes, but also all the ways you learned. You wrote a term paper on Julius Caesar. Well, you had to research that these are methods, tools and tactics. Didn't even matter that it was about Julius Caesar that you had to go through that exercise to arrive at that term paper. And that is the exercise that you carry forth. Math and physics are the embodiment of a new kind of brain wiring that teaches you not just what to know about the universe, but how to think.

[Naeema Reza]

How to think about knowing it, even.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Correct.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah. And that's good news. I did tell them that the process by which they were learning is going to be invaluable, but I didn't get to wisdom and insight. But I like that distinction.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. There's knowledge, wisdom and insight.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And they're, they're more refined versions of themselves. And also you can learn this and learn that and learn this and then later on in life see a connection that no one else did. One could define genius in just that way.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

A genius is a person who sees what everyone else sees and thinks what no one else has thought.

[Naeema Reza]

Do you think you're a genius?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Other than in that phrase definition? I never use the word. It's a label. And when you start labeling people, it's shorthand for I don't need to know anything more about you because I've given you this label. I know everything I need to know about you. So I don't even have to have a conversation. So I'm just anti label.

[Naeema Reza]

So Big bang happens before the big bang. It's possible. We don't know exactly what happened, but it's possible that there are these multiverses.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

No, a multiverse.

[Naeema Reza]

A multiverse. Sorry. A multiverse.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Cranking out universes such as ours.

[Naeema Reza]

Yes. And so there could be infinite universe. Do we exist in other universes?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Well, it depends on what you mean by that. There would likely. If this model is accurate, then there are enough universes so that there's an entire universe where all events are playing out exactly as they are in this universe. Or, you know, we're having this conversation. Except I'm the interviewer and you're the subject. But if all variations are possible, that means a duplicate of what's happening here exists in at least one of those universes. So now to. To say, do we exist in those universes? It's tempting to write a sci fi novel about that. We've already done the experiments with clones. Do you know what that experiment is? You know what?

[Naeema Reza]

No.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

They're called twins.

[Naeema Reza]

Oh, twins. Yes.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Genetically identical. But you're not the same person. So put your twin in another universe.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Deny you. So get over yourself.

[Naeema Reza]

So if we know all of this, we can see stars, we can see the afterglow of the big bang. Why can we not travel to that?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

It's long gone.

[Naeema Reza]

It's long gone. But we. But we can time travel.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Oh, you have to travel backwards in time. You put the future that created you at risk.

[Naeema Reza]

You'd muddle.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. If the whole time. And accidentally prevented your parents from meeting.

[Naeema Reza]

Each other, you would not exist.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

You would not exist. To go back in time and prevent your parents from meeting each other. Or as was indicated in at least one sci fi story, if you disrupt their act of lovemaking by 10 minutes. Not disrupt. If you delay. Okay, by 10 minutes, some other gamete would have been made. Not the one that made you. It'll probably be the same egg, but definitely a different sperm. So the risks. Now Stephen Hawking, concerned about these very same risks, proposed what he calls the time travel conjecture, which is we will one day discover a law of physics that prevents backwards time travel because of all of these problems that are inherent in doing so.

[Naeema Reza]

What is time?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

In the sequel to this Merlin book, Merlin answers that with a. So I can say, just wait till the book comes. So Einstein, yeah. Suggested that time is defined to make motion look simple. That's an interesting.

[Naeema Reza]

Time is defined to make motion. So time is designed to make sense of space.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

That's a right way. That's a good way to think about it. But beyond that, there is no measurement of time without an event that repeats itself. By the way, astro folk, we. We're time people. Yeah, just we. All your fundamental measures of time come from us. There's the day, there's the moons, then there's the time.

[Naeema Reza]

Time it takes to orbit.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

To orbit. That's a year.

[Naeema Reza]

I'm excited for the sequel to your book, Merlin's Tour of the Universe, which.

Is a great book.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Just visiting this planet.

[Naeema Reza]

Just visiting this planet.

Okay. I'm very excited.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

It's not out. It's not going to come out till the fall.

[Naeema Reza]

Read very few physicists. But the other one is Carlo Rovelli. Do you know Carlo Rovelli? You guys know.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Very accessible.

[Naeema Reza]

Very accessible. He wrote the Seven Brief Lessons on Physics and these Guardian articles. You guys, you get a lot. That's not like Kanye Drake physics drama, right? You get a lot.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I've had people write to me and say. Because I have the book Astrophysics for people in a hurry. And when I titled it, I said, I'm not going to use the word brief. It's too. It's out there.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And many books that have the word brief are very successful.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

The Brief History of Time is Stephen Hawking, the number one selling science book of all time. So I said, I'm not going to use brief. Someone wrote to me and said this. I think you owe Rovelli an apology for copying his. It's like, what? What like. Then I said, do you have any idea how long it takes to produce a book?

[Naeema Reza]

Like, to call it brief would be ridiculous. It's not a brief book because the brevity is in the eye of the reader. And I think that actually a lot of these books, yours included, take time to read because they require you. It require me in my. To think and then to go back and think about all the things that I have to unthink.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

To think this thing that can happen sometimes.

[Naeema Reza]

Right.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Deal with it.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah. I mean, I'm glad to. There's one of the chapters in it and he talks about. In the Revelli's book, in the Ravelli book, and he talks about twins.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

The twin paradox.

[Naeema Reza]

The twin paradox, exactly.

There's one twin living on a beach.

And one twin living in a mountain at altitude. And those twins will age differently.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

They're different fields of gravity. The one on the mountain will see the one in the valley age more slowly and vice versa.

[Naeema Reza]

And the one in the valley will see the one in the mountain age more quickly. Quickly. That is because of the way that time bends.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yes.

[Naeema Reza]

Explain it, though. I mean, is that. Is this a wickable. Is this a dumb question?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

No, no, no, no, no. It's time and Space are conjoined.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And gravity is the distortion of time and space. And the way it distorts time is that it slows down.

[Naeema Reza]

Okay.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Time as you get near it and time speeds up as you get far away. So we have equations that guide you in understanding that you can calculate how much time you would lose or gain.

[Naeema Reza]

Is this an anti aging method that you could go to a valley well and time would move slowly?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. Except, you know, if you did this, you know, in the limit, you go near a black hole and time really slows down for you. This was portrayed in the movie Interstellar where they're gone for 20 minutes. And the guy was 20 years older, had gray hair and everything. So he was waiting for them to come back off of their time. Distorted coordinate system.

[Naeema Reza]

I. I saw this conversation you were having with your friend Brian Greene, friend and colleague, and your mind was blown by something he had said to you over lunch, which was around whether or not wormholes were a structure kind of for space time.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, yeah. You remember that correctly.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah. And then there's a viral clip on TikTok and it ends with your other colleague saying, you know, it's time for some weed.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I need some weed. That was my co host.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah, your co host, exactly. I just need a joint for this conversation or something like that.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. Because it was entangled particles in the vacuum of space. If they're connected by wormholes.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Then wormholes may be the actual stitches in the fabric of spacetime itself.

[Naeema Reza]

Explain what a wormhole is.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

It's what you think it is. We're here in the now.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And then a wormhole opens up, you step through and you're in a different time in a different place.

[Naeema Reza]

So it is a mode of time travel a little bit.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

So I want to put research on wormholes, not rocket drives.

[Naeema Reza]

So a quick anecdote.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I was in the Charlotte airport. I have to go from a big plane to a little plane.

[Naeema Reza]

Okay.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And I swear I walked three miles.

[Naeema Reza]

I hate that airport.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

It might have been only a half mile, but it felt like three miles.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

So I get to my destination and I thought I'd be clever geek. And I tweeted, can't wait until there's wormholes. That way all gates will be adjacent. So I thought that.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah, that's great.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I like that quality geek tweet. And in this, by the way, wherever you are on the geek spectrum, they're geekier people than you.

[Naeema Reza]

Okay.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Just.

[Naeema Reza]

And you can find them without wormholes.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

It's just on Twitter, infinite In the thread it says, Dr. Tyson, the day we have wormholes, you won't need airports. Whoa. Yeah, just got out. Geeked.

[Naeema Reza]

And you would just like. How would you move through a wormhole? Would you have to find that specific space, time, moment to do it?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Imagine a wormhole where you connect a wormhole between the back of your refrigerator and the grocer. They say, oh, you need more milk. And they just put the milk in.

[Naeema Reza]

But could you just create wormholes?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Ideally, we would make one. And you need a negative gravity force to prop it open because it naturally wants to collapse on itself. And we don't know what would happen if you were in there and it collapsed while you were there. That would be weird.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah. Is your mind still blown by this wormhole idea?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yes, I would say. I mean, less so than in the moment, but yeah.

[Naeema Reza]

So a year later.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Oh, yeah.

[Naeema Reza]

You're.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

You still think about.

[Naeema Reza]

You're still thinking about. And you still think it's. We need to have research on wormholes for this reason. And there. Is there a budget for wormhole research?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

No. No. We need. We need negative gravity matter. We don't. And we don't have it.

[Naeema Reza]

We don't have it.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Right.

[Naeema Reza]

And are we close to having it?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I don't think so.

[Naeema Reza]

And is there. Who writes the budgets for things like find. Is there a line item in our government? Like find negative gravity matter.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

We don't even know what it would be like or if it exists.

[Naeema Reza]

Okay, very quickly on horoscopes, because to the point of people's tangled minds, I'm in the intersection of Venn diagram of people who have multiple degrees and read the cosmoastrology page. Does that worry you about me?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Only if you wanted to become head of NASA, but otherwise there are plenty of jobs for you in the world where you can read your horoscope and it won't matter at all.

[Naeema Reza]

But when I read your book, I saw that you have taken my entire. My stars. I'm a Scorpio.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Oh, you got to that part of.

[Naeema Reza]

The book and you have taken away. Scorpio is no longer a month. It's like a week.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Did that.

[Naeema Reza]

Not me, not you. So how did that happen? Is that about time?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

It's about Earth. On its axis, Earth is spinning, as we know, but it's also tipped. And if you ever played with tops, you might remember that they precess, but then they wobble.

[Naeema Reza]

Wobble.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Naeema Reza]

Okay. Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

So the Earth wobbles and that wobbling over 26,000 years shifts the correspondence of the constellation and the month associated with it.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

It shifts it through completely a full 12 months. So every 2,000 years or so, the sun passes through a different constellation than the astrological charts would have you believe.

[Naeema Reza]

So horoscopes are not real.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

There are many reasons for them not being real. That's. That's among them.

[Naeema Reza]

That's among them.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Right. It's a hoax perpetrated on adults. So I shouldn't say hoax. Hoax implies that the people perpetrating it.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

They're believers. I think there are people who propagate this who fully believe it.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And so then there's no real guilt there.

[Naeema Reza]

And so there's no explanation for the fact that I, as a Scorpio, connect more, I believe, with cancer people.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

So I've seen descriptions of the zodiac.

[Naeema Reza]

Yes.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Where it says, these are 12 prominent constellations in the sky. You said you were what, Scorpio. You were Scorpio, and you connect with cancer people.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Naeema Reza]

I like to date Cancer.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Naeema Reza]

Or sometimes Aries.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Is that better or worse than any other dating app we might have? I don't know, but the. I just did the calculation before I came today.

[Naeema Reza]

Oh.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

That the four brightest stars in the constellation Cancer are actually quite dim. And there may be as many as 500 stars brighter than the brightest star in the constellation Cancer, which makes it a dull, boring, and uninteresting constellation.

[Naeema Reza]

So I should stop dating Cancer? You've just expanded my dating pool, Neil. That's great. Thank you for that service.

When it comes to dating, are my expectations keeping me single? I'm naehymarraza, host of Smart Girl Dumb Questions, and this is the sponsored Dumb Question brought to you by Tinder. So 40% of people who find dating difficult say that they can't meet someone who meets their expectations. But is the problem supply or demand? It's easy to build a checklist for what we want. Six, five blue eyes. Maybe some kind of specific zodiac. Zodiac sign. But researchers have found that people are really bad at knowing what they want or need. In fact, the science kind of sucks at it, too. In one study, for example, researchers asked daters to identify their own traits and also identify the traits they were looking for in other people, I. E. Their dating expectations. And then they ran it through this machine learning algorithm. It turned out they could predict one way attraction at around 20%. That is, who would be liked or who would like somebody. But when it came to two way attraction, the algorithm was not good. Its success rate was less than 1%. Because it turns Out. The actual best predictor of compatibility is not your expectations, but your experiences. Now, of course, that doesn't mean you should throw all your expectations out the window. Of course you deserve to date somebody that treats you well, that makes you feel safe. Yet a graduate degree may not be the best predictor of that.

And it could be a good time.

To slide over that location filter or give that shortcut king a second glance. Because when it comes to dating, our experiences are more important than our expectations. So the important thing is to actually start going on dates. And a great place to start dating is Tinder. It starts with a swipe. You can explore all the possibilities for yourself. Get Tinder today and start dating.

And wormholes. Would wormholes allow.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Did you finish explaining wormholes?

[Naeema Reza]

No. I think we should go back a little bit.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah.

[Naeema Reza]

So wormholes. Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

You figure out a way to prevent. Try a pathway through space time that connects two otherwise very distant parts. And when you do that, you just step through and you're in another place in time. The two most famous current ways that's done is in Doctor Strange in the Marvel universe and Rick and Morty in the cartoon universe.

[Naeema Reza]

I'm not familiar with Rick and Morty.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

That means your audience is not geekified.

[Naeema Reza]

Okay.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

It's a geek.

[Naeema Reza]

I mean, my audience might be. I might not be the best leading indicator of my audience. You just lost the Rick and Morty audience.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

You just lost the Rick and Morty faction. Rick has portals through space time, and he goes through other universes, other galaxies, and half of those shows or more, he's interacting with other life forms that are brilliantly conceived to be different from us in ways that Hollywood perennially fails at doing. All the aliens in Hollywood, it's got a head, two eyes and nose, mouth, arms.

[Naeema Reza]

The ear is different or something like that. It's like a tweet.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

There's a little thing on the forehead. It's like, really? Really. Most life on Earth looks nothing like humans.

[Naeema Reza]

Yes.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And we have DNA in common. Now you're gonna bring something from another planet, and it's a walk and with a mouth, you know. Come on.

[Naeema Reza]

Such limited imagination.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Exactly.

[Naeema Reza]

So Rick and Morty have never said.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Is unlimited imagination as it. As it conceives of life forms.

[Naeema Reza]

So these wormholes, though, so these two conceptions of it that exist. Yes.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

He has a wormhole gun.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

He shoots it and opens up a hole.

[Naeema Reza]

Oh, so that's okay. So you could find. But it's not like a wormhole identifier.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

No, wormholes, they're not going to be naturally in the universe. No.

[Naeema Reza]

Okay.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

They want to collapse on themselves. So you need negative gravity to crack them open, which we don't have.

[Naeema Reza]

So wormholes, they wouldn't exist. We need negative gravity to.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

To create negative gravity substance.

[Naeema Reza]

Right, yeah. Negative gravity substance to create and stabilize a wormhole.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Because think gravity brings space time together.

[Naeema Reza]

Yes.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

In a wormhole, you're prying it apart. So you need the opposite of what gravity is to make that happen.

[Naeema Reza]

That was a very clarifying sentence, Neil.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Tracking your tangled mental.

[Naeema Reza]

That really helped me. Okay, so gravity brings it together.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Did we just untangle one little bit?

[Naeema Reza]

Yes, we did.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Naeema Reza]

Okay. A negative gravity will suspend that and then allow you to pass and then through a wormhole. You could go to other universes in.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Principle, but that would could be dangerous because another universe might have slightly different laws of physics.

[Naeema Reza]

Okay.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And stepping into it, you collapse in a pile of goo because the forces, the molecular forces might not comport.

[Naeema Reza]

I could go to other galaxies.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Oh, definitely.

[Naeema Reza]

Definitely galaxies easier.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Oh, yeah.

[Naeema Reza]

Okay. And other dimensions.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Other dimensions. We don't know how to go to other dimensions.

[Naeema Reza]

And what is a dimension?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

It's interesting how we have such an intuitive understanding of dimensions. We never think about them. Have you imagined a future with flying cars?

[Naeema Reza]

Of course.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Everybody does. Why would you want a flying car?

[Naeema Reza]

Less traffic.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Okay, good.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

When you're out on the open Road driving 70 miles an hour, are you saying, gee, I wish I had a flying car?

[Naeema Reza]

No, no.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

You're only thinking about it near cities.

[Naeema Reza]

Right.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

When you're in traffic and you got a place to be, you just want to lift up and go in the car. On the road, you are stuck in two dimensions.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

You can change lanes left and right. That's one dimension. And the other dimension is just forward and back.

[Naeema Reza]

Right.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

So driving is a two dimensional exercise. In a flying car, you enter a third dimension and bypass these hapless souls who don't have a flying car.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Okay. Are we together on that?

[Naeema Reza]

We're together.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Naeema Reza]

So that's three dimensions.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

So let's remove the idea of a flying car and just say when you want to bypass the traffic, you want to go to another dimension to do so. In that regard, the New York City subway is a flying car you're stuck in. You go into another dimension. In this case, it's down, not up. And there's all. There's a whole other layer, entire transportation system that does not get stuck in that traffic. That's a flying car.

[Naeema Reza]

But I think the difference is, I Can see. See those dimensions? Like the dimensions you're talking about.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I'm warming you up.

[Naeema Reza]

Okay. Okay, good.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Because you read.

[Naeema Reza]

I'm not that tangled.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

You read horoscopes. If I went straight there, this wouldn't have happened. Okay, I gotta, I gotta make sure we're on the same page.

[Naeema Reza]

Okay, good. So I don't believe they're real. I just read them.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

So this is easy to understand, correct?

[Naeema Reza]

Yes.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

We are on the same page. Okay, let's go back to two dimensions. I have a desk.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And I still have paper.

[Naeema Reza]

Okay.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

So I lay paper out on the desk.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And then I run out of desk surface. So what do you do?

[Naeema Reza]

Put it on the floor?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I could.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah. Or you can stack them on top of each other. Yeah, stack.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

That's a third dimension. Stacking is a third dimension. That's what you go. Okay, gotcha.

[Naeema Reza]

Got it.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so now watch. On the paper on my desk, I fit 16 sheets of paper. Let's say. Yes, let's say 24 by 5. Now I can stack. How many pages can I stack into the third dimension?

[Naeema Reza]

As many as you want.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Bajillion. Until I hit the ceiling.

[Naeema Reza]

Right.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Okay. Oh my gosh. Look at how much more room there is in three dimensions than there is in two dimensions.

[Naeema Reza]

Of course.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

You got me.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so now we're in a room. The room is a three dimensional room. And I put boxes in this room. Now the room is full and someone, a hyperdimensional being, says, just go into the fourth dimension and you can fit millions of boxes there. And I say, where is the fourth dimension? It is at a perpendicular line to you. I already have my perpendicular lines. They trace the three dimensions of this space. We cannot conceive of what direction that fourth dimension is any more than the ant can know what up is.

[Naeema Reza]

Okay, so we're just ants. We're 3D ants.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

3D ants.

[Naeema Reza]

They're 2D ants. And there's some. Is there a 4D ant? Is it possible that people in the 4th dimension don't know or people, aliens, creatures?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Here's what's really interesting. Right?

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

If you're actually two dimensions, you have no thickness. So you would be this flat, you flat membrane. And so anyone who sees you would only see your outer contours.

[Naeema Reza]

Right.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

They'd have to cut you open and peel back your outer contour to see what's inside. So let's seal that back. We are three dimensional people who are completely transparent to four dimensional beings. You have an outer perimeter. We call it Skin.

[Naeema Reza]

Yes.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I would love to write a sci fi story where the hospital is, the surgery is a four dimensional room. And you go in there and the doctors remove the tumor.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

They never cut you open to do.

[Naeema Reza]

So because it's just. You're flat. You're like.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

They're accessing you through the fourth dimension. So surgery, they just go in and pluck it out.

[Naeema Reza]

Pluck it out.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And there's no.

[Naeema Reza]

I just see it.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

No evidence of any.

[Naeema Reza]

That would be good.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

When you start thinking about dimensions, it's a fascinating world.

[Naeema Reza]

And you think they're infinite dimensions.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

It could be. Cosmologists say there might be 10 dimensions in which to embed everything they need to account for in the big Bang and follows it. But we can't see the other dimensions because they're tightly curled up. The idea with the higher dimensions is that they might be there.

[Naeema Reza]

Right.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

But not entirely accessible to us.

[Naeema Reza]

And it's possible that there's life on those other dimensions.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I don't see why not.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah, why not? We can conceive of it. My last guest, Cleo Abram. Do you know Cleo Abram? She has a show called Huge if true on YouTube. And anyways, I end every show asking what the guest doesn't know about, what the guest is quote, unquote dumb about. And she asked, where are the aliens? I want to ask you about this because I feel every time I've seen you asked about aliens, this happens. What's happening in front of me right now, which is that you. I feel like you're listening for the question.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

What, you're interpreting my face?

[Naeema Reza]

I'm interpreting your face billionths of a second ago. I'm interpreting that actually 4 billionths of a second. 4 billionths of a second ago. But you seem to be skeptical about alien sightings, about uap, unidentified Aerial phenomena, or UFO sightings.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I'm not skeptical about the sightings. I'm skeptical of how people interpret them.

[Naeema Reza]

How do you think people interpret them?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

They think they're visiting aliens from outer space. And an account of people seeing aliens is more often than not an account of some lights in the sky behaving badly. The fact that 50 years ago there was no end of accounts typically extracted via hypnosis. No end of accounts of people having been abducted by aliens. In the era of the smartphone, those accounts have gone to zero.

[Naeema Reza]

Really?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Because you can film an encounter with aliens?

[Naeema Reza]

Yes.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

It would go viral instantly.

[Naeema Reza]

We have the ability to have proof now.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Correct. So my skepticism is people's accounts. That's all.

[Naeema Reza]

Are aliens real? Do aliens exist?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

We don't have evidence yet of them, but there's no reason to doubt it.

[Naeema Reza]

If they were to visit, what would you be most embarrassed about them seeing on Earth?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Well, I don't know what they would do. I can't think like an alien. But there's a comic, I think it was in the New Yorker, which showed two cavemen facing each other in a cave. And one says to the other, I don't get it. My water is pure, the air is clear, all of our food is organic, yet none of us lives past 30. Those are cavemen. Now let's go to 1840. Everything they ate was organic. The water ran pure. Half of everyone born was dead by 35. Fast forward to today. If you die before 90, your obituary is going to have to account for that somehow. Not just you.

[Naeema Reza]

Old age.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Not just old age. Like how did he die?

[Naeema Reza]

Explain yourself.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Explain yourself.

[Naeema Reza]

Explain yourself.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Explain yourself. And in the New York Times, for example, in the obituaries I marked when they started giving the cause of death for people over 80. So that meant, yeah, we understood aging. We understood the death of someone who's old.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And it's a reportable bit of information. Like I said, if you die before 80.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

People want to know why 80, when 150, 170 years ago it was half the people were dead by 35. So. Point is, today we live in a world where we have overvalued the significance of the food we eat relative to. To what role science has played to increase our longevity.

[Naeema Reza]

And what is the technology that has enabled us mostly to live long.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Sanitation, vaccines, preventive medicine, knowing what role exercise plays in your cardiovascular health. We have still a long way to go. When I was in seventh grade, I wrote a book, a report on Ponce de Leon and the Fountain of youth. She was a Spanish explorer. And I'm looking at it and I say, this is a full grown adult. I was a geek kid since age 9. Yes, that's why I can have this thought. This is a full grown adult.

[Naeema Reza]

Were you non geek before nine?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I was just regular.

[Naeema Reza]

Okay, yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

After. After nine I got my geek groove. Now I'm reading it and I said, this is a full grown adult who sails across an ocean believing that there's a fountain from which you drink and then you will live forever. And I thought to myself, what the. How could. He's a grown man, right? It's not a fairy tale. He's a grown man. How could he think this? And everybody thought that yeah. And so I was so disappointed in adults.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah, I read that.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

But then I said, oh, that was 500 years ago. And now today, this one. Food is all you need to eat. Here's the miracle food. Here's a miracle drink. Don't do any of this. Do this one thing. And I said, this is Ponce de Leon all over again. This is the secret to longevity. It wouldn't have to just be food. Do this. In fact, any ad on YouTube that has the word this in it, I don't click on it. Because they want to leave you dangling at the this.

[Naeema Reza]

Right. You were missing this. The thing you're missing out on.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

This is irresistible. Clickbait. But what I'm saying is maybe all that will ultimately be shown to have an important, important difference on the edges.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

But that's not what got us living two and three times longer than our great great grandparents.

[Naeema Reza]

Okay, aliens.

Back to aliens.

Back to back to aliens. Because I. So here's my thing. Is it possible that the aliens are in a different dimension?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Well, that would be a way for you to still say they're aliens with no possible evidence of their existence.

[Naeema Reza]

Okay, sure. By the way, do you think aliens speak math?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yes.

[Naeema Reza]

Yes.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yes. That's how you'd have to communicate with them.

[Naeema Reza]

That caveman New Yorker cartoon that you're talking about, you and meet alien. Alien comes here and you would say.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, I would find ways to show symbol. If they see, to check what their retinue of senses are.

[Naeema Reza]

Right.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

If they hear but don't see, you need other ways to do this.

[Naeema Reza]

Okay.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And maybe they've seen a different wavelength of light. They could see infrared rather than visible. So I'd have to. You'd have to assess this.

[Naeema Reza]

Yes.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Then you work within their senses.

[Naeema Reza]

But it's definitely math. It's not English. No. It's no Espanol.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Definitely not any language on Earth. And now I feel bad about this. When the movie Arrival came, the government chose a physicist and a linguist to communicate with the alien. And I said, no, you want a cryptographer and an astrobiologist, not a linguist and a physicist. And then when I posted, I just. I felt bad.

[Naeema Reza]

People thought you were anti linguist.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Linguists are hardly ever in movies.

[Naeema Reza]

I know. I was like, why are you taking away.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I have no shortage of astrophysicists in movies. Every space movie has an astrophysicist in there somewhere. And so then I felt bad casting Shade like it was their day in the sun.

[Naeema Reza]

We gotta send the right people in this circumstance. You don't Wanna send. I'm sorry linguist, but like we don't wanna send the wrong person on the back.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. I don't need your culture.

[Naeema Reza]

No, no. In. In 2020 I produced an interview with Elon Musk and he talked about how we needed to be a multi planetary space faring civilization. Do we need to be a multi.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Planetary spacefaring civilization that makes very good newspaper headlines.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

You'd expect that. Spoken of someone who's in the business of making rockets and launching things.

[Naeema Reza]

Yes.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Sending people places.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

So I'm not surprised by that. And that idea goes back some ways. Or Carl Sagan was a big fan of becoming a multi planet species. So why would you do that?

[Naeema Reza]

Because you believe that there is some scarcity on this Earth, some abundance to be had outside or some expansion of our population that requires it.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Or more likely in those scenarios that it could put our species at risk. If all our eggs are in one basket.

[Naeema Reza]

Okay.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And a killer asteroid comes or a virus or whatever.

[Naeema Reza]

Okay.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

That's the main motivation other than just the exploration part of it. But you can go there, explore and then come back. You go there and stay a big driver. There is that way we protect the species.

[Naeema Reza]

Species. Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I have a way more practical view of the world.

[Naeema Reza]

Which is.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I don't mind people thinking that. I just think it's a solution to a non problem. Every scenario you come up with that can put life on Earth at risk to solve it seems to me to be easier than terraforming Mars and shipping a billion people. Now suppose we trash our environment.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And we need Earth 2.0. That's not an asteroid.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah. That's us doing it to ourselves.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Peeing in our own bathtub. Right. Okay.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

This time pooping in their bathtub.

[Naeema Reza]

Right? Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Okay. So why not that if we have the power of geoengineering.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

To turn Mars into Earth, then we have the power to turn Earth back into Earth. I can't think of a reason why we would have to do that. I can think of a hundred reasons why we would want to do it. But every reason that people give for having to do it I don't find convincing. I want to do it because I like exploring.

[Naeema Reza]

One of the reasons why we want to do it, and it feels sometimes imperative, is competition. Competition not just amongst species, but within our own species. We want to be in the moon before other countries are at the moon. We want to be in Mars before other countries are at Mars. We want to take up as much of Mars as we can. Territorial domination It's a driver. It's a driver.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Especially among men.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, it'd be interesting if we had more female leaders to see if they too, would have those same incentives.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Actually, really big ones in the past century have been just like men.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah. I was gonna say, I think a lot of the things that we think are just male and female.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Was it Margaret Thatcher, Deera, Gandhi?

[Naeema Reza]

There's that book that's like, men are from Mars, women are from Venus, or whatever. It turns out that it's like power.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I think those women succeeded because they were succeeding in a man's world, and they have to be like a man to do so. Let's say you're in a traffic and someone cuts someone el off, and then a person jumps out of the car and yells at the other person. There's a 99 chance that's a man, not 100.

[Naeema Reza]

But not new York, necessarily, because it's a man's world in New York City.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

The funny thing is, to me, men, like complaining about women's emotions and their hormones, spent centuries doing that without actually looking at ourselves and saying, how does testosterone manifest as a hormone on our behavior? How many bar fights break out between women versus men? Is that socialization or is it hormones? Yeah, we could say it's societal, I suppose. But this territorial thing. Yeah, this is not gendered. But just the idea that if aliens exist anywhere in the universe, how come they haven't visited?

[Naeema Reza]

Right?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Okay, you can do a calculation that if you visit other star systems, you figure out how to make rockets. They can visit other star systems even if it takes 100 years to get there. Then you get there and you build a factory and you build two more ships, and they go to two other star systems and then they go to four. Give yourself a very relaxing time to make that happen. You could do it in 100 million years. The universe is billions of years old.

[Naeema Reza]

Okay?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

So if you run that calculation, you can say, if aliens did it at all, they should have occupied every planet in the galaxy. Where are they? This is the famous Fermi paradox. An argument against the Fermi paradox is whatever urge you have to wanna take control of a planet is self limiting, as we say in physics, because you reach a point where, okay, now half the planets are gonna. But now this urge is so strong. I want your planet.

[Naeema Reza]

It's self destruction.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

It implodes. I want your planet. Okay? And then they fight each other and the entire system implodes. And that actually already happened on Earth with the age of colonization.

[Naeema Reza]

Lots of talk about Russia and China and outer space and the space competition with Russia and China. I think that India, India's got this big space program right now. And I've been impressed by the strides that the Indians are making in outer space. Are you impressed by that?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

What impresses me is not that they've made the strides.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

But that the strides were unthinkable even just a few decades ago. They're accomplishing what other space faring nations are accomplishing.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

So we're all human. So I'm not differently impressed for what they've done relative to anybody else doing it. What impresses me when I'm impressed is where were you 20 years ago, 30 years ago, and where are you now? India was the first to land safely, softly on the south pole of the moon. The Indian headlines were India lands Is the is the fourth country to land on the moon. That's not the headline. India is the first country to land softly at the south pole.

[Naeema Reza]

And what's up with India and outer space because of the speed with which they have gotten here. Are they going to get elsewhere faster, you think? Or, or you know?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

There's national pride. Never underestimate the value of national pride and national security. Security is a code word for protecting yourself. But also if you feel like being an aggressor, you have the power to do so.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

So I say security because I'd rather be secure rather than aggressive. That's the peacenik in me. In India a few years before, they tomahawked out one of their satellites from orbit. It's called a kinetic kill. You would do that if the satellite is failing or you don't want it. And so India did that after the United States did it, after Russia did it and after China did it. And so Prime Minister gets on and says we do this for peaceful. You know, there's the peace argument.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

This is the beginnings of people's access to space. Yeah. One thing that concerned me deeply when India landed on the South Pole. I don't know if you know that it had a rover.

[Naeema Reza]

I saw. I don't know what it is.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. Okay, so it's a rover and so there's the rover.

[Naeema Reza]

Yes.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

The emblem in the Indian flag is the central.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah. That starish kind of thing. Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And one of the icons of the space agency were embedded in the rover's wheels so that as it rolled on the dusty soil, these imprints could be seen.

[Naeema Reza]

But they came in peace.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

But wait. But wait. And the sad part of my concern is it's something Americans would say. I know we would say it. So how can I get mad if somebody else is going to say it? So on the Internet, because people were dancing in the streets when it was huge. Oh, yes, it was huge. Okay. There was on Twitter or wherever it first landed on X, because, as you know, the Pakistani flag has the Muslim.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah. The crescent and the star.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And the. And the star. This posting said, in India, we have our flag on the moon. In Pakistan, they have the moon on their flag.

[Naeema Reza]

Really?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Did you have to go there? You know, it'd be something different if Pakistan were as big as India and they had Active. Then it would be kind of a fun. It would be trash talk in the locker room.

[Naeema Reza]

They're punching down.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, punching down.

[Naeema Reza]

They were punching down.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

That's what he did.

[Naeema Reza]

That's what it is.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And I was saddened by that.

[Naeema Reza]

I want to talk to you about how technology changes your. What you do. How do AI and quantum change astrophysics?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Well, there's certain problems that become tractable that were previously only things we could approximate. If I'm going to model what happens to a rotating galaxy that has hundreds of billions of stars, my computers in the 1970s couldn't do that. Well, let me model Galaxy using 100 stars. Maybe there's something about 100 stars that will give me insight to a billion stars. Maybe, maybe not. So much of our effort over the years is approximating the reality because the computing power can't match the reality. With quantum computing. I can model all the stars, by the way. Every star, every time. Every star moves. The gravitational configuration of everything is different.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah, it can calculate that instantaneously.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And there's gas clouds. How do you calculate a gas cloud? It's not a discrete object. They're bits and pieces of molecules moving around, subjected to radiation forces and magnetic forces and rotational forces and shear forces.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Oh, my gosh, we love it. Okay, bring it on.

[Naeema Reza]

Is it possible that we live in a simulation?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yes. And my best evidence for that is just when things are kind of stable, let's have the leader of the free world be a New York City real estate developer. There's got to be someone simulating us, throwing that in just for their entertainment.

[Naeema Reza]

That's your best evidence for a simulation is Donald Trump.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

It wouldn't have to just be that. And then. So now he's not in office, and then he comes back and then we have Biden. Things are pretty stable. We need a pandemic. Throwing a pandemic.

[Naeema Reza]

Well, yeah, I think.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I think.

[Naeema Reza]

And Then Biden becomes a little less stable.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I think one argument for a simulation is how periodically something extraordinary happens in the world. The world doesn't just stay in a stable.

[Naeema Reza]

Chaos.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Chaos. And if you've ever played these simulation games, that's what you want because that's where it's more interesting.

[Naeema Reza]

That's where it gets interesting.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, I used to play SimCity, and every now and then Godzilla would walk across the city. There'd be fires and everything would be broken. And Godzilla is not real, but it's metaphor for an assault on the city. Yes, which is exactly what 911 was. It was an assault. It's not Godzilla, but it's. But when you're simulating the fire department, the police department unrest, what is tax money doing? Are people unhappy?

[Naeema Reza]

My friend Ian has a list of reasons why he believes the world is a simulation. They include things like wells.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Wells? What's wrong with wells?

[Naeema Reza]

Just the idea that you, like, put down and there's water. Emergency broadcast system. Just like things observable phenomenon that seem odd and simulation. Like for me, like all things drilling are that.

It's like.

Reminds me of being in a video game where like Mario Kart, like, you know, Mario hits the thing and then a mushroom comes out and he gets bigger. That seems like we're living in a simulation. Just the natural.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I see. So he's saying there's no law in the universe that says if you dig, you get water. So when you dig, you get water. Clearly, somebody put it there. Oh, I need some energy. Let's put oil there.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah, exactly like, oh, let's put the.

Sludge into a car.

It will power a car. I mean, it's kind of odd. Like the whole thing is odd.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so it's like Minecraft where you just. There's stuff there and you do it and you build a little world.

[Naeema Reza]

See, Chuck, we don't even need weed. Okay, that's the thing. But how would we find out if we are in a simulation? How would we know?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

There are ways. Okay, one has been suggested. So gamma ray bursts. These are pulses of gamma rays from the universe. That some are higher energy than others.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And if you find it's the highest energy of anything we've ever measured of anything. If we find an edge to that, we're above that. There's no more that could be the edge of the simulation. Because you can't simulate something to infinity. You have to put some edges on it.

[Naeema Reza]

Right.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Like the Truman Show. It looks like a sky and clouds. But he goes out There and then it's a wall.

[Naeema Reza]

Right.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

He hits the wall. Up until then it was fine.

[Naeema Reza]

Right.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

But if you explore this is what exploration does, it probably annoys the programmers.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Because we're reaching for the edge of what you thought we would ever acquire.

[Naeema Reza]

So then Mars could be good.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Good as what?

[Naeema Reza]

Good because it pushes the edge.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Sure.

[Naeema Reza]

Or it could just be fall into the line of the simulation. They want us to go there.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

The simulation would not need. You would not want it, if you are the simulator, to simulate everything if no one was looking at it. If I'm digging, you only simulate what I'm digging to in the spot where I'm digging. I don't have to simulate it over there because you're not digging over there. So that greatly improves the computing power of the simulation when you localize it to only places where people are granting it attention. Here's a way to consider this. When we look in the universe, in the search for intelligent life, that comes with a big assumption that whatever we find would agree that we are intelligent. But who. Who declared that we're intelligent?

[Naeema Reza]

Ourselves?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

We did.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

What? What? Okay. And what's the closest species to humans?

[Naeema Reza]

Monkeys.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Chimpanzees.

[Naeema Reza]

Chimpanzees?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. How smart is a chimp? It's 1% DNA difference between us. We have the James Webb Space Telescope and philosophy and art and music. They have none of it.

[Naeema Reza]

Right.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Stack boxes and reach a banana. Now, if you're religious, you might say what a difference that 1% make. Makes we're special.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Or you take another view. Maybe the difference between stacking boxes and reaching a banana and the James Webb Space Telescope is as small.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah. It's like a 1 to 3% as.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

That 1% you say. Oh, come on, Tyson. Well, imagine because our toddlers can stack boxes and bananas. So now imagine a life form that's 1% beyond us in the universe.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

On that same intelligence scale, what would we look like to them?

[Naeema Reza]

We look like chimpanzees.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

We would look like chimpanzees.

[Naeema Reza]

Yes.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Our most brilliant achievements would be accomplished by their toddlers. Little alien Timmy comes. Oh. What did you do today from school? Oh, I composed a sonnet and derived the principles of calculus. That's put it on the refrigerator door.

[Naeema Reza]

That's so sad.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

So my point is, they could have created Earth as a literal Aquarian terrarium for their own amusement, with us as life forms upon it. And we would never know until we hit the edge.

[Naeema Reza]

Until we hit the edge. And then maybe we would find Out.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Unless they're so smart they know we're not even going to look for the edge.

[Naeema Reza]

Okay. You've been so generous with your time, so I'm going to try to get you out of here. We're going to do a lightning round. Love lightning rounds. And I'll keep the questions. Lightning.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

My favorite color is purple.

[Naeema Reza]

Okay, great. Why are you so good at communicating? Or actually better? Why do other scientists suck at communicating? They do. I'm sorry, not all of them, but.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Some valued in the field. There's no test for it in the PhD. Yeah, that's like saying why do construction workers suck at communicating?

[Naeema Reza]

It's not, it's not core to the function.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

It's not part of the, it's not part of the job. And so. Okay, so. And I would say some fraction of my colleagues, maybe higher than in the population, are on the, on the spectrum. And when you're on the spectrum, I don't care about you.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I have my own thoughts and I care about my lab equipment. And so you can't put a camera in front of that person and expect them to be cheery eyed and smiley with eyebrows. You can't expect that.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And I, while I'd rather be in the lab.

[Naeema Reza]

Ouch.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Thanks.

[Naeema Reza]

Thanks, Dr. Tyson.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

You know.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah, no offense.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, I'd rather be in the lab, but I'd be irresponsible if I never.

[Naeema Reza]

Left it as an educator and having this value of being able to communicate. How do you assess our relationship to fact and the skepticism around science and expertise right now?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, it'll just implode society and then we'll recover from it eventually. I think the United States is good at reacting to perceived threats. There are other countries that do not have this problem of the mistrust of science and we'll just watch them ascend economically because innovations in science and technology are the engines of tomorrow's economy. In every sector, including things like farming, we make more food on less land with fewer farmers than ever before. It's because of science. So we'll just watch other countries rise up. And I think we have more to fall before we realize that. And it's sad, but you know, I'm trying to do all I can to prevent it. It's hard.

[Naeema Reza]

The communication helps, I think.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. So here's how I protect my ego. I say to myself, as bad as it is, maybe it would be much worse if I were not doing my thing. That's what I say.

[Naeema Reza]

That's why we can't let you time Travel and undo yourself because then you wouldn't be able to hear be here in teachings. You updated and re released your book Merlin's Tour of the Universe. Merlin's Tour of the Universe brought it to the 21st century, 35 years between its publication and its update. In that time, we discovered a lot of things. The Hubble telescope. What in the next 35 years are we going to discover? What are you likely to think?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Well, we have a good handle on that because budgets get allocated, space probes get designed. We have a decadal survey that we invoke and that guides us in the decades that follow. So I'd like to know if there's life anywhere on Mars, even below the surface. I want to know if there's life swimming in Jupiter's moon Europa, which has a frozen outer shell, an ocean of liquid water that's been liquid for billions of years. There's more water there than all the water in Earth's oceans. So I think the question about life in the universe, microbial or otherwise, will be answered in the next 30 years by NASA.

[Naeema Reza]

All right, last question for every guest I have on the show is what do you not know? What is Neil DeGrasse Tyson dumb about, if anything?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Oh, anytime I'm in the company of someone who knows anything that I don't know, that's all I want to talk about.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. I have a curiosity of everything that I don't know. And if they're an expert on, like, cricket legs or.

[Naeema Reza]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Or they're a chef or they're all. I'm all there.

[Naeema Reza]

Must be very frustrating for you to be a guest then.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. Yes, it is, because then everyone asks me questions.

[Naeema Reza]

Right.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And I'm. And I. And I. I don't mind that because I'm an educator, but that's not my preferred dinner party.

[Naeema Reza]

Right.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Well, sit me next to someone who's got. I don't care. They could be a preacher. They could be an oil driller. I've got questions.

[Naeema Reza]

Okay, give me a question, Something you want to know that you wish that you could go to a dinner party tonight and sit next to someone who could answer. What's a specific question?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Oh, let's say it's a construction worker.

[Naeema Reza]

Okay.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

How did they get the crane to the top of the building?

[Naeema Reza]

How did they get the crane?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

It was a crane at the top. I didn't see them put it up there. It's 50 stories up. There's a crane there.

[Naeema Reza]

There's probably a crane left or something.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I've never Seen it. I would ask them, do you think.

[Naeema Reza]

That in another universe, somewhere out there, there's a Neil DeGrasse Tyson that knows this in the infinite universe?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I mean, it's just these are things.

[Naeema Reza]

There could be a construction worker, Neil DeGrasse Tyson in another planet.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Sure. That, that, that Neil would certainly know the answer to that question because the curiosity would be all up in it.

[Naeema Reza]

Thank you so much, Neil, for doing this. I so appreciate it.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Oh, sure.

[Naeema Reza]

I feel less tangled now. Thanks to you.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Your mental roadways have been unraveled.

[Naeema Reza]

Thank you. Thank you for that service.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

You have it anytime.

[Naeema Reza]

All right. That conversation with Neil DeGrasse Tyson just definitely untangled my mind a little bit or it totally bent it out of shape. I'm not sure. I have a lot of processing to do. But three quick reflections on that. One, on this question of if we're living in a simulation, I found Neil's answer, answer to that to be beautifully scientific and mathematical in some way. Like there's no evidence against it and there's potentially some evidence for it. So it's possible. And I found even more compelling his answer to the second question of how would we know? This kind of testing of the edges of the simulation to see if it breaks it is hugely destabilizing for me to think about. Second. And on the subject of destabilizing, I was really sad by Neil's answer about our growing distrust and skepticism about the science. I had hoped for something more hopeful, but he instead was like, well, we might implode. As a society, we have a lot further to fall. That just sucks, because if you think about, you know, other parts of that conversation, the great leaps we've made as a society, our ability to kind of double or triple our lifespan, our ability to detect and deflect asteroids, I mean, these are huge innovations that relied on a belief in science, an investment in science. It's hard to think that we're going to let those things go. Thirdly, and on a much lighter note, I want to make a plea to the negative gravity matter funders around the world. Whatever universities or researchers are doing this. I, I mean, the idea of wormholes like these Rick and Morty guys have to just, like, avoid airports entirely. And to have food delivered into my refrigerator sounds like the best thing ever. It also is really kind of trippy. Really trippy. And if we get there, I'm going to know for sure that we're in a simulation. That's it for this week of smart girl dumb questions. I'm gonna go find a wormhole and I hope you'll be back with me next Friday. Today's show was produced with Sick Bird Productions, Jade Watson, Diana Dasta and Kes Agnew with additional editing by Holly Thiel. Our theme music is by David Kahn. We taped at WTF Media Studios in Soho with Tiana. Special thanks to my brand partner Tinder. Download Tinder and you can expand your horizons beyond the zodiacs you usually date. Thank you Neil Degrasse Tyson for that service of expanding my horoscope chart. I would love to get your comments about if we're living in a simulation, I want to hear your dumb questions. Please email me. I'm naimaraza101mail.com you can also leave a comment if you're watching on YouTube or listening on Spotify or watching on Spotify and leave a review if you're on Apple or anywhere else. I want to hear from you. Thanks for listening and I'll see you next week at Smart Girl Dub Questions.