Cosmic Queries – Black Hole Escape

Summary

StarTalk Radio: Cosmic Queries – Black Hole Escape

Host: Neil deGrasse Tyson
Co-Host: Chuck Nice
Release Date: July 8, 2025

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Overview: In this episode of StarTalk Radio titled "Cosmic Queries – Black Hole Escape," Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-host Chuck Nice delve into a series of listener-submitted questions that explore the enigmatic phenomena of black holes, gravitational waves, and the fundamental workings of our universe. Balancing scientific rigor with humor, the duo navigates complex topics to make them accessible and engaging for all listeners.

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1. Introduction to Cosmic Queries

The episode kicks off with Neil and Chuck introducing the "Cosmic Queries" segment, a grab bag of questions sourced from their audience. This format encourages curiosity and allows listeners to engage directly with groundbreaking scientific concepts.

Neil deGrasse Tyson [01:18]: "Coming up on StarTalk, Cosmic Queries. Grab bag."

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2. Listener Question: Gravitational Waves and the Double Slit Experiment

Questioner: Smitty West from Ojai, California
Timestamp: [03:01]

Smitty poses a fascinating question about the nature of gravity, especially in light of LIGO's detection of gravitational waves. He inquires whether it's possible to "aim" these waves at a double-slit setup akin to Thomas Young's famous experiment and what implications that might have for our understanding of wave-particle duality.

Smitty West: "...could you somehow aim those waves at a double slit like the Thomas young experiment of 1801? And what would it show?"

Neil's Response: Neil commends the ingenuity of the question but admits the limitations of current understanding.

Neil deGrasse Tyson [04:07]: "That is a brilliant question. That takes what we know and takes some other bits that we know and tries to put them together into some future idea."

However, he concedes that the practical aspects of such an experiment are currently beyond our reach.

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3. Listener Question: Escaping a Black Hole Singularity with Time Travel

Questioner: David Robertson from Australia
Timestamp: [07:36]

David asks a speculative question about escaping the singularity of a black hole using a time machine: "If the singularity of a black hole is a moment in time, can I escape if I bring my time machine?"

Neil's Detailed Explanation: Neil offers a thought experiment involving higher dimensions and the nature of time as a fourth dimension to conceptualize potential escape mechanisms. He explains that while theoretically intriguing, such scenarios remain firmly in the realm of speculation.

Neil deGrasse Tyson [08:27]: "If you were in your enclosure and you had a time machine, you could go back in time before you."

He emphasizes the speculative nature of the idea and highlights the complexities involved in manipulating time and dimensions.

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4. Listener Question: The Impact of Neil and Chuck Never Meeting

Questioner: Jason Bennett
Timestamp: [24:31]

Jason poses a meta-question about the significance of Neil and Chuck's collaboration: "What would happen if Neil and Chuck never met? Would any of us or any of this exist?"

Neil's Reflection: Neil draws parallels to the concept explored in the TV series Connections, discussing the contingencies of life and the interconnectedness of events that lead to significant outcomes.

Neil deGrasse Tyson [25:03]: "What he would do is he would find chance encounters between historical figures that would lead to something that would be transformative in our civilization."

He concludes by emphasizing the importance of embracing the present and the connections that define our reality.

Neil deGrasse Tyson [28:43]: "I simply embrace what is rather than imagine what might have been."

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5. Listener Question: Human Understanding of the Universe

Questioner: Kylie Ronning from Kenora, Canada
Timestamp: [29:58]

Kylie asks, "If humans were to be graded on our understanding of the universe, what grade do you think we should receive? Or put another way, what percentage of the universe do you think we humans actually understand?"

Neil's Insightful Response: Neil provides a sobering yet honest assessment of humanity's knowledge, highlighting the vast unknowns that overshadow our current understanding.

Neil deGrasse Tyson [30:34]: "Oh, no, we know that precisely. We know enough about the universe to quantify our ignorance."

He explains that while humans have grasped about 4% of the universe's components, the remaining 96%—comprising dark matter and dark energy—remain mysterious.

Neil deGrasse Tyson [32:12]: "All the rest of that, it's agriculture. All the rest of that are the laws of physics that we know and understand."

Neil underscores the humility required in scientific exploration, acknowledging both our achievements and the immense frontiers that lie ahead.

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6. Listener Question: Adding an Extra Planet to Our Solar System

Questioner: Isabella and Sierra from Ogden, Utah
Timestamp: [43:57]

Isabella and Sierra inquire, "What would our solar system look like if we had an extra planet, either terrestrial or gaseous? And what would the implications of this be?"

Neil's Comprehensive Answer: Neil references his colleague Steve Soder's research, explaining that our solar system's current eight planets are the maximum that can stably coexist given the gravitational dynamics. Introducing an additional planet would likely lead to orbital disruptions, causing potential collisions or ejections from the solar system.

Neil deGrasse Tyson [45:00]: "If you put another planet in of any size, Jupiter, like or otherwise... gravitational fields of the other orbiting planets would wreak havoc on its orbit."

This stability has been achieved over billions of years, and the introduction of a new planet would upset this delicate balance.

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7. Listener Question: Creating a Black Hole by Spinning a Proton

Questioner: James Smith from Indianapolis
Timestamp: [47:04]

James ventures into theoretical territory with his question: "If I rotate a proton fast enough, can I create a black hole? And if so, how could Hawking radiation dissolve it?"

Neil's Deep Dive: Neil deconstructs the question, explaining that spinning objects do not inherently become black holes—the key factor is mass, not spin.

Neil deGrasse Tyson [48:06]: "Just because you spin something has nothing to do with whether it becomes a black hole. They're unrelated."

He then elaborates on Hawking radiation, describing how black holes emit radiation due to particle-antiparticle pair production near the event horizon, leading to gradual evaporation.

Neil deGrasse Tyson [51:15]: "As the black hole gets smaller and smaller, the wavelength of light it emits gets tinier and tinier... It eventually evaporates completely."

Neil touches upon the holographic principle, suggesting that information about matter entering a black hole might be preserved at the event horizon, though this remains a topic of intense debate.

Neil deGrasse Tyson [50:48]: "This is the holographic universe that people are talking about."

The discussion underscores the complexities and unresolved questions in black hole physics.

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Concluding Remarks

Neil and Chuck wrap up the segment by reinforcing the importance of curiosity and continuous inquiry in advancing our understanding of the universe.

Neil deGrasse Tyson [53:57]: "Everyone stay curious. It's the only way we grow as human beings and as a species."

The episode successfully bridges high-level astrophysical concepts with relatable analogies and witty banter, making complex ideas accessible to a broad audience.

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Notable Quotes:

• Neil deGrasse Tyson: “We know enough about the universe to quantify our ignorance.” [30:34]
• Chuck Nice: “If you just slightly change the charge on the electron, then all solid matter would just decoup. Would just disassemble.” [50:32]
• Neil deGrasse Tyson: “The equivalence principle... the foundation of general relativity.” [20:39]

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Key Takeaways:

• Gravitational Waves & Quantum Mechanics: The intersection of general relativity and quantum mechanics remains a rich field for exploration, with gravitational waves offering new avenues for experimentation.
• Black Holes & Information Paradox: The nature of black holes challenges our understanding of information retention and loss in the universe.
• Humanity's Scientific Horizon: While significant strides have been made, the majority of the universe remains enigmatic, underscoring the vast potential for future discovery.
• Solar System Stability: Our current planetary arrangement is finely balanced, and introducing new celestial bodies could disrupt this equilibrium.

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Conclusion: "Cosmic Queries – Black Hole Escape" is a testament to the enduring human quest for knowledge. Through listener engagement and thoughtful dialogue, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Chuck Nice illuminate the mysteries of the cosmos, inspiring listeners to look up and stay curious.

Transcript

[Marvel Studios Narrator]

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[Chuck Nice]

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Coming up on Stark Talk, Cosmic Queries. Grab bag.

[Chuck Nice]

Yes, Chuck.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Those make the best combinations of questions. Cause they come from everywhere. Yeah, but some of them people stay off the drugs.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay, that's good advice from this show. Yeah. Coming up, people, you'll see what he's.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Talking about on StarTalk. Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk be begins right now. This is Star Talk Cosmic Queries edition. In fact, it's not just cosmic queries. It's cosmic queries live. Chuck, I love doing this.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, yeah, man. Very cool.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's also cosmic queries on the road. I'm in LA right now. What are you doing? And do you have any public talks?

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, nice.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, tonight in Riverside and leading up to. On Friday, I'm in Oakland, and I get to Oakland often enough.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay. Make sure you wear that bulletproof vest.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Would you stop?

[Chuck Nice]

You know what I'm saying? Oakland ain't no joke, man.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Plus, you know, they're angry because they just lost three professional teams or something, you know?

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, man, it's terrible. I know. And the Raiders come on. Like, I still call them the Oakland Raiders. I don't care. Yeah, so they're especially ornery. Okay. Watch out.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So today is Grab Bag for us, right? What you got?

[Chuck Nice]

Here we go. I got them right here.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And if I don't know the Answer. I'll just say I don't know the answer. Just let be clear about that.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah, that's not going to happen. All right, here we go. This is Smitty West. Smitty, he says, hey, dudes. It's Smitty from Ojai, California, a new Patreon member.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Dude. It's dude.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, that's true. It's really like, dudes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah.

[Chuck Nice]

Hey, dudes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Thank you. That's surely what the man sounds like.

[Chuck Nice]

That's what he sounds like. Absolutely. New Patreon member with my very first question, and this is what he says. It seems gravity is the bastard force in nature. Speculation continue as to whether it's a force, a field, waves or particles. Now that LIGO has detected gravity waves, I was wondering, could you somehow aim those waves at a double slit like the Thomas young experiment of 1801? And what would it show? And would the slit. What would the slit be made of? Would it show particle wave duality? I'll share the Nobel prize with you guys.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That is a brilliant question. That takes what we know and takes some other bits that we know and tries to put them together into some future idea. And that's what good scientific thinking will do.

[Chuck Nice]

Way to go, Smitty.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. So my answer is I have no idea.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Because the waves, right? So let's back up for a minute. So we know there's the wave particle duality. You may have heard about that. And every particle in nature has a wavelength associated with it. And you can think of the particle as a particle, as a physical particle, or as a wave, depending on the experiment you conduct. Right, Right. It will manifest as a wave and will have wave interference. All right. If you have a wave and it can, you know, wave interference means if the crests and the troughs match up, it cancels out the wave. And if the crests crest and the crest match up, it'll amplify the wave.

[Chuck Nice]

Amplify.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You can watch phenomena, wave like phenomenon happen with these particles when you put them through the right experiment. So, Smitty, was it? Smitty.

[Chuck Nice]

Smitty, my man.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Smitty's asking the right question. We have gravitational waves, right? Is there a double slit experiment that we can imagine for which these would then reveal that they behave just the way other particles do? So if there's such a thing as quantum gravity, we expect there to be.

[Chuck Nice]

The graviton, which is the particle that would make up gravity, the particle.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So the graviton is to gravity what the photon is to light. To light. Or electromagnetic.

[Chuck Nice]

Electromagnetic forces.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so if there were such a thing as a graviton, how would you detect it?

[Chuck Nice]

Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And because that implies that you trapped it. Right, right. When you detect something, it existed over there. Now it's in my detector.

[Chuck Nice]

Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So how are you going to trap gravity? What does that even mean? Right, like, is the gravity in the box, like in the. Like in the Ghostbusters, you know?

[Chuck Nice]

Right, yeah. You have it down in. And now it's just in a little rectangular box.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's a little rectangle with a handle on it.

[Chuck Nice]

Right, with a handle on it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And what happens if you open it? What does the gravity do? So I can't even begin to think about what that would mean and how you would go about that experiment. So I'm going to have to put that in the. In the holding bin. So, yeah, I wish I had a better answer, but we learned from the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, one of his poems as a line, learn to love the questions themselves.

[Chuck Nice]

Ooh, now see, that's a man who had no answers. That's what that was. She was like, now, where have you been all night? He was like, sweetie, I'm just learning to love your question. I didn't want to talk about where I was. I just want to reflect on the beauty of the question you just asked me. That's. Yes. All right, here we go.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right, next. Thanks, Smitty, for that.

[Chuck Nice]

This is David Robertson. And David says, g', day, Neil and Lord. Nice. The butcher of Aussie accents. Oh, thanks. I really should read these ahead of time. David, he's Aussie, apparently. He is David Alberry here. He doesn't tell me where he's from in Australia, but he says, if the singularity of a black hole is a moment in time, can I escape if I bring my time machine? By the way, you guys have a great show.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. So the answer is yes. Yes. Yes. Okay, so let's back into that. All right.

[Chuck Nice]

I was gonna say. No, yeah, go ahead. I'm listening.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so let's have the surface of my desk, let's say. And I put an ant on the desk, and then I draw a box, you know, a rectangular box on the desk. It was a little door, okay? And I say, ant, go through the door. So it goes through the door and then I shut the door on it. Now, the ant has no access to a third dimension. Just in this example, the ant is living in the two dimensions of my desk surface. Just picture that.

[Chuck Nice]

So up, up does not exist for the ant.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

They don't even have a word for up in this example. You go left, you go right, forward, backwards.

[Chuck Nice]

That's it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right, that's it. So I open a little hinge door, the ant walks in and goes out, okay? Okay. So the ant looks trapped, but we higher dimensional beings live in three spatial dimensions. Say just step up and go. And step over the wall, okay? That's not really a prison for you. Just go into this extra dimension we have supplied for you, right? And then you can escape. And the ant is looking at us like, what are you smoking? Okay, fine. So now let's up that. Let's just up that to a prison cell, okay? Where it's not just a rectangle or square that surrounds you, okay? Wall on all sides, a floor, a ceiling, and four to four vertical walls, okay? Somebody opens the jail cell, puts you in and closes the jail cell.

[Chuck Nice]

I'm sorry. First of all, as a black man, I do not like where this is going.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's okay. All right, let me think of another. Okay? You're a place you don't want to be, okay? Okay. All right. And somebody locked the door. How's that? Is that a little better?

[Chuck Nice]

That's much better, thank you.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

A little better. Okay, so now you say, well, how do I get out? Well, a fourth dimensional person will just say, step into the fourth dimension, right? That's the way, which. Arguing with the ant, to step into the third dimension. You say, I don't have access to the fourth dimension, right? I don't even know what that means. I don't know what your word for, for up means when that takes you into your fourth dimension. So we can say that. All right, now you've all heard that time is a fourth dimension, right?

[Chuck Nice]

You heard that all the time.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's not a spatial dimension, but it's nonetheless a dimension, right? So if you were in your enclosure and you had a time machine, you could go back in time before you.

[Chuck Nice]

Were in the enclosure and escape the.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Room without ever opening the door.

[Chuck Nice]

Look at that.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay? So time acts like an authentic dimension for you if you want to be someplace other than where you are without having to go through whatever was the. The procedure to arrive there in the first place. So if you're in a black hole, it doesn't have to be a singularity in time, it just has to be a singularity. You're inside the black hole. Say, I don't like it here. Get me the hell out.

[Chuck Nice]

Right?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Go in your time machine and just simply return. Go back, back to the future. Just simply go back in time or forward in time, if you happen to know that there's a point where you were sprung loose by some, you know, higher dimensional being.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. By evaporation. When you get there, there's nothing. There's no universe like a Hawking, like Hawking radiation.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You don't want to be evaporated out of the black hole. That's no good.

[Chuck Nice]

That's true. Yeah. That's not good. Right. Maybe backwards is a better.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, you want to come out intact on that. So that would be how you would escape using time as a fourth dimension. You just go back before you. You entered the room. I know that's not as romantic or as fascinating as other sort of elements of physics, but it would work entirely for you.

[Chuck Nice]

Right, okay. Very cool. All right, well, way to go, David. Appreciate that. And thanks for disparaging my Aussie accent. I appreciate that.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Here we go. I think it's pretty good, but who am I to judge?

[Chuck Nice]

I'm just, I mean, you know, listen, it's. It's like, first of all, I mean, how many of me are you going to meet in Australia anyway?

[Marvel Studios Narrator]

So.

[Chuck Nice]

So I. So quite frankly, if I was in Australia and you met me and I was like, g', day, mate. You would be like that guy's bacon. So.

[Marvel Studios Narrator]

Marvel Studios presents the Fantastic Four First Steps. When four astronauts returned from space with extraordinary superpowers, they became Earth's greatest super family. They are the Fantastic Four. But when their world faces a colossal threat, they will find that their greatest strength is each other. Marvel Studios the Fantastic Four First Steps only in theaters July 25th. Get tickets now.

[Chuck Nice]

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[Marvel Studios Narrator]

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Hi, I'm Ernie Carducci from Columbus, Ohio. I'm here with my son Ernie because.

[Chuck Nice]

We listen to StarTalk every night and.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Support StarTalk on Patreon.

[Chuck Nice]

This is Star Talk with Neil Degrasse Tyson. All right. This is Ted Doyle. He says hello, Dr. Tyson. Lord Nice. I love you guys. And greetings from southern Idaho. I am Theodore.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Idaho.

[Chuck Nice]

Idaho. Lord Nice. If you're delivering the question, my name is pronounced Theodore. Okay. Really, bro? Come on. Anyway, he says that was uncalled for, by the way. Okay. He says, my question is, if a plasma propelled spacecraft is chugging along to its destination, at what point must it start deceleration? 50%, 70%, 90% to avoid crashing and burning at touchdown.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. So generally the way we think about this problem is it's a halfway point.

[Chuck Nice]

Halfway.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So in a plasma propulsion. Plasma is a gas where it's a charged gas. So in other words, the atoms that are normally complete with their protons in the nucleus and the appropriate number of electrons to match the protons. Because electrons are negatively charged. Protons are positively charged.

[Chuck Nice]

Positively charged or neutral.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. If you kick off the electrons now, the atom is no longer neutral and the whole gas will respond to magnetic fields. I mean, it's a fascinating phenomenon. The sun is a big ball of plasma. And that's why it's got these weird. It's got sunspots. It's not just a gas sitting there, minding its own business. There's phenomenon occurring in it. So a plasma rocket is set up so that it kicks out particles, charged particles, out the back. And so what does your spacecraft do in response?

[Chuck Nice]

It moves forward.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It goes forward, it recoils. Correct. So when you are a plasma, you can react to magnetic fields, electric fields, and you can do things with it and do very fascinating things, like you can become a star with a turbulent surface, such as is our sun. So with a plasma rocket, one of the charged particles is channeled so that it gets kicked out the back. And one of Newton's laws of motion is for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. Action was his word for force. So in this case, you kick something out the back, that there's momentum going out that way, you recoil in the other direction, your acceleration is slow.

[Chuck Nice]

Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. Because how much is your ship gonna recoil if you send an electron out the back. Right, right.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

However, you could do this. If it's a long journey, you just keep accelerating. Okay. And once you get an acceleration that you like, maybe 1G, then on the ship, your journey is at 1G. So you feel like you're standing on Earth.

[Chuck Nice]

Right, right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You don't need special exercise equipment to not lose your, your, your, your bone mass. You don't need special medical devices. You Know all because that.

[Chuck Nice]

That is the force that's being enacted upon you. Right?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. And Einstein made the brilliant observation that 1g on Earth from gravity is indistinguishable from a 1g acceleration in a rocket.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Indistinguishable. And we gotta go there because we're already there.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

80% there. You ready? Go for it. Ready for this? Okay, so if you're in a rocket and you're accelerating, it means every next moment you are traveling faster than the previous moment, right? So a constant acceleration means your speed.

[Chuck Nice]

Is increasing the entire time.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The entire time. Okay? So now watch. So if you take a beam of light and turn it on, on one side of the rocket and have it just cross the rocket, okay. You'd say, well, if the rocket isn't moving, it'll just go exactly across to the other side. Take a laser, just go straight line. But if the rocket is accelerating, it means the rocket is moving faster by the time the light got to the other destination than it was when the light was emitted. Which means the light will not hit the spot directly across where you turned on the laser, it'll hit slightly below because the whole rocket was accelerating. It was moving. Okay. Einstein said, that's interesting, because if accelerating a rocket is physically and mathematically and cosmically the same as gravity, then gravity ought to bend the path of light.

[Chuck Nice]

Damn.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Damn.

[Chuck Nice]

Wow. I mean, that's a serious leap.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yes, yes. It's called the equivalence principle.

[Chuck Nice]

Lovely.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The equivalence of gravitational and acceleration and physical acceleration through space.

[Chuck Nice]

Wow.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So I had to go there because I was too. We were too close to that.

[Chuck Nice]

That's a good thing. That. It's a good thing to go to.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was the equivalence principle in 1915 that Einstein put forth to become the general. The foundation of the general relativity. All right, so now watch. So. So here we are. So you get up your acceleration until you're going at one G. Okay. And so you're living on the back end of the rocket, okay. So all your couches and beds and things are up against the. That's where you. Or you're not on the sides because it's not a rotating rocket, Right. It's not like you could maybe, but if you're moving the whole thing and you're accelerating it, you're going to feel that. And so you're going to be walking around in the bottom of the rocket.

[Chuck Nice]

Right?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So the way we generally think of this problem is you accelerate at 1G, half the distance, right? Then you turn the ship around and decelerate at 1G.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Because for the other half the distance. And a deceleration is the same as an acceleration. You're just now walking on a different side of the ship.

[Chuck Nice]

Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. And there you have it. And you get to live in one G the entire way. And by the time you get there, you would arrive at the same. You would arrive at zero velocity. Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Because now you're slowing down with one G acting in the opposite direction it was before. So that's how we would think of these long trips with the acceleration that builds.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. That's a really cool thing. And it's.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And you arrive at zero velocity.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. The metric. There's a show, I think it's on Amazon, I'm not sure, but it's called the Expanse. And they make very good use of that principle in the show they show.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I've seen Expanse. Let me go back and remind myself of that.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. When you watch it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

A lot of good physics in the Expanse it is.

[Chuck Nice]

And one of the great physics points that they don't ever acknowledge but they show is a ship going towards a planet. And you're looking at the rockets in the front while it's going towards the planet.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yes. Because it's slowing down.

[Chuck Nice]

It's slowing down the whole time.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Correct. And you see ships turn around to reorient their rockets.

[Chuck Nice]

Exactly.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And you know what else they get? Correct? If you're in a 1G acceleration, you are not weightless at any time in that ship. Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

Exactly.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Whereas in the movie Ad Astra with Brad Pitt and Tommy Lee Jones. Okay. Just everybody in space was weightless even when they were firing their rockets. Everybody just floating around. I said, dudes, come on, please, please take some lessons from the Expanse.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, man.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So in the Expanse, just to catch people up. It's a futuristic tale where humans have populated the solar system.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. And we're still awful then.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We're still.

[Chuck Nice]

That's that just. There it is.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

There's the whole geopolitical or cosmopolitical dimension to this where the Belters appear. They're like the low class workers who are mining the asteroid belt. And then there's the.

[Chuck Nice]

The Martians who are very.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

But they're. They're physiologically different in ways that accommodate life on those places.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, man. That's very cool. I'm glad Ted asked the question. Theodore. Theodore. Okay. All right. Here is. This is Jason Bennett. And Jason says, you know, I've always wondered what would happen if Neil and Chuck never met. Would any of us or any of this exist.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Ooh. Okay, so.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, geez.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so I got. I have a reply.

[Chuck Nice]

Go ahead.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I think about this often. This is the contingencies of life. All right. There was a TV series. What was the dude's name? It was called Connections. Okay. Oh, I don't know. Well, yes, you do. He wrote a book called Connections. Then he had a very successful tv. It was a Brit, and so it sounded all, you know, erudite.

[Chuck Nice]

Welcome to Connections. It's like, you're right. I'm terribly pretentious. And that's what you actually like. Yeah, exactly.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So what he would do is he would find chance encounters between historical figures that would lead to something that would be transformative in our civilization. And then you say, that's cool. No, it's cool. I'm amazed he could assemble that many encounters.

[Chuck Nice]

And the whole show revolved around Kevin Bacon.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yes. Every show would land with Kevin Bacon.

[Chuck Nice]

We all know Kevin Bacon.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Exactly. So, right. If Chuck and I never met. And by the way, how do we meet Chuck? In the early days of StarTalk, we'd go trolling back when trolling was not a bad word. Trolling comedy clubs.

[Chuck Nice]

Correct.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And we would look to see who was in the open mic night because we know we wanted comedy as an element, as part of the DNA of what we were trying to create. And so we would invite comedians to come try out with us. Not so much a tryout, but just to have a. What do you call it when you. Just a meet and greet. No. Yeah, and they'll do a show with us, just to see. We'll feel them out. And so. And Chuck was one of such people, if memory serves. Is that your memory of this, too? Cause it's so long ago at this point.

[Chuck Nice]

It was 15 years ago, so, yeah, I mean, I think that was it. But somebody called me and said, Neil DeGrasse Tyson would like you to come to his office. And I thought it was my friend with me. I'm sorry. Oh, pardon my language. I forgot we're doing a show. Yeah. I thought it was a buddy of mine messing with me. And. Yeah, but then, yeah, that's what happened. And we met, and you were like, yeah, well, let's see if we can get you back in and just see how it works out. We'll do one show together.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So what's missing a little bit here in that retelling is you already had experience on radio.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah, I had years of experience in radio, so, you know, I was cheating compared to the other Comedians.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Comedians who were just sort of comedians. Right, right. You actually know how to flow a conversation. You know how to end a sentence so that the other person knows you just ended a sentence. It's time for them to start speaking. There's a whole dynamic there that would not otherwise be obvious. So that's how. That. So here's what you have to ask. And who's the person again, who's.

[Chuck Nice]

This is Jason Bennett.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so here's what he's gotta ask. Okay. He's gotta ask. It's not what would happen if you and I never met. It's what would happen had I met someone. That's an option. That's in the space of possibilities.

[Chuck Nice]

Well, it's. It's in the. It's in the slim space of possibilities.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So the people say, oh, look how lucky I am because this happened and I had this opportunity and I met this person in their life. It could be a career trajectory or. Or. Or loved one. And you will never know if your life could have been even better.

[Chuck Nice]

Correct.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So given that, it could go either way, because I said, I think about this often, I simply embrace what is rather than imagine what might have been. Because you can. Then you work with what is because that anchors you in reality.

[Chuck Nice]

Well, there you have it, Jason. What he just said is he settled for Chuck. Nice.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So.

[Chuck Nice]

That'S funny.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right, what else do you got?

[Chuck Nice]

Here we go. This is Kylie.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, wait, wait, wait. Let me back up for a sec. So with this fellow who had that show Connections, what he doesn't talk about in this same vein is if that connection wasn't made, would a different connection have been made that would have been a better outcome? Or would another connection have been made that would have had the same outcome?

[Chuck Nice]

Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

He's dangling you there, leaving you to think that the whole world exists on this delicate pathways of contingencies of who happened to meet whom without thinking, some progress in civilization would have been inevitable no matter who made it.

[Chuck Nice]

No matter who made it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right, exactly. So stay broad in how you think about contingencies. And then you. You lead a more sane life.

[Chuck Nice]

So true. I like it. I like it. This is Kylie Ronning who says hello, Dr. Tyson. Lord. Nice. Kylie from Kenora, Canada. Here.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Kylie from Kenora, Canada. Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah, exactly.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Sounds like a TV show.

[Chuck Nice]

It does. Kylie from Kenora, Canada. Yeah. By the way, Kylie, let me just say, on behalf of America, we're sorry. Okay? All right. Jesus. We're just so sorry. She says if humans were to be graded on our understanding of the universe. What grade do you think we should receive? Or put another way, what percentage of the universe do you think we humans actually understand?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, no, we know that precisely. We know enough about the universe to quantify our ignorance. How about that?

[Chuck Nice]

Wow, look at that.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's pretty good. That's good.

[Chuck Nice]

That's not bad. Yeah, I mean, honestly, it's like. It's better than being Dunning Kruger, you know what I mean? Like where we think we know everything and we really know nothing, we know enough to know that we are dumbasses. So that's pretty good.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so we now, by the way, we're still making discoveries, of course, and we're looking for a cure for cancer. So there are frontiers even within the realm of what we know. So I'm going to quantify our ignorance in a more profound way than just simply, do we know how to cure cancer? Okay. The fact is, we know that there's a thing called cancer, and it does what we don't want it to do in our bodies, and we have top people working on it. That's a frontier. But that's not the frontier I'm talking about because all of that is operating within the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology. Okay? All right, so now if you look at everything that we have mastery of, you know, the molecules and atoms and gravity and all of this, okay? And you look at what's driving the universe, everything you learn about in school in science, like I said, the laws of physics, chemistry, biology, evolution, planet forming, star forming, all of this is 4% of the universe.

[Chuck Nice]

Wow.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We see things going on in the universe. We can measure them, and we have no. No idea what it is. And the. And I'll tell you what is. It's dark matter and dark energy.

[Chuck Nice]

That's it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's it. Those two things are operating on our physical universe. And you can sort of weigh them, if you like, as to how consequential are these things in the universe that we call dark matter and dark energy. It is 96% of what's driving this universe, and we have no idea what's causing it. But the 4% we do know, that's life, that's civilization, that's transportation, that's skyscrapers, that's dams that we build. All the rest of that, it's agriculture. All the rest of that are the laws of physics that we know and understand. And so who knows what kind of profound advances will come about once we.

[Chuck Nice]

Know 5%, that's when we'll be smart.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So here's an Interesting thing. How do we know that even when we learn that other 96%, that that just doesn't simply put us on a new vista where we get to look out and see even more ignorance.

[Chuck Nice]

And that's probably what's going to happen.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I'm thinking, I'm thinking. And who is to say that we are intelligent enough to actually understand the universe? Here we are, human beings evolved on the plains of the Serengeti, just trying to not get eaten by lions. So we develop a sensibility for that. All right, A lion runs at you, you run the other direction, you climb up a tree. This is survival things. And now we're trying to contemplate the cosmos. This is a mismatch of physiology, of neurophysiology. And so the idea that we are smart enough to understand the universe, there's a little bit of hubris in there, I would say. And so, yeah, I mean, would an alien judge us as being intelligent? And I think not. Particularly when they see some, as you say, dumbass behavior.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, God, yeah. I mean, basically they would come here and say, these people are hell bent on destroying themselves. Like that would be the number one takeaway when you look at us as a species.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

They can't possibly be smart for that reason. If for no other.

[Chuck Nice]

If for no other. Yeah, yeah, right, right. All right, all right, here we go. This is the artist formerly known as James Smith. He says, hello, James Smith here from Indianapolis. So, Neil, can't we agree that it's Brian Greene's fault that the universe will not end in fire, but in ice? He's supposed to be figuring out what's causing the expansion of universe, or do we need to let him off the hook and become a level three civilization on the Kardashev scale to do that? Love you guys and have a great day. Man.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

He's. He's calling out Brian Green.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah, I'll tell you, he's. I don't know what you. I don't know what Brian did to you, man.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So, yeah, we. The expansion of the universe derives initially from the Big Bang, but there's also this dark energy phenomenon in the vacuum of space that is accelerating the expansion of the universe against the wishes of gravity. All the collective gravity of all the galaxies in the universe, even the dark matter, what we call dark matter, because that has gravity. All of that wants to slow down the universe and maybe one day re collapse us. However, we have a dark energy phenomenon going on that is accelerating the expansion of the universe, and we don't know what's causing it. We don't understand it. We want to. And you can't blame Brian Greene for that. And as we expand, the temperature of the universe drops, hence the notion the universe. You know? So, Chuck, ask, how will the universe end?

[Chuck Nice]

Neil, how will the universe end?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Not in fire, but in ice. Yes. Right. So, yeah, you can't blame Brian Greene. Don't shoot the messenger there, because we need the messengers.

[Chuck Nice]

Very cool.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Now, about the level three civilization. So let's remind people that there is a. Was he a physicist? Kardashev. No relation to Kim. Okay, so Kardashev imagined. Not imagined. He thought about and wrote about levels of civilization measured not by how smart you are, not by how nice you are, but by what means of energy do you command? Do you control?

[Chuck Nice]

Wow.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. And a level one civilization controls all the energy manifesting on your home planet. So that would be like the hurricanes and the tornadoes and the earthquakes and the tides. We would somehow find a way to tap that energy and harness it. To harness it for our own means. For our own diabolical. For our own means. That'd be a level one civilization. A level two would capture all the energy from its host star. We capture some of it with our, like, solar panels on the roof or whatever.

[Chuck Nice]

Exactly.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Sunlight is hitting every square inch of Earth's surface. Okay, well, when it's not hitting our surface, it's hitting the tops of clouds. But Earth is intersecting a cross section of the sun's energy that would otherwise go into empty space. But Earth was in the way.

[Chuck Nice]

Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Well, how about that same amount of energy that went by Earth and went above and below in every other direction in space? That's a lot of sunlight. So if you build a system where you capture all of that energy of your host star, channel it down to your civilization. Now you have a badass civilization, level two.

[Chuck Nice]

Wow. That's level two.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's only level two. Right. And I think. Yeah, level two. And now you build a similar device that captures all the energy of all the stars in your galaxy. Okay, that'd be a level three. And a level four would be all the energy of all the galaxies of all the universe. That'd be level four. And there's a level five, I think.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah, that's called God.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

God on the Kardashian scale.

[Chuck Nice]

That's it. God on the Kardashian scale. That's all there is to it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's crazy. Do we command the energy of hurricanes or tornadoes or. No, we run away from them. We buy toilet Paper and run away from earthquakes and tornadoes and volcanoes, and so we're not even at level one civilization, we're level zero.

[Chuck Nice]

Look at that. Yeah, we're number zero.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So if we control all the energy of all the universe, maybe even the dark energy, then we can control the expansion of the universe. Right, for our own needs, for our own desires.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah, that's too much power for anybody to have, especially us.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No, no, but that'd be the future where you have wars between the universes in the multiverse.

[Chuck Nice]

That's true. Yeah. I don't, you know, I'm not, I'm not joining that army. I don't care. I'm not doing it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

But at that point, all the life forms in our universe would be aligned with each other because our enemies would be whole other universes if we're all level four civilizations.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah, but you know, the way it normally works is you're working with the people to defeat a common enemy while you're plotting to destroy them as soon as you defeat the common enemy.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's the playbook.

[Chuck Nice]

That's the playbook, you know, so.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, the human playbook. Yeah, but here would be interesting, you know, how to mess with another universe if you have the power, maybe level five power to change the laws of physics.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay, see, you're, See, now you're just diabolical.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No, no, thank. Because if you just slightly change the charge on the electron, then all solid matter would just decoup. Would just disassemble.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, you just thanos a whole universe. Oh, man, that's crazy. That's, that's insane.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I, by the way, I don't generally have those. I'm a peaceful person. This is the, that question drove me to these insane thoughts. Yeah.

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[Chuck Nice]

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[Shankar Vedantam]

What do you want to be remembered for? Is this really all there is? Asking big questions about your life can feel overwhelming. But the Hidden Brain podcast, hosted by me, Shankar Vedantam, is here to help you get started. All through the month of July, Hidden Brain will bring you our you 2.0 series with a special focus on purpose, passion and meaning. If you're feeling adrift, alone or burned out, this series is for you. Join us.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So Chuck, time for two or three more. So what do you have?

[Chuck Nice]

All right, here we go. This is Isabella. She says hi, Dr. Tyson and Lord. Nice. Isabella and Sierra from Ogden, Utah. Our question is what would our solar system look like if we had an extra planet, either terrestrial or gaseous? And what would the implications of this be? Can a planet that can't be demoted RIP Pluto 1930-2006, thanks to Neil Tyson.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Implicate me that way? I was an accessory. I didn't pull the trigger.

[Chuck Nice]

All right, so anyway, but I did.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Drive the getaway car. I did drive the getaway car.

[Chuck Nice]

So Planet X. I mean, every couple of things. I kind of feel like we get this in the news every once in a while.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, here's my colleague who works just up on the sixth floor of the ROE Center. My office is on the fifth floor, which is not where I am right now. I'm in a hotel in Los Angeles. Steve Soder, who by the way co wrote the original Cosmos with Carl Sagan and the first of my two Cosmos, he co wrote those. Okay, brilliant guy, brilliant in history and science and he's fundamentally a solar system guy. He wrote a research paper that demonstrated that the Planets we now have Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. In their locations is the maximum number of planets you can fit into the orbital space of this solar system. If you put another planet in of any size, Jupiter, like or otherwise.

[Chuck Nice]

The.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Gravitational fields of the other orbiting planets would wreak havoc on its orbit. And it would either crash into a preexisting planet, crash into the sun, or be ejected from the solar system.

[Chuck Nice]

Thrown out. Thrown out.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So we are so mature as a system, four and a half billion years, five billion years old, that all the shaken out that was gonna happen has happened in the solar system.

[Chuck Nice]

Gotcha.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So if we're gonna find another planet, it would have to be way beyond Neptune, where there isn't this orbital dynamics creating the stability zones of what we now accept as the eight planet solar system.

[Chuck Nice]

Gotcha. Gotcha. So it's all about the pulling and the tugging. And ours because it's happening at all times, it's always happening. So ours is done. All the pulling and the tugging. It is what it is.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. There's some long term instabilities we think like on billions of years time scales, but by and large we're stable. And it would go unstable if you just brought in another planet. So all this searching for another planet, Planet nine, planet X, that's all happening well beyond, even deep into the Kuiper Belt.

[Chuck Nice]

Right, right. It would have to. Okay, Very cool, man. I love that question. That was wonderful. This is aspiring scientific journalist, also a cow, who writes. That was the title there. It says if I rotate a proton fast enough, can I create a black hole? And if so, let's assume I spin it to create an event horizon of 1 meter or 1 km. How could a Hawking radiation dissolve it? Or will it just go all at once? Where does the spin go? And I'm going to put on the end of that. My man, you need to get some help for your drug problem. Okay? It's all fun and games until somebody blows out a mind. And a mind is a terrible thing to waste, sir. Okay. Anyway.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. I have to reassemble the bits and pieces of that question into a question that has sort of physical meaning and coherence. So just because you spin something has nothing to do with whether it becomes a black hole. They're unrelated.

[Chuck Nice]

It's all about mass. Mass is all about mass.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's all about mass. That's a B. A proton is not a fundamental particle. Okay. A proton is composed of quarks. And so let's create that question, reassemble that question in a way that has meaning. If a black hole is evaporating by Hawking radiation. And let me remind people, the gravitational field just outside the event horizon has enough energy to spontaneously create particles, a matter antimatter pair. And one particle drops into the black hole, the other one escapes. Where did this mass come from? It came from the gravitational field of the black hole. And that gravitational field comes from all the mass that is the black hole. Damn, bro. This is a way. I don't. This is the way that the matter that's inside.

[Chuck Nice]

It'S so fricking creepy, man. This is how black holes evaporate. It's crazy. Yes, it's crazy. You have no idea, people.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And the weird thing is, for me, because this was an emergent phenomenon that I then learned from my colleagues who work in this space, that if you inventory the particles that show up from the evaporated gravitational field.

[Chuck Nice]

It is the.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Same inventory of particles that the black hole ate over its entire life. Okay? So somehow the gravitational field remembered what the black outside the event horizon remembered what got eaten and is living inside the event horizon.

[Chuck Nice]

So. Oh, wait a minute. I just. Okay, so could that mean that maybe when the stuff falls in, the information stays at the event horizon?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. Well, so this is the idea. This is the holographic universe that people are talking about, that the event horizon is an imprint of all information that had passed through that boundary. All the information is contained.

[Chuck Nice]

I don't know what to believe anymore in anything. Hold on, hold on. I'll be right back.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay?

[Chuck Nice]

Okay. All right. Yes, These are edibles. Damn it. That's what they are.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You just went and got edible.

[Chuck Nice]

I just went and got myself an edible. And. Yeah. That's insane.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so now here's what's going on in the original Hawking radiation paper. What he was able to show is that the light that is the particle comes out. But you can associate a temperature of the black hole, okay, Based on. And temperatures at a temperature you radiate. Okay. So he was able to analogize the evaporation of a black hole with a black hole of a certain temperature that's radiating.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay, wow.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So as the black hole gets smaller and smaller, the radiative light, the wavelength gets smaller and smaller. And the wavelength is commensurate with the size of the black hole. Okay? That's the wavelength of light that's coming out of the system. So as the black hole gets smaller and smaller and smaller, the wavelength of light gets tinier and tinier and tinier. And when you have tiny wavelengths of light. That light has higher and higher energy.

[Chuck Nice]

Energy.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right, energy. So you go from visible light to ultraviolet light, which will mess with your skin, to X rays, which will mess with your DNA, to gamma rays, turn you into the Hulk. Okay? So what he showed was that as the black hole evaporates, it evaporates faster and faster and the energy level of light that it emits gets higher and higher and higher, and it eventually. It's a runaway process and it's just a brief pop of light of pure gamma rays, and then the black hole is completely disappeared. Gone. Gone. So my point is, if you'd still like your proton. Your proton is composed of quarks. That's what's fundamental. Okay? And so as the black hole is evaporating and you're holding onto your last proton and its quarks, I'm saying that's the last one, you know, turn off the lights when you leave, all right? And it'll just evaporate back into our universe.

[Chuck Nice]

Crazy. Wow. Damn. That's a blova. That's a black hole nova.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

A blova.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay, Yeah, I tried. I tried, man. I tried. Okay. I mean, yeah, but I mean, that's crazy.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. So I think that's all the time we have.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, man, this was so much fun. I tell you, these people, they come up with some great questions, man.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right, so we gotta land this plane. So, Chuck, there it is. Another installment of Cosmic Queries.

[Chuck Nice]

This was a good one, man. I liked it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It was a good one. It went everywhere with some good people out there asking questions. Everyone stay curious. Is the only way we grow as human beings and as a species, right?

[Chuck Nice]

Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

This has been Cosmic Query's grab bag. Chuck, always good to have you.

[Chuck Nice]

Always a pleasure.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right, Neil Degrasse Tyson bidding you to keep looking up.

[Shankar Vedantam]

Are you on the right track? What do you want to be remembered for? Is this really all there is? Asking big questions about your life can feel overwhelming. But the Hidden Brain podcast, hosted by me, Shankar Vedantam, is here to help you get started. All through the month of July, Hidden Brain will bring you our your 2.0 series with a special focus on purpose, passion and meaning. If you're feeling adrift, alone or burned out, this series is for you. Join us at Designer Shoe Warehouse.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

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[Chuck Nice]

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

From building pillow forts to building a.

[Chuck Nice]

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