Cosmic Queries – Expanding Bubble Universes

Summary

StarTalk Radio: Cosmic Queries – Expanding Bubble Universes

Host: Neil deGrasse Tyson
Co-host: Chuck Nice
Date: January 13, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of StarTalk Radio is a Cosmic Queries "Grab Bag" edition, where Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedian Chuck Nice tackle listener-submitted questions spanning black holes, the nature of the sun, interstellar travel, the Big Bang, relativity, quantum gravity, warp drives, and multiverse theory. The episode blends robust explanations, speculative science, sharp wit, and pop culture references, making for an entertaining yet insightful journey through some of the cosmos’s biggest open questions.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Firing Nukes at the Sun & Fusion vs. Fission

Timestamps: 02:10 – 12:33

• Listener Q: Did the science fiction of "Sunshine" (reviving the Sun with Earth's nuclear material) get anything right?
• Explained Concepts:
  • Fusion (what powers the Sun) vs. fission (what powers most of our nukes).
  • Throwing all of Earth’s nukes into the Sun would be “like throwing spitballs”—utterly insignificant to the Sun’s scale.
  • Practical way to prolong the Sun's life: stir up hydrogen through induced convection (not possible with today’s tech).
  • Approaching the Sun requires shielding and a clever heat management strategy (“rotisserie” method).
  • Notable Quote:
    "You want to try to start the sun with nuclear fission? It's like trying to jumpstart a jet engine with a kitchen match." – Neil deGrasse Tyson (04:44)
  • Highest melting point element: carbon (diamonds).
• Memorable Moment: Jokes about “diamond spaceships” piloted by hip-hop stars and Elizabeth Taylor.

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2. Generational Spaceflight & Technological Leapfrogging

Timestamps: 12:33 – 16:38

• Listener Q: If we send a generation ship to another star, will it be overtaken by faster ships later?
• Key Points:
  • Yes, future advances might overtake earlier missions—unless we develop “warp drives” and can dock/rescue earlier travelers.
  • Sometimes, it’s preferable to fix problems on Earth rather than embark on risky, interstellar journeys.
  • Notable Quote:
    "Whatever was the problem with Earth that you're trying to escape? Just fix it." – Chuck Nice (15:04)
  • If a planet is habitable, it probably has life already, possibly dangerous and unfamiliar.

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3. Visualizing the Big Bang for Children

Timestamps: 18:19 – 19:56

• Listener Q: How should we visualize the Big Bang?
• Explanation:
  • The “balloon” analogy: The universe’s expansion is like inflating a balloon with galaxies drawn on its surface.
  • Emphasized that the Big Bang isn’t an explosion in space, but of space.
  • Notable Quote:
    "Our three spatial dimensions are flattened into the surface of a balloon, and the time dimension is the distance from the tie." – Neil deGrasse Tyson (19:20)

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4. Relativity: Shrinking, Mass, and Time at High Speeds

Timestamps: 20:55 – 23:17

• Listener Q: Does moving near light speed make you infinitely small? Do you become light?
• Explained Concepts:
  • Length contraction only in direction of motion; mass increases, time slows from outside observer's point of view.
  • No, you don’t become light; only massless particles (“photons”).
  • Tidal forces inside black holes explained (“spaghettification”).
  • Notable Quote:
    "You don't shrink, but you will be measured to get sort of thinner front to back as your speed increases." – Chuck Nice (21:19)
  • Humorous segment about noble photons landing on butts vs. detectors.

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5. Black Hole Slingshots and Speed Limits

Timestamps: 25:05 – 30:18

• Listener Q: Can you use a gravitational slingshot around a black hole to exceed light speed?
• Explained Concepts:
  • Gravitational slingshot relies on stealing momentum from moving objects (e.g., planets), not black holes per se.
  • Nothing with mass can reach or exceed speed of light.
  • Getting close to a supermassive black hole’s event horizon won’t rip you apart—yet.
  • Notable Quote:
    "If you're made of material substance, you can't go the speed of light. The slingshot just adds energy, not enough to break the rules." – Neil deGrasse Tyson (29:36)

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6. Is Our Universe Inside a Black Hole?

Timestamps: 30:23 – 32:15

• Listener Q: Does the expanding universe contradict the 'universe in a black hole' theory?
• Physicist’s take:
  • Not all black holes are currently "feeding," so lack of visible infall doesn’t rule it out.
  • Black hole evaporation via Hawking Radiation would take unfathomably long for a universe-sized black hole.

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7. Warp Drives, Subluminal Travel, and Acceleration

Timestamps: 32:38 – 34:15

• Listener Q: On the practicality and physics of sub-light ("subluminal") warp drives.
• Points Made:
  • Warp drives theoretically manipulate space-time, could go slower OR faster than light.
  • Notable Quote:
    "The Alcubierre drive is a way to go faster than light, but there's nothing in principle preventing you from dialing it down and going slower." – Neil deGrasse Tyson (33:54)

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8. Nature of the Graviton & Quantum Gravity

Timestamps: 35:37 – 39:12

• Listener Q: If the graviton is not quantum, could black holes be gravitons in higher dimensions?
• Explanation:
  • Gravity as spacetime curvature (Einstein) vs. force carrier particle (graviton).
  • Gravitational waves have been detected, but gravitons remain hypothetical.
  • Skepticism about equating black holes with gravitons.
  • Chuck: "It’s usually a mistake to use something you don’t understand to explain something you don’t understand."

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9. Bubble Universes & Multiverse Collisions

Timestamps: 39:50 – 42:04

• Listener Q: As our universe/bubble expands, can it merge with another bubble universe? What might happen?
• Insight:
  • Different bubbles may have different laws of physics—could be catastrophic for anything crossing over.
  • Notable Quote:
    "If you visit another universe bubble where the electron’s charge is different, you could just explode or collapse." – Neil deGrasse Tyson (40:10)
  • Fun speculation: could dark matter or dark energy be signatures of another universe passing through?

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10. Simulation Theory & Gravitational Time Dilation

Timestamps: 43:13 – 45:11

• Listener Q: Is time dilation near gravity like a video game’s frame-rate drop in complex regions—evidence we’re in a simulation?
• Take: It’s a fun metaphor. In simulation theory, you’d expect only observed portions of the universe to be fully rendered.

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11. Black Hole Information Paradoxes

Timestamps: 45:12 – 47:23

• Listener Q: Could a quantum computer/AI be sent into a black hole to retrieve information about quantum gravity?
• Answer: Once past the event horizon, information can’t be retrieved—only Hawking Radiation leaks it out gradually in an unrecoverable way.

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12. Tachyons and Hypothetical Faster-Than-Light Particles

Timestamps: 47:24 – 51:12

• Listener Q: If we could accelerate particles faster than light, would they travel backward in time?
• Explanation:
  • Tachyons are hypothetical particles that would travel backward in time; never observed.
  • “You can approach the speed of light but can’t reach or exceed it if you have mass.”
• Notable Quote:
  "If you could, the particles would go backwards in time. That’s tachyons—but we’ve never found them." – Neil deGrasse Tyson (49:38)
• Humorous aside on diamonds vs. cubic zirconia as marriage advice—classic Chuck Nice.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Neil deGrasse Tyson on photon travel:
  "The photon is created in an atom and is absorbed wherever it’s headed… instantly—to it." (22:45)
• Chuck Nice on fixing problems rather than fleeing Earth:
  "Just fix it. How about that?" (15:06)
• On warp drives and Star Trek:
  "Even in Star Trek, they have warp one through nine. Warp factor one is the speed of light." – Neil deGrasse Tyson (34:15)
• On quantum computers in black holes:
  "It ain't coming out… There's the Hawking radiation, but it pulls it out as a striptease." – Chuck Nice (47:03)
• On science fiction universes:
  "If you visit another universe bubble where the electron’s charge is different, you could just explode or collapse." – Neil deGrasse Tyson (40:10)

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Conclusion

This episode offers a whirlwind tour of cosmic riddles posed by curious listeners and answered with both rigor and comedic flair. Listeners are reminded of the scale and mysteries of the cosmos while being entertained by the hosts' banter—even as questions brush up against the limits of current physics. The grab bag format covers a vast scope, leaving one both more informed and even more in awe of the universe.

Listener encouragement from Neil: "As long as you keep sending them, we’ll keep doing it." (51:28)

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Keep Looking Up!

Transcript

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

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[Commercial Announcer]

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[Chuck Nice]

This was a grab bag and everybody keeps asking about black holes. It is. They got black hole on the brain.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And none of them have pronounceable names.

[Chuck Nice]

What? Chuck Mangle names. The way black holes mangle matter. Very nice on StarTalk. Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk Cosmic Queries Edition. Neil DeGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. Chuck. Nice baby, how you doing?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Hey, what's happening?

[Chuck Nice]

All right to grab bags, he stick your hand in the bag. You don't know what you're gonna get. And it's random, right?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Exactly. So. And you know, if it's a turd, it's your fault. People.

[Chuck Nice]

Turd.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

If we pull out a turd, it's your fault. These are. This is all you.

[Chuck Nice]

All right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

This is Joshua from Portland, Oregon. He says, hey, Dr. Tyson. Lord. Nice. I'm Joshua from Portland, Oregon. I love the movie Sunshine, but the.

[Chuck Nice]

Main plot, I've seen such.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I haven't seen it either. He said the main plot of reviving our sun by sending all of Earth's nuclear material to the sun seemed more than far fetched and even a quite bit cheesy. Putting all the cheesy aspects of the movie aside, the movie did address what it would be like getting near our sun. My question is, if you even have, if you, if you've seen the movie, did the movie Sunshine get anything right when approaching close to the sun? Scientifically speaking, of course. And if not, in your opinion, what would be the Funnest or weirdest thing to know about being extremely close to our son.

[Chuck Nice]

So a couple things. So first, I haven't seen the movie. All right. But based on what has just been told, I have comments.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

Our nukes are. Well, we have fission nukes, which we call a. Bombs.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right.

[Chuck Nice]

The sun has never been in the business of nuclear fission.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's fusion.

[Chuck Nice]

Fusion. It takes light elements into heavy elements. We do that, but we still don't know how to control it. Right. So we have uncontrolled nuclear fusion, otherwise.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Known as a hydrogen bomb.

[Chuck Nice]

Bomb.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right. There you go.

[Angie Hicks]

Bomb.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Bomb.

[Chuck Nice]

We're good at making uncontrolled nuclear fusion.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right.

[Chuck Nice]

And the day we harness that and we get fusion reactors that would be very inexpensive, it will be the beginning.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Of a new era.

[Chuck Nice]

A new era. Yes, it would.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Because all of our energy problems will be solved, basically.

[Chuck Nice]

That's correct. Yes, that's correct. So now you want to send our measly nukes into the sun and believe that's going to make a difference.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay, just for context. Yeah. Have you ever seen spots on the sun?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I mean, in the pictures?

[Chuck Nice]

Yes. You know what we call those?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Sunspots?

[Chuck Nice]

Sunspots. I ask easy questions here. All right? A sunspot is typically slightly larger than Earth. Okay, well, so the sun has blemishes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Bigger than our planet. Our planet, yeah. That's crazy.

[Chuck Nice]

And you want to think that our nukes don't have anything to do with the sun, Right?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. Why not? Throw spitballs at it? Just as effective. Just as effective. Get a straw and. Yeah, just as effective.

[Chuck Nice]

Or if I could do a Chuck voice, it would be. You'd fire the nuke into the sun and say, mm, this is delicious.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Exactly. Yeah. Wow. Plus, isn't that different? I mean, you can't start fusion from an explosion, right?

[Chuck Nice]

No, the explosion is the fusion.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's what I'm saying.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, but you want to. Can you trigger it?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, I'm saying. Cause the idea would be to.

[Chuck Nice]

No, you can't trigger it because the outer layers of the sun are not hot enough to sustain it. Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

At the center of your bomb. It was.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right, Just like at the center of the sun. Exactly. Yeah. Because the fusion is happening at the center of the sun, not in the.

[Chuck Nice]

Outer space, not in the outer edge. So here's how you prolong the life of the sun. And I gotta see the movie to see why they were doing it. If the sun was running out of fuel or whatever. It's an easy way to do this.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Let me Guess now. And I'm. This is me guessing, so shut up. All right, I'm gonna say since the sun takes hydrogen and fuses it so that it ends up with like this four proton, that creates helium.

[Chuck Nice]

Four nucleons.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Four nucleons.

[Chuck Nice]

So it's two protons.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So four nucleons that creates helium. What you wanna do is either send the sun more helium or. Or send it more hydrogen.

[Chuck Nice]

Why send it more helium?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Well, because the next step after the helium is that's where it keeps going from there.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. The sun won't. Only the high mass stars are going to take. Oh, get out. The sun pretty much stops.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So the sun stops.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, so I need to send the hydrogen then.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I should just send more hydrogen.

[Chuck Nice]

Yes. Okay, now where is it hot enough to fuse hydrogen into helium?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

In the center of the sun.

[Chuck Nice]

In the center. In the center. Okay, so.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So I got to get to the center of the sun.

[Chuck Nice]

So if you run out of hydrogen in the center of the sun, where is there more hydrogen?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

If I run out of hydrogen in the center of the sun.

[Chuck Nice]

Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, maybe I can pull it in from just outside the center of the sun. Thank you. Right. From everywhere else. Just pull it back in.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay, so there's what's called convection.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay. If you can drive a convection deep inside the sun, bring fresh hydrogen down into the core, pull out the helium.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Then you'll jump start the fusion.

[Chuck Nice]

You can jump start the fusion. And the sun, when it dies, it only used. I forgot the number. A few percent of its total hydrogen available. Oh, the sun could live for trillions of years.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

If you can't find a way to recycle.

[Chuck Nice]

You don't have to find hydrogen from somewhere else. It's sitting there in the sun itself.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Wow.

[Chuck Nice]

Just get away to get it like a conveyor belt, send it down into the core.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And now all you have to do is do that without burning up before you get there.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay, so now how do you get close to the sun?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Well, first you give it a call and you're like, hey, how you doing?

[Chuck Nice]

You need a shield because what temperature is it in space? Cause right now you have a thermometer. It's reading the temperature of what?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Whatever the room temperature is. You mean here on Earth specifically?

[Chuck Nice]

If I have a thermometer here and.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It says 72 degrees, it's 72 degrees at that thermometer.

[Chuck Nice]

What is 72 degrees?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The temperature of the atmosphere. I don't know.

[Chuck Nice]

The air?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, the atmosphere.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay, you said it's the temperature of the room. Right. No, it is the temperature of the air around the thermometer in that spot.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right.

[Chuck Nice]

It's the air.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

All right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right there.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Because it may not be 72 degrees over there.

[Chuck Nice]

Now, if I come over here and.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I'm near that lamp, oh, it's gonna.

[Chuck Nice]

Be a little warmer because that's an old fashioned bulb.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, exactly.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay. Yeah, it's gonna be a little warmer because that's heating the air over there. Right. Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You go by the window. It's gonna be a little cooler.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay. Over there. Right. If you're in space, there is no air.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right.

[Chuck Nice]

So what the hell temperature are you measuring?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You gotta measure the temperature of the nothingness of space.

[Chuck Nice]

Correct. And space is not entirely nothing.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right.

[Chuck Nice]

There is radiative energy moving through space.

[Commercial Announcer]

Correct.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right.

[Chuck Nice]

Photons. Right. So.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So it's got a little bit of a temperature.

[Chuck Nice]

So it'll get a temperature if the thermometer is facing the sun.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right. Cause that's a radiative heat coming from the sun.

[Chuck Nice]

Correct.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right.

[Chuck Nice]

It's not the air. It's just photons hitting.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Photons hitting.

[Chuck Nice]

Now the other side of the thermometer. Well, if you had two thermometers that split, so one is facing that way, one is facing this way. That's facing deep space.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And that' it's cold. Why is it so cold, man? I'm burning up over here.

[Chuck Nice]

Depending on your distance from the sun, that'll be the intensity of the rays. It'll be hundreds of degrees on the other side.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

And as you get closer to the sun, the radiative flux is, when I knew the official term gets higher and higher and higher. That temperature will continue to go up.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right.

[Chuck Nice]

As long as you're shielded and you're looking out on the other side, that temperature's gonna stay the temperature of deep space, which is like the microwave background hitting it, which is there at all times, or some nearby stars if they happen to be there. So temperature is a funny thing. Did we do an explainer on temperature? I thought we did.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We did. We did an explainer on temperature.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. Okay. And you put on your lipstick.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Mm.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. You have your supple lip. You can't do star talk with crack crackers.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I don't want the people talking about me. You know, right now, if I had ashy lips. There's some black people out there. Like, what is wrong with his lips? And I believe this brother on TV with ashy lips, his mother didn't know his mother.

[Chuck Nice]

Who raised you? Who raised you really Who's a comedian. That's his line. Who raised you? One of the comedians. So if you want to get close to the sun, you need a shield. Well, but the shield will be too cold for you. The other side will be too hot. So what you really want to do is make a rotisserie.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, I'm cooking evenly right now. If you want to. Somebody baste me. Baste me, please. Get the butter.

[Chuck Nice]

So you get pretty close. If you're on a rotisserie, you're on a rotisserie. All right. But there's a point where you'll just burn. And there's a point where that shield. Wait a minute. This photon's hitting that shield, Right. Maybe it's very reflective. So it's not absorbing any, but it's not perfectly reflective. Some are gonna get absorbed, and that shield temperature is gonna begin to rise, and eventually it will radiate infrared back to the other side of the thermometer.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And burn you alive.

[Chuck Nice]

So. Yeah. And then you reach a point where it is so hot, everything vaporizes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right.

[Chuck Nice]

Do you know what has the highest melting point?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Iron. No, I thought it. What?

[Capella University Announcer]

What is it?

[Chuck Nice]

No, no.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

What has the highest.

[Chuck Nice]

You never guess.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I'll never guess.

[Chuck Nice]

Carbon.

[Capella University Announcer]

What?

[Chuck Nice]

Ain't that something? Wait a minute.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

But in the.

[Chuck Nice]

Have you ever tried to melt a diamond?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, well, there you have.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. Put that on your stove and see what happens.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, right. Exactly.

[Chuck Nice]

Carbon.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Wow.

[Chuck Nice]

Has the highest melting point.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Look at that.

[Chuck Nice]

It's like 5,000 degrees. I mean, it's insanely high. Insanely high. And that. So generally, if you're gonna go near the sun, you want carbon. Carbon. We need a diamond ship, and they.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Have to be piloted by a hip.

[Chuck Nice]

Hop star or Elizabeth Taylor or.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

What's up, man? Like that.

[Chuck Nice]

Or Carol Channing. Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Ice. There you go.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. So I have to go see the movie now. Thanks for that prompting, and maybe I can add more to that commentary, but otherwise. Yeah, it'll vaporize you no matter what.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right, Very cool, Sunshine. I haven't heard of it. So, Bill Rhode, Rodwalt, Rod. Walt. From Oregon, Ohio. Oregon, Ohio. Okay. He says if we were to find a habitable planet within a few dozen light years of Earth, and we had the technology to send a generational ship to this planet, how likely do you think it would be. Be that the first mission launch would be the first to arrive? It seems to me that improvements in propulsion technology might be such that technological advances may lead to later missions overtaking the earlier ones. At what stellar distances do you Think this would become a practical consideration as to when to launch a mission.

[Chuck Nice]

I love that. Because, you know, what he's saying is that you launch a mission today with your modern technology, and in 50 years, that's some old technology. And then the next ship just passes you.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's the old ship waves to you.

[Chuck Nice]

It's, sorry about that.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's like you started out in a covered wagon, and then all of a sudden a Tesla's going by you like, what the hell?

[Chuck Nice]

And so that's a brilliant question. And I think if we're gonna be passed, it'd be because we have warp drives. If you have warp drives, you can take a warp drive to the location of the ship and bring everybody aboard and put them on the warp drive, too.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right.

[Chuck Nice]

I think in practice, that's how we would do it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You wouldn't leave them like, see you, good luck. No, you dock, you pick the people up.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah, yeah, dock, you pick them up and you boom with them. You put them on the warp drive and it would have nothing to do with the propulsion. I don't see that as real.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right.

[Chuck Nice]

Even if we found a way to. And we reached like 20% the speed of light, let's say the nearest star to the sun is the Alpha Centauri system. Right. Four light years away.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Four light years away.

[Chuck Nice]

So how long would that take?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

20%. So that's five years for a year. 20 years.

[Chuck Nice]

20 years. Very good math. Yeah, good math. Loving it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Every once in a while, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

[Chuck Nice]

What'd you call it? You have a comedy special. You go, just smart enough.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's my comedy special, Chuck. Nice. Just smart enough.

[Chuck Nice]

You just got that one. So would you go on a trip for 20 years to a planet that might host you? I mean, so here's what I'd rather do. Whatever was the problem with Earth that you're trying to escape?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, fix it.

[Chuck Nice]

Just fix it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

How about that?

[Chuck Nice]

I'm just saying, fix it. And by the way, if that other planet is habitable, it means the atmosphere has oxygen in it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right.

[Chuck Nice]

What do you think made the oxygen?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right? Yeah, life. Life course that's right.

[Chuck Nice]

But you get that you don't know where. You don't know.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, yeah. Believe me, it's going to eat you.

[Chuck Nice]

Is it all life, but it's all Venus fly traps, right? You know?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, yeah. By the way, the fixer part is really the issue. It's like. It's like hiring a plumber. He's like, well, I found your problem. You're going to need a new house. Like, what kind of plumber are you?

[Chuck Nice]

Like.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, yeah. So what a great question, though.

[Commercial Announcer]

Yeah.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. That's excellent. So I don't. So it's a great question, but I don't see that as how that's gonna play out. Right. There's a moral question. On a generational ship, a life of.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Isolation on a mission that they did not choose.

[Chuck Nice]

Correct.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

But let's be honest, every kid. I didn't ask to be your. I didn't ask for Kevin. I didn't ask to be born. Shut your ass up, get over there to your station and do what you're supposed to do, okay? Because we gotta get to this planet. You know, Donald, I just wanna scream out into this canyon and tell the whole world. T mobile's got home Internet. Do it, Zack. T Mobile's got home Internet.

[Commercial Announcer]

Let me try.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

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[Chuck Nice]

T Mobile's got home Internet. Just 35 bucks a month with autopay and any voice line, and it's guaranteed.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

For 5 years access of these. Apply ctmobile.com isp for details and exclusions. These days, it seems like AI agents are just about everywhere you turn. Every field, every function. But without identity, you can't trust they'll serve your business instead of jeopardizing it. Fortunately, OKTA helps you get identity right by securing your AI agent's identity, giving you a single layer of control, a single standard of trust. So whether an AI agent supports a single user or your entire enterprise, with okta, you'll turn risk into. Into opportunity. Secure every agent. Secure any agent. OKTA secures AI.

[Angie Hicks]

Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co founder of angie. One thing I've learned is that you buy a house, but you make it a home. And for decades, Angie's helped millions of homeowners hire skilled pros for the projects that matter, get all your jobs done. Well, @angie.com I'm Nicholas Costella, and I'm.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

A proud supporter of StarTalk on Patreon. This is StarTalk with Neil DeGrasse Tyson. All right, here we go. This is Salvatore Maman. Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

From Brooklyn. Salvatore what?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Mamana.

[Chuck Nice]

Spell it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

M A M. M A N A. Maman. Mamana. Mamana.

[Chuck Nice]

Mamana.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Mamana.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. Salvatore Mamana.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Salvatore Mamana.

[Chuck Nice]

Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

He says, dear Star Talk from Brooklyn. From Brooklyn.

[Chuck Nice]

Yo.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Brooklyn born and raised.

[Chuck Nice]

Brooklyn in the house.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Hope you are well. What do you picture in Your head. When you think of the Big Bang, I've heard it's not quite like the image of a tiny dot exploding in all directions. If you had to make a diorama for a seven year old, what would the big Bang look like? And what would yours be?

[Chuck Nice]

You know I'm stuck on the explosion model.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right.

[Chuck Nice]

And. But if you do that, it's exploding within three dimensional space. But this is a sort of a four dimensional, with time as one of the dimensions. So I picture an inflated balloon. Cause that works for me. Right. You gotta get rid of one of the dimensions. So our three spatial dimensions are flattened into the surface of a balloon.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right.

[Chuck Nice]

And the time dimension is still there, emanating from the start of the balloon.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Where it's small to any surface place on the balloon.

[Chuck Nice]

And every larger service point is later in time.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's later in time.

[Chuck Nice]

Right, Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah.

[Chuck Nice]

That's how I do it. So if you want to do it with your 7 year old son, you get a nice big old one of these. Where do you get the really big. I have to go to a party store to get like the biggest balloons.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Giant balloons.

[Chuck Nice]

Giant balloon. And on the balloon, just draw galaxies on it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right.

[Chuck Nice]

And then inflate it. Draw galaxies and then deflate it. And as you inflate it back, you'll see the galaxies expand apart. Spread apart.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's cool.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's the best way to do it.

[Chuck Nice]

I think so.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. I like it. All right. Well, thanks, Salvator. That's a great. Do it with your kid, man. And. Yeah, and tell him to give us credit for that A. Because we know what you're doing. All right. This is so Tortoise DeWitt from Belgium. And Satori says, hello, Dr. Tyson and Lord. Nice. My name is Satori DeWitt from Belgium. The name is Greek, but not me. As you mentioned before, space gets compressed near mass and time at faster speed slows down. This I can imagine. But if space and time are connected, does that mean I would get smaller as I go faster? If so, I would be infinitely small at the speed of light. Would I then become light is maybe all light matter, but infinitely small and fast.

[Chuck Nice]

My boy's got some angst, I'm telling you right now.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So first of all, Satori, it's gonna be okay. That's number one.

[Chuck Nice]

There was some panic in this question, wasn't there?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. It's gonna be all right, buddy. Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

The world will be fine.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The world's gonna be all right.

[Chuck Nice]

All right. So time slows down for you as others would observe it, but you don't shrink.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right.

[Chuck Nice]

Your dimensions will be measured to shrink front to back. So you'll get sort of thinner front to back as people measure your speed increasing. All right. They'll also measure your mass increase. They'll measure your time slowdown. We have three equations that tracks all three of those. Okay. All that happens in a black hole, you're going to shrink only because it's compressing you down to a smaller point in space. So deal with it. I mean, there's not a way around that. And you're gonna be stretched head to toe from tidal forces, but you're gonna be squished shoulder to shoulder by the ever shrinking fabric of space and time until you descend into that abyss as a stream of atoms.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Mm.

[Chuck Nice]

Have a nice day.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

There you go. Tell your kids that.

[Commercial Announcer]

@.

[Chuck Nice]

So. Yeah. And Einstein concluded matter can never go at the speed of light because you have zero volume and infinite mass. And time would stop. So if you're going to travel at speed of light, you have to have zero mass. Like a.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Photon. Like a photon.

[Chuck Nice]

Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. There you.

[Chuck Nice]

Go. And they have zero mass, they travel the speed of light and they have zero time, which we talked.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

About. Right. Photon only knows time, the moment it is manifested by something that it.

[Chuck Nice]

Hits. Right. So the photon is created in an.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Atom.

[Chuck Nice]

Right. It is absorbed wherever it was headed.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Instantly. Instantly. To.

[Chuck Nice]

It. To it. To.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It. To.

[Chuck Nice]

It.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yes. Everybody else gets to see.

[Chuck Nice]

It.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Exactly. Do go its path. That's funny. What I love is every time I'm on the beach, I always pull my swim trunks down just a little bit so that whatever photons land on my ass. I'm like, sorry, you were born in the sun and you landed on my ass in one.

[Chuck Nice]

Instant. You did. That is so mean of you. To the photon. Now, I had similar thoughts, but not so crude. So my thesis data, my PhD thesis data, my thesis is right there. Okay. We said the black one. The black one right here. This.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

One. God.

[Chuck Nice]

Jesus. Yeah, look at that. So study the abundance distributions along the minor axis of the galactic bulge. Okay, so this, it's single sided. So don't think it is. Point is, the galactic bulge is best viewed from Chile. Oh, okay. Well, anywhere in the southern hemisphere. And I went to Chile many times to get data for this thesis. Here's the thing. The telescope is at the top of a mountain which has a tiny coastal town called La Sirena. At the base of the mountain, La Sirena has beaches. And the people would be laying out on the beach with bikinis on and things like that. And I would go to the mountain with detectors to see photons that left the center of the galaxy 30,000 years ago. Some miss Earth and continue into space. Others hit Earth, maybe the countryside. Some of them hit the buttocks of people on the beach. Like your buttocks that you.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Expose. That's.

[Chuck Nice]

Right. But some of them land on my detector, empowering me to deduce the nature of the galactic center. So to me, those are noble.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Photons. Oh, you gave your photons purpose. My photons gave their life for my black ass. Okay, all right, here we.

[Chuck Nice]

Go. I can hear the.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Photons. What is this? Where did I just land? All right, here we.

[Chuck Nice]

Go. All.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right. This is bowdoin, actually, just to be.

[Chuck Nice]

Precise. If it were like high energy photons, they were absorbed by your.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Melanin. Oh.

[Chuck Nice]

Wow.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. Well, they were lucky.

[Chuck Nice]

Then. They would just grab it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right. Right out.

[Chuck Nice]

Yes. Snatch it right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Out. That one then is.

[Chuck Nice]

Four. That's what it's.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

For. Yeah. All right. This is Bodnar Marton Janos, who says. From.

[Chuck Nice]

Budapest. You can't possibly have pronounced any of that.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Correctly. No, Bodnar Marton Janos, because he's.

[Chuck Nice]

Trying to add a.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Little. I'm not trying to add anything to.

[Chuck Nice]

That. Okay, okay. All.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right. He says, I'm trying to solve a dilemma I've been thinking about these past couple of days. Suppose I'm traveling in my super advanced spaceship towards a supermassive black hole. And at the speed of light, with the goal of doing a gravitational slingshot maneuver at the black hole. I'm planning to do this speeding by my. Speeding my spaceship close to the event horizon of the black hole. Questions? Is this even possible? If yes, how would I experience the event to using strong gravitational pull of the black hole and the slingshot maneuver. Could my supersonic spaceship speed beyond light speed? I'm a 13 year old student aspiring to be an astro or theoretical physicist.

[Chuck Nice]

Cool. Good for you. In.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Budapest. In Budapest.

[Chuck Nice]

Yes. So didn't we do an.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Explainer? We did. On.

[Chuck Nice]

Slingshots. On slingshots, yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yes. And it's really.

[Chuck Nice]

Cool. But it's not what you think it is. No, no, no. So you know.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Why? Because everybody thinks of slingshot as this. The two prongs that you pull put a projectile. You pull it back and then you release it. And then the projectile just goes, taking all the energy, the recoil from the pullback propelling it forward. But the way you explain slingshots, gravitational slingshots, it's not really a.

[Chuck Nice]

Slingshot. It's not at.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All. It's not really a.

[Chuck Nice]

Slingshot. So here's the problem. If you fall towards the black hole, but not in it, because you ain't getting out of the way, the acceleration of the spacecraft falling into the black hole is exactly canceled by you trying to climb out the other.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Side.

[Chuck Nice]

Right. So when you're done with this exercise, you're not traveling any faster or slower than you were before. The slingshot works because you come in from behind an orbiting planet and you go. The planet pulls you in, and the act of pulling you in has you catch up with it in its orbit. So there's an extra speed that's outside of the symmetrical fall in climb.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Out of the gravity, which is the planet itself dragging you along in its.

[Chuck Nice]

Orbit.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Correct?

[Chuck Nice]

Right. And you just ate some of the orbital energy of the planet by. You stole.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It. You stole it. You stole it by.

[Chuck Nice]

Tagging. You're a stowaway, gravitational.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Stowaway. We're a gravitational.

[Chuck Nice]

Stowaway. So that's not gonna.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Happen.

[Chuck Nice]

Right. So a, B, if it's a supermassive black hole, you can easily fall into it and not be ripped apart. Right. Because the event horizon is so big. It's so big that the tidal forces are not.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Strong. So you. And now you're just falling inside of the black.

[Chuck Nice]

Hole. You're falling within the event horizon of the black.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Hole. And, and the closer you get to the center, that's when, that's when things. That's when the tidal forces start messing you all.

[Chuck Nice]

Up.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Correct. But in the beginning you're just like, oh, well, this ain't bad at.

[Chuck Nice]

All. Not bad at all. And it's because your height, if he's in 13, maybe he's 5ft tall. Your 5ft relative to the radius of the black hole is.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Small.

[Chuck Nice]

Right. Whereas as you get closer to the center, you're five feet, there could be only another five feet to the center of the black hole. So the tidal forces will become greatly magnified under those.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Situations. Gotcha.

[Chuck Nice]

Wow.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So. But it's great to see a 13 year old thinking like.

[Chuck Nice]

This. Yeah. Oh.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. How cool. Oh.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. How.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Cool. Well, good luck to you, man. And, you know, invite us to your graduation. I mean, we're not coming, but invite us to Budapest. Ain't nobody who's paying that kind of money. We wish you well, but we'd like to know when you.

[Chuck Nice]

Graduate. All right, let me back up. So if I'm near the speed of light and I do an actual slingshot maneuver, Right. Okay. Right around a planet. Could I be slingshot to go faster than light? The answer is no, no, no. Because you're not going the speed of light because you're made of material substance which can't go the speed of.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Light. And you're not. It's not like the slingshot gives you all the energy and then you just keep it and keep going. You gotta climb out of the fall that you with the descent that you.

[Chuck Nice]

Made. That's exactly symmetric with it. So what would happen is what happened was, let's say, going 95% the speed of light and you were to get a slingshot, what effect would it have? It would add energy to your trajectory. And there's a point where adding energy is not simply increasing your speed. There are other ways to boost the energy of the system. He will end up going faster, but he won't catapult past the speed of light. That's the way to think about.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It. There you.

[Chuck Nice]

Go.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. All right. Here we go. This is Writer's Eye from.

[Chuck Nice]

Ohio. Writer as in.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Writ. Writer's eye. E Y E E Y E so does the fact of us living in an expanding universe contradict the premise of living in the black hole? Since we know that black holes evaporate and there is a limit upon which all matter can be compacted, we wouldn't notice any intake of energy or matter from the waves it would cause. So not since the Big bang has any more matter energy been introduced. Can we assume the universe in a black hole would not be expanding. Hoping to get an amp answer Lost in illiteracy in Ohio. That's very funny.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. So I don't have a good answer for that. If we were in a black hole and the black holes are eating things in its vicinity, you would see material coming in just as he suggested. But not all black holes are actively eating. True. Quasars are galactic center phenomenon where the black hole is dining on stars and gases that have wandered too close and it's emitting energy in the process. There's a distance within which quasars no longer are there. They shut off. We think they just completely ate everything in their environment. And so a black hole, it's not a requirement, it's not a prerequisite that a black hole is always eating things, that you would then see things coming in through your event horizon. So don't use that as a reason for not embracing the possibility that we are in a black.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Hole.

[Chuck Nice]

Gotcha. So, yeah. And evaporation. Supermassive black holes. Forget black holes. The size of our universe. Supermassive black holes take ten to the hundred years to.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Evaporate.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. So just don't hold your.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Breath. A lot of time. Nothing to worry.

[Chuck Nice]

About.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right. So very cool. All right. But nice, nice thought experiment. Here we go. This is Rabba Yaga. Robert Dudak from Flint, Michigan. He said, I read a paper validating the subliminal. Subluminal warp drive as a more realistic possibility than the Alcubierre FTL.

[Chuck Nice]

Drive. FTL says we're faster than.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Light. Faster than light. Constant velocity, physical warp drive solution. The one thing that was not even hinted at on the paper was how one might accelerate the warp bubble. I would appreciate any thoughts on acceleration and how fast the subluminal drive might eventually go, hypothetically. And thank.

[Chuck Nice]

You. Yeah, I've got to do some homework on that. A couple of things. A warp drive, there's no prerequisite that it goes faster than light, right? You just warp space and you go, but if you can go faster than light, then why not, Right? What are you.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Doing? And if you were to go faster than light, this would be the only way you could do it. Because you would have to compress the space. Because you can't go faster through the space. Through the space than.

[Chuck Nice]

Light. You're stepping through basically the compressed space on the Alcubierre drive. He was a Mexican physicist who came up with this. And so I don't know. I don't know what the problem is, because the Alcubierre drive is a way to go faster than light. But there's nothing in principle preventing you from just dialing. Dialing it down. Yeah, just go.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Slower. Exactly.

[Chuck Nice]

Right. I mean, your car probably goes 130 miles an.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Hour. Guys, take it easy. You know, this part of the galaxy is a speed.

[Chuck Nice]

Trap. Red light cameras. So I don't see that as a sticking point at all. Yeah, yeah, you just dialed.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Down. You just dialed it.

[Chuck Nice]

Down.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. And by the one, by the way, even in Star Trek, they have warp one through.

[Chuck Nice]

Nine. Yeah. War factor one is the speed of.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Light. That is the speed of.

[Chuck Nice]

Light. Right, Right. But I never hear them say warp or it's impulse power or.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Something. Impulse power is less than.

[Chuck Nice]

Light. Less than light.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Correct. So, all right, well, there you go. So you just fly on impulse.

[Angie Hicks]

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Capella.Edu. bubba Wallace here from 2311 Racing. You know what's slower than a.

[Chuck Nice]

Pace car waiting at the car.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Wash? That's when I fire up Jumba Casino. It turns these slow minutes into fast fun. With new games every week, you'll never hear important. Next time you're stuck in the slow lane, speed up with Chumba play [e-mail] let's Chumba. No purchase necessary. BGW Group void where prohibited by law. CTNC's 21+ sponsored by Chumba Casino. All right, this is Tyrone Morgan from Hackensack, New Jersey. Joyce, he says hello. Dr. Tyson Lord. Nice. Tyrone Morgan from Hackensack, New Jersey. Love your show. And here are my inquiries. What if the graviton was not quantum? What if the space time that we live in is the gravitational field and black holes are the graviton in a higher dimension? Black holes having infinite mass at the singularity might be similar to photons having massive no mass in the electromagnetic field. Holy moly, bro. People, what would a photon look like to someone whose space time was the electromagnetic field? I think it's very difficult to see the full picture when you're inside of it. Thank you for everyone, for the science that you do, curiosity, the passion and your.

[Chuck Nice]

Discovery. I don't know if I can help this.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Man. This is a wild.

[Chuck Nice]

Question. He's got it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Bad. Yeah, man. The.

[Chuck Nice]

Graviton. Okay, so the gravitational field and black.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Hole. Higher dimensions are.

[Chuck Nice]

Wild. So there's electromagnetic force, right. That is propagated by the.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Photon.

[Chuck Nice]

Right. Okay. They go hand in hand in hand. And the photon comes in waves as well. Of course, we have gravitation. Einstein said it's the curvature of space and time. But if it's gonna be a force and we're gonna describe it in a quantum way, there ought to be a particle that propagates the gravitational.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Field.

[Chuck Nice]

Right? And we already have the wave that propagates.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It. We've seen.

[Chuck Nice]

That. That's called the. Well, it's LIGO discovered, right? LIGO discovered okay, so we got that. So what about the particle counterpart to the wave? We call that a graviton, just like the photon is a particle counterpart to just the waves. Light.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Waves. Light.

[Chuck Nice]

Waves. Light waves. Okay, so we have a graviton is the particle counterpart to gravitational waves, but we don't know how to detect.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That. Right, but it does make.

[Chuck Nice]

Sense. Well, if you can turn all of gravitational physics into a quantum solution, then, yeah, that makes sense. But if not, it could just confuse.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Things. Yeah, I mean, I'm already confused, to be.

[Chuck Nice]

Honest. Yeah. So. So I think it's kind of fanciful to think of black holes as the gravitons of. Yeah, it doesn't feel right to me, because black hole, we already have that described. It's not some mysterious thing that you're finding some other mysterious thing to say that it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Is.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. And we want to avoid that anyway. You want to take this thing that we barely know to use it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

To explain this other thing that we don't know at all. Take this thing that we really don't understand and barely.

[Chuck Nice]

Know. And usually with consciousness, people are saying, let's take the weirdness of quantum physics that nobody understands and use it to explain consciousness. Which nobody.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Understands. Exactly. Right. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Yeah. All right, well, listen, that's. I like the way you think, though, man. You. You. You definitely smoking some good weed. Please send me some. This is Matt D. From Oklahoma. He says, good day, Dr. Tyson, and a big high five to Lord. Nice. My name is Matt Dodd from Oklahoma, and I'm wondering about our bubble universe in the multiverse. If our universe is constantly expanding, does that mean our bubble in the multiverse is growing over time? Who's to say another multiverse bubble would not merge with our own? What would it mean for our universe? And thanks for the.

[Chuck Nice]

Insight. Yeah, I worry about.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. Because quantum physics in the multiverse model is pumping out universes left and right, and each universe has slightly different laws of.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Physics.

[Chuck Nice]

Right. You don't want to just, hey, let's go visit the, you know, the Johnsons over in the other universe. If the charge on their electron is different from.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yours. Right. Because now I just exploded. I turned the.

[Chuck Nice]

Goo. Yeah, but you collapsed into a pile of.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Glue. Boom. That's.

[Chuck Nice]

It. So.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Damn. I knew I shouldn't have.

[Chuck Nice]

Come. You bring something to test it with, like a gerbil or.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Something? So now somebody. I don't.

[Chuck Nice]

Know. That would be mean. Maybe not a.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Gerbil. No, no, Gerbils are fine. Yeah. They ain't worth It. I'm not losing any sleep over a.

[Chuck Nice]

Gerbil.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. Anyway, put that stuffer in a habit trail, send them right through. All right. But none of the universe could.

[Chuck Nice]

Be made of antimatter, for.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Example. Right. That would be.

[Chuck Nice]

Terrible. Toss it a coin and the thing blows up.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right? That would be so cool. And then, of course, you meet yourself, but your other self, you know, you look, has. Half of it is black and.

[Chuck Nice]

The other half is white. It's like what episode from Star.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Trek? The antimatter matter guy. That was very.

[Chuck Nice]

Cool. They'll have a.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Goatee. Yes.

[Chuck Nice]

Exactly. That's the evil.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Man. Somebody. I don't know where I saw this or heard because I don't think I read it saying that. Is there a possibility that dark. Dark energy or dark matter is another bubble universe colliding with ours, and that's why it doesn't interact? It's just passing.

[Chuck Nice]

Through? Yeah, I'm a fan of that kind of thinking. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. That's because that's. Even though it involves a higher dimension, it's kind of simpler than other.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Explanations. It makes sense too. Yeah, it's like, yeah, this thing is just passing through us, but it.

[Chuck Nice]

Doesn'T interact like a sphere passing.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Through. Like a sphere passing through two dimensions. Two dimensions.

[Chuck Nice]

Right. It's a dot, then a circle that gets bigger and bigger, then it gets smaller and smaller again, then disappears from your universe. So, yeah, I'm partial to those explanations even while knowing they're probably not.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Correct. Right. Fun to think about. All right, this is Sweet Heat 223 from Dallas.

[Chuck Nice]

Texas. Sweet.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

What? Sweet Heat 223, better known as Sterling from Dallas.

[Chuck Nice]

Texas. Sterling. All.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right. He says, hi, Dr. Tyson and.

[Angie Hicks]

Chuck.

[Chuck Nice]

Nice. Sterling was not a cool enough badass.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Name. Yeah, he had to go with sweet. Or she.

[Chuck Nice]

Sweet. He. All right, Sterling. That's a boy.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Name. Sterling's a boy.

[Chuck Nice]

Name.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. Okay, so Sterling from Dallas, Texas, he said, if we could travel via warp drive, is it possible that speed to bypass the spaghettification process when entering a black hole to reach its singularity? So could you warp into a black hole and then bypass the singularity? Because you're going so much faster than the speed of light itself. So you've warped through the black hole. So technically, you don't need an escape velocity to get out of the black hole because you're warping through it. It's a.

[Chuck Nice]

Wild. Are these two black.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Holes. No, it's you in the black.

[Chuck Nice]

Hole. Yeah, I. I'm not feeling it. Yeah, not feeling it's an intriguing.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Idea. It.

[Chuck Nice]

Is. And like, can you.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Bypass. Can you bypass the.

[Chuck Nice]

Rules? The whole rules? Yeah, yeah. Right, right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right. None of the super.

[Chuck Nice]

Gravity. There are black holes that you can fall in and not go to the center. Right. They're like rotating black holes. And there are other configurations you can imagine, but. Yeah, no, I'm not feeling.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay. All right. Yeah. Chuck, got a few more.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Minutes. Minutes. Okay. Let's see what we can.

[Chuck Nice]

Do.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. This is Patrick Laverdier who says in video games, when you walk into a complex area, the frame rate drops because the system is rendering more data. If our universe were a simulated, could gravity be doing something similar, slowing down time because the cosmic engine is processing more.

[Chuck Nice]

Information. I like that.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Wow. I like that. He's saying the more complex areas of our universe require more calculate computing power. And as a result, everything slows.

[Chuck Nice]

Down. This is the argument either for or against that we're in a simulation. Because the simulator doesn't have to simulate the whole.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Universe. No. Only the universe that you are seeing at the.

[Chuck Nice]

Time.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Correct. That's.

[Chuck Nice]

It. For example, if we are in a simulation, are they simulating every molecule within the Earth? If no one is looking at inside the Earth. But now you start digging. So it's in their interest to simulate ahead of you without having to waste computing power on the whole.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Earth.

[Chuck Nice]

Right. And so that's just an intriguing scenario. Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. I mean, it makes sense. If you're. If you are in a simulation, why would you waste all the computing power necessary to create the stuff that's never even being.

[Chuck Nice]

Seen? That's.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Correct. You.

[Chuck Nice]

Know.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right. All right. So this is Marijuachi Getter. Marwa. Marwahi. Marwa. I don't know. Who says? Hello, everyone. I was wondering, if black holes accelerate things beyond the speed of light, once inside them, does that mean those things are going backwards in time? So the gravitational pull is so strong, once you are past that event horizon, could you then go faster than the speed of light since light can't.

[Chuck Nice]

Escape? Yeah. What happens is you start gaining mass. Right. And rather than gaining.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Speed.

[Chuck Nice]

Right. That's how that.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Happens. How that.

[Chuck Nice]

Happens. Right, right. And so, no, you don't just keep getting faster and.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Faster. No.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay. And as you gain more mass, it's harder to accelerate you. Right. So, yeah, that's another.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Thing. But what a great question, man. That's. I like the. I like that. All right. Femke say Navi say naive from Belgium. He says, I was wondering, would it be possible to say, if we reach A black hole with conventional space travel. Even if it took thousands of years to send a quantum AI computer or quantum robot, a bit like they did an interstellar ultimately sacrificing itself to send us the data and solve the quantum gravity theory. Could quantum computers handle this information and send it to a spaceship in the vicinity? Or would the information forever be stuck in the black hole? They can ask your own question. Pretty sure you answered your own question, buddy. Yeah, yeah.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. I'm going with the. It's.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Still. It ain't coming.

[Chuck Nice]

Out. It ain't coming.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Out. It ain't coming out. Yeah.

[Chuck Nice]

That. Yeah, there's the Hawking radiation, but it pulls it out as a striptease. Right. One molecule, one atom here, one particle.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

There.

[Chuck Nice]

Right. And then you have to reassemble it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Later. You would have to find that. You would have to put that information back together once it all.

[Chuck Nice]

Evaporates. Exactly, yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, well.

[Chuck Nice]

I. Time for one last.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Question. All right. This is Martin from Denmark. Martin from Denmark, who says, hello, Dr. Tyson. Lord, nice. Martin from Denmark here. I think there's something undiscovered around the perception of time and the speed of light. If we humans were to travel at the speed of light, we say no matter the distance, it will feel like an instant when arriving at the destination. But since we also discovered that we can accelerate particles and faster than the speed of light. When did we discover that? The hell? Martin, Martin, did you get a Nobel Prize that nobody heard about? Because, damn, bro, what you talking about? And he says, how will we perceive that? Like, yesterday or. Thanks for a great.

[Chuck Nice]

Show. Okay, so no, we have not accelerated particles faster than the speed of light in a.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Vacuum.

[Chuck Nice]

Right. But the speed of light is slower.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

In. In.

[Chuck Nice]

Mediums. In.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Media. Right? Media.

[Chuck Nice]

Right. Plural of media. Plural.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Mediums.

[Chuck Nice]

Media. It's slower in water, glass, air, and especially.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Diamond. Right. Where it gets bounced around and.

[Chuck Nice]

Then comes out when it's cut. Correct, Right. When it's cut correctly, you want to cut it. It's such a way refracts. So it looks like the diamond has a certain radiance.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right?

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. And it's refraction. Yeah, that's exactly. Dispersion on the way.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Out. So. Cost you a lot of money for a little bit of, like, praise. I stopped buying diamonds years.

[Chuck Nice]

Ago. And why you. How are you forcing upon others your own marriage.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Experience? Hmm? Just.

[Chuck Nice]

Warning for those considering.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Diamonds. If you're.

[Chuck Nice]

Considering. Just.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Warning. I'm telling you, Cupid's zirconia, man. Don't make the mistake. Don't make the mistake. The diamonds are expensive, buddy. Let me tell you something. They throw them on like it was no big.

[Chuck Nice]

Deal. They don't put them on every.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Time like, oh, my God, look at this. This man went out and. And spend all this money on. They just throw them on like there's nothing to it. Okay, get them, sir. Cons, save yourself some money. Take it from a.

[Chuck Nice]

Pro. I forgot what the question.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Was. Okay. All.

[Chuck Nice]

Right. Oh, no, no. So, Izzy, so you can't make them faster than the speed of.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Light.

[Chuck Nice]

No. So. But two points. If you could, the particles would go backwards in time. Right. According to.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The. According to the.

[Chuck Nice]

Mathematics. Right. So in Einstein's equations, you can go up to the speed of light, but you cannot attain it. But nothing stops you from existing on the other side of the speed of light and then going faster than that. And if you do that, you would live backwards in.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Time. And what's that.

[Chuck Nice]

Called?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Tachyon. Tachyon, that's.

[Chuck Nice]

Right. Tachyos, from the Greek, meaning fast. Like a tachometer.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right. You've heard of tachometer on your.

[Chuck Nice]

Car.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Exactly. Well, my car doesn't have it anymore because I have an electric car. So there's nothing to attack. I'm just.

[Chuck Nice]

Saying. Okay. Yeah. So then it would be moving backwards through time, and you could then send yourself a signal using your tachyons. Using tachyons before you knew to send yourself a.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Signal.

[Chuck Nice]

Wow. Yeah, trippy. So, yeah, it's a fun particle. Someone decided to move all the way into the other side of the equations and follow them through. And that's one of the concludes. We've never found.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Tachyons.

[Chuck Nice]

Right. In the actual universe.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. Oh, well, it's kind of cool. So tachyons, then, if they did exist, they would be moving. We could only intersect them at the point which they meet our.

[Chuck Nice]

Reality. Going in opposite directions.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Correct. That's the only time we can see.

[Chuck Nice]

Them. It's a perceptive point you're.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Making.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. You can't see them in the.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Future. You can't see them in the future. You can't see them in the.

[Chuck Nice]

Past. You can't. To see them as it's going backwards through time and we're going forward time, and.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Boom. That's when you see the T in that.

[Chuck Nice]

Instant.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's. Oh, that's.

[Chuck Nice]

Wild.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. Yeah, I like it. Well, thanks for that, Martin from.

[Chuck Nice]

Denmark. Yeah, Very cool. All right, I think we're done.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Here. All right. That was fun.

[Chuck Nice]

Man. We. We just knocking these.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Out. We love the grad coming in. Well, listen, we're here. As long as you keep sending them, we'll keep doing.

[Chuck Nice]

It. There it is. Another installment of StarTalk Cosmic Queries Grab Bag Edition. Neil DeGrasse Tyson. You're a personal astrophysicist. Chuck Lord. Nice in the house. Yes. Thanks for being here. Always a pleasure as always. Keep looking.

[Angie Hicks]

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