Cosmic Queries – Grabby Aliens with Charles Liu

Summary

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StarTalk Radio: Cosmic Queries – Grabby Aliens with Charles Liu

Host: Neil deGrasse Tyson
Guests: Charles Liu, Chuck Nice, Gary O’Reilly
Date: September 5, 2025

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Episode Overview

This Special Edition of StarTalk Radio is a “Cosmic Queries” episode, where astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-hosts field intriguing questions from Patreon listeners, joined by astrophysicist and science communicator Charles Liu (“the Geek in Chief”). The team dives deep into quantum physics, consciousness, and the “grabby aliens” concept, mixing humor, pop culture references, and accessible science explanations. The episode is a lively exploration of big questions, from the nature of quantum entanglement to the philosophical implications of alien contact.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Quantum Particles and Higher Dimensions

Q: Could quantum particles be connected in a higher-dimensional space and just appear separate to us?

• Neil introduces the idea with a Flatland analogy: if we were 2D beings, a 3D sphere passing through would seem mysterious (06:00).

"We would invent a whole quantum physics to try to understand this, when all it is, is someone passing a sphere through the two-dimensional plane in which we live." – Neil deGrasse Tyson [06:00]

• Charles Liu connects this to string theory: extra dimensions might explain quantum “weirdness,” but such ideas are hard to test experimentally (07:02).

"Danielle, you are right on the cusp of exactly what physicists have been trying to figure out for decades." – Charles Liu [07:02]

• Occam’s Razor is invoked: simpler explanations are generally preferred (08:34).
• Entanglement remains a mystery—nature doesn’t have to follow our philosophical neatness.

2. Quantum Entanglement Explained

Q: Is there an actual force or energy connecting entangled particles, and how do we understand entanglement?

• Charles: In quantum physics, unlike in classical physics, there doesn’t need to be a force or energy “in-between” two entangled particles (12:02).

"We're conditioned to think there had to be something exchanged... That's a classical bias perception." – Charles Liu [12:19]

• Quantum entanglement: two particles act as one unified system even when separated by vast distances.

"You can basically think of two entangled particles as being one particle that somehow gets separated... they are still the same particle." – Charles Liu [13:14]

• Chuck jokes: “Is this like the twins, where if you slap one on the butt, the other goes, ‘Ow’?” [14:40]
• Neil emphasizes we observe entanglement and can measure it, but we don’t know “why” it works (12:31).

3. Quantum Physics, Consciousness, and Free Will

Q: Can quantum indeterminacy explain consciousness or free will?

• Charles unpacks the idea of “deciding” at the quantum level versus cognitive decision-making (18:21).

"The key question is... the word 'deciding.' That suggests there was something behind the ultimate outcome." – Charles Liu [18:21]

• While particles “decide” states probabilistically, human free will is shaped by complex causality.
• Neil references neuroscience experiments showing decisions can be triggered in the brain before consciousness is aware (20:59).

"They can trigger you to stand up... and you made up a reason after [the fact]." – Neil deGrasse Tyson [21:26]

• Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle is explained: it describes a fundamental, unavoidable uncertainty in measuring particles (22:03).

"That uncertainty describes how much you don't know, no matter what." – Charles Liu [22:03]

4. Qubits and Quantum Computing

Q: What is a qubit made of, and how is it different from a classical bit?

• Charles: A qubit is information, not a material object—a quantum bit that occupies a superposition between 0 and 1 until measured (25:20).

"A qubit is actually... a piece of information." – Charles Liu [25:20] "The qubit is binary when you read it. But before it becomes read, it is not yet settled." – Charles Liu [27:51]

• Neil and Charles discuss classical vs. quantum bits, QR codes, and how quantum computing could break modern encryption (30:02).

5. Mass, Speed, and Time Dilation

Q: Is there an upper mass limit like the speed of light?

• Charles: No mass limit, but excessive mass in a location creates a black hole (Schwarzschild radius) (31:30).
• Singularities are defined by infinite density (32:36).
• Honest acknowledgment that “inside” a black hole, we can't observe events due to the event horizon.

6. If Light Traveled at Infinite Speed

Q: How would science and our universe change if light speed were infinite?

• Neil: We’d lose all ability to look back in time and understand cosmic history (34:15).

"If the speed of light were infinite, we would know nothing about the history of the universe." – Neil deGrasse Tyson [34:10]

• Charles: Night would never exist—light from all stars would reach us instantly (36:51).

"If the speed of light were infinite, night would always be day." – Charles Liu [36:51]

• Many fundamental physical laws—like relativity—would break down (39:08).

7. Time Dilation by Gravity and Speed

Q: Do gravity and speed influence time in the same way?

• Both slow experienced time relative to an observer, but time for the whole universe isn’t changed—just your “slice” of spacetime (42:16).

"It's not actually slowing time for the whole universe. It's just slowing the amount of time... as experienced by the object." – Charles Liu [42:35]

• Chuck clarifies: Particle decay rates truly slow down at high speeds, not just in perception—confirming relativity (43:50).
• Neil explains GPS satellites must correct for both gravity and speed’s effects on time to function accurately (45:01).

8. Cosmic Queries about “Grabby Aliens”

Q: What is the “grabby aliens” theory, and is it like the “dark forest” from The Three-Body Problem?

• Charles: “Grabby aliens” is a term for hypothetical civilizations that expand aggressively—taking resources wherever they go (47:03).

"Grabby is a word invented... so they would not ascribe any kind of emotion or ethics... just that they have a tendency to want to expand." – Charles Liu [47:06]

• Unlike the “Dark Forest” theory where civilizations hide out of fear, “grabby aliens” actively expand and exploit.

• Neil’s tongue-in-cheek response: "If a grabby alien showed up here, I'm kicking its ass." [49:38]

• Charles adds: If many grabby species meet, the competition for resources would likely cause conflict, much like historical colonization, making this scenario unstable (52:09).

• Chuck recommends District 9 as a flip of the concept—humans become the exploiters (51:10).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Occam’s Razor, Original Version

  "Multiplicity ought not be posited without necessity." – Neil deGrasse Tyson, quoting Occam [08:34]

• On Measuring Quantum Reality

  "We can measure that it happens. So what you're saying is, we don't understand why." – Neil deGrasse Tyson [12:31]

• Twin Analogy

  "Is this like the twins, where if you slap one on the butt, the other one goes, 'Ow'?" – Chuck Nice [14:40]

• On Free Will and Neuroscience

  "So you think you had free will to do it when in fact it was predetermined. That's spooky." – Neil deGrasse Tyson [21:35]

• Singularities & Black Holes

  "A singularity is defined as something that has no volume but infinite density." – Charles Liu [32:36]

• If Light Speed Were Infinite

  "Night would always be day because the light from distant parts of the universe would get to us immediately." – Charles Liu [36:51]

• Grabby Aliens Summary

  "Grabby aliens are a version... that if they show up, take advantage of their environment and improve themselves as a result of it." – Charles Liu [48:32]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Quantum Particles & Higher Dimensions: [05:05]–[09:20]
• Quantum Entanglement: [10:57]–[15:10]
• Consciousness & Free Will: [17:48]–[21:35]
• Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle: [21:41]–[23:03]
• Qubits Explained: [24:08]–[30:52]
• Time, Mass, and Black Holes: [31:00]–[33:39]
• Infinite Speed of Light: [34:10]–[39:19]
• Time Dilation (Gravity & Speed): [41:43]–[45:16]
• Grabby Aliens and Cosmic Sociology: [46:42]–[54:00]

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Flow & Tone

The episode is a lively blend of rigorous science, philosophical speculation, and playful banter. Neil’s authority and humor drive the discussion, with Charles Liu providing deep scientific context in accessible language, often with analogies and pop culture nods. Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly inject comedic relief and keep the questions coming, mimicking the curiosity of the audience. The tone is irreverent but deeply educational, making daunting topics like quantum theory and cosmic sociology accessible and entertaining.

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Final Thoughts

Listeners are left with a sense of wonder and even more questions. The experts remind us how much science can measure, but also how much mystery remains: from the inner workings of quantum reality to the possible behaviors of alien civilizations.

"We can measure things, but we don't know what is really going on. That frustrates so many of us. And maybe aliens would know... And if they do, maybe they have access to higher dimensions." – Neil deGrasse Tyson [52:09]

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End of Summary.

Transcript

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Gary, you jumped into quantum soup on this one.

[Gary O'Reilly]

We did add some flavor to it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Add some flavor. And I learned a little more. You know, we had our geek in Chief with us.

[Chuck Nice]

Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, we always learn something. We got the Geek in Chief.

[Chuck Nice]

I learned that it's delicious with crackers.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Coming up on Special Edition. Welcome to startalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk Special Edition. Neil Degrasse Tyson here, your personal astrophysicist. And it being Special Edition means we got Gary O'Reilly. Gary in the house.

[Charles Liu]

Hey.

[Gary O'Reilly]

S. In the house.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

In the house.

[Charles Liu]

Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Former soccer pro. Love your Wiki page. With your sexy legs.

[Gary O'Reilly]

You're looking too much.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Stop it. Excellent, Chuck. Nice. Always, man.

[Chuck Nice]

Hey, what's happening, guys?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. All right. So we brought in our geek in chief for this, our returning hero, our return, Charles Liu. Charles, welcome back.

[Charles Liu]

Thank you so much.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You've got your own podcast.

[Charles Liu]

Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The Loonaverse.

[Charles Liu]

The Loonaverse.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's clever. That's clever.

[Chuck Nice]

Is that a play on Luna, as in moon, too?

[Charles Liu]

I mean, I can't take credit for it. You didn't. No, no, no. I'm sitting at the table for dinner, right? And we're like, well, what do we call this podcast? And our youngest kid says, the Loonaverse, of course. And I was like, what?

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah.

[Charles Liu]

And that's it.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Don't overthink it.

[Charles Liu]

Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So compared to your kid, you and.

[Chuck Nice]

Chuck went like this. It's a dumb idea. And then he named it the Loonaverse.

[Charles Liu]

I said, no such thing. I just sort of said, wow, So.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I happen to know your wife is really smart. So it sounds like your kids are even smarter than both of you at this point.

[Charles Liu]

I am so pleased that my wife and my children are always smarter than I am.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah.

[Charles Liu]

And it is a great privilege to be able to.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You know what Michael Dell said. But the day you wake up and you're the smartest person in the room.

[Chuck Nice]

Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Change rooms.

[Charles Liu]

Change room.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Very bitter. Gary, before you introduce the show, Chuck, what are you wearing.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Today? I am mostly wearing.

[Chuck Nice]

I feel like I'm on the worst red carpet ever right now. What are you wearing?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And your hand was in your groin a half a second ago. Could you pull your smartphone out of your groin?

[Chuck Nice]

That's not my smartphone, Neil.

[Charles Liu]

Here we go.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

What?

[Chuck Nice]

So we were playing a little baseball softball earlier today, and I don't believe in showering. I do that once a week, and that's it, baby. And that's only if necessary. And so, you know, you guys changed. And so I'm like, you did not change. I'm not changing.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We look clean.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah, you look clean. And, you know.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And you still got your leg braces on.

[Chuck Nice]

Those aren't braces. Those are. What do you call them? Augmentations that were placed in me by darpa. Yes.

[Charles Liu]

You are now a superior augmented human being.

[Chuck Nice]

That's right. Don't ask me to jump up and get nothing off the roof, because I can do it.

[Charles Liu]

That explains why you were tearing around the bases so fast. It's amazing.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And darpa. Defense Advanced Projects Research.

[Charles Liu]

Agency.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The Advance Defense Authority. So this is a branch of the military.

[Chuck Nice]

Yes, it is.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That people might not know where there's a subset of budget that goes to very high risk projects that probably won't work, but if they do work, they'll be amazing.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. And so nothing is higher risk than Chuck. Nice.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So they expect a high percentage of the proposals to actually fail. Not work, to fail.

[Chuck Nice]

And they don't care because the idea is the one that works is going to make us badass.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Darpa.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Gary, what'd you put together for today?

[Gary O'Reilly]

All right, so these are questions from our Patreon listeners. And as you know, they have a curiosity that is almost endless.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Boundless.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Yes. So let's kick it off.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So this is cosmic queries.

[Charles Liu]

For sure.

[Gary O'Reilly]

It's a Cosmic queries. Yeah, it's a grab bag. And we had 42 pages of questions.

[Charles Liu]

Ooh.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Well, we better shut up and get to it. All right.

[Gary O'Reilly]

They're not all on there, but thank you so much for your curiosities Right, let's start with Danielle's. Hello, Neil. Dr. Lou, Gary. And of course, Lord. Nice. Could quantum particles be possibly be connected in a higher dimensional space and only appear to be separate particles in three dimensions?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I love that.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Would a connection like that affect quantum entanglement? Over to you, gentlemen.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh my God.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I thought you were gonna take that.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Oh, yeah, I'll see how well you do.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Well, let me. I'm gonna defer to Charles, but I'm gonna introduce this.

[Chuck Nice]

Tee Charles up.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Because we see particles popping in and out of existence and tunneling through space and time. And we're trying to make sense of it, but I don't see why a higher dimension wouldn't help that out. For example, suppose we all lived in just a plane, a flat with 2D people. Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

You know, some of my friends I see.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

They have no depth at all. So we're here and then like a dot shows up and we all gather around the dot and then the dot sort of becomes a circle and it slowly grows. And we get our top scientists to analyze this. Where did this come from? What is it? What's happening? And then it shrinks back to a dot and then disappears. We would invent a whole quantum physics to try to understand this, when all it is is somebody passing a sphere through the two dimensional plane in which we live. Cause the first contact is the point and then there's a circle as you go through it maximizes at the diameter comes back out. But here we are touching. We're thinking there's something magical and from three dimensions it's completely simple. So, Charles, this question sounds like let's up the game. Can we explain all this mystical, magical quantum spookiness by just it's ordinary people in four dimensions playing marbles.

[Charles Liu]

Not only can we do it, some people have already tried. Ooh, it's called string theory. The idea is that every particle we see in three or four dimensions here might actually have many more dimensions attached to them and interactions on those other dimensions, like the sphere with our particle. But imagine two spheres interacting, not on our two dimensional world. And bingo, you have additional weird things happening. So you, Danielle, are right on the cusp of exactly what physicists have been trying to figure out for decades. Is there perhaps another explanation where we can say the reason this thing is acting so weird is because there's connection elsewhere? Now the problem is, how do you test for that? Right. We can't have any good experiments and so access these dimensions and there are so many.

[Chuck Nice]

And we never will thinking.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That Way, Chuck, don't be such a downer.

[Charles Liu]

There are so many different ways to think. Think about it, that you can have essentially an infinite number of solutions to a finite number of questions that we see or phenomena that we observe here on the world. So we don't want that. So the more a theory is simple and the less it requires additional pieces attached to it to explain observed phenomena, the more likely it is to be something that we can test and confirm. So that's what's going on here.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

History says the more likely it is to be.

[Chuck Nice]

Right.

[Charles Liu]

Generally speaking. That's right. I mean, the famous term, Occam's Razor. Right. Just the philosophical.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I'll tell you exactly what he said. He said, multiplicity ought not be posited without necessity.

[Charles Liu]

Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's the actual quote from Occam. And that we convert that to just Occam's Razor.

[Charles Liu]

Just the simpler idea is more likely to be true than the more complicated idea. That's only a philosophical idea.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, exactly.

[Charles Liu]

That's not exactly confirmed.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Nature doesn't have to obey you in that regard.

[Charles Liu]

So in this instance. That's right. Could well be that. That helps to explain quantum entanglement, but entanglement is yet another phenomenon which is a little bit odd. And we're still working on that. I know right now it's a hot topic, and a lot of people talking about it. Got a lot of people working on it. Yeah. But there's still many, many questions about it. So we could relate it to entanglement, but it's not yet there enough for us to be able to answer that question yes or no.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Or it could be like when Einstein did general relativity, where he was solving some other problem and bada bingo. The mysteries of Mercury's orbit were solved overnight. Mercury's orbit was not behaving the way Newton would have it go. And all of a sudden, Einstein's general theory of relativity explained it without even trying.

[Chuck Nice]

Without trying.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And so it became a side benefit of it. And one thing about your negativity. Okay, okay.

[Charles Liu]

Uh.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, I feel a reed coming off.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So I was on the Infinite Monkey Cage with Brian Cox in London. You're stomping Grang.

[Chuck Nice]

How many monkeys are in an infinite monkey?

[Gary O'Reilly]

Let me guess.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So that's the name of his show, his podcast. It was a radio show. And so we were talking about wormholes. And I said, well, the wormhole, you could do this and travel through. And he jumps in and says, well, wormhole is not stable. It'll collapse immediately, so we need to Think about it. So someone from the audience, a Brit, said that's what distinguishes Americans from us Brits. They're always so positive about what could be solved. And we're always saying what can't happen.

[Chuck Nice]

That's funny.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And that shut him up.

[Charles Liu]

That's culturally accurate.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Not always, but on a number of occasions, you will find an American positivity against a British.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, till we go there.

[Chuck Nice]

I mean, it has its drawbacks. You know, when it's just like, I'm the biggest, the best. Many people don't. I don't realize I'm the most positive.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Keep going, whatever. All right, Chuck's got him too.

[Chuck Nice]

This is Ryan Harris who says Dr. Tyson Lord nice Geek and Professor Lou and Gary Ryan Harris from Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. Given the laws of science, if they hold true when it comes to quantum entanglement, staying on subject, would there not be some sort of energy, slash, force being exerted, slash, used by entangled particles, and can it be qualified as of present? I am trying to understand how two particles across vast distances are influenced by each other instantaneously. And if there are some sort of exotic, scary or otherwise force that has been associated with this phenomena.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So what I would say, how can a thing happen at all without there being an active draw on energy or some other thing that we can measure changing for them to be permanently connected or while they're connected, they're connected. Something's gotta. Some clock is ticking. Something should be measurable from that.

[Charles Liu]

This is one of the big differences between quantum physics and classical physics. We are. We're conditioned, we're trained to think that there had to be something exchanged back and forth. Energy, a particle, whatever, between two things.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's a classical.

[Charles Liu]

That's a classical bias perception. Quantum entanglement, again, as we said earlier, is still not completely well understood. In fact, we don't even know if it's a special thing or if it happens all the time.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Just to clarify, we understand that it happens and we can measure that it happens. So what you're saying is we don't understand why.

[Chuck Nice]

Yes, but you know what?

[Charles Liu]

Before we go.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's a very important distinction.

[Chuck Nice]

Before we go any further, before the why and all that, somebody ought to tell somebody who might just be joining us, what is quantum entanglement? Because this person.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Just because you don't know, don't assume everyone else in our audience doesn't know.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay, well, somebody should tell me.

[Charles Liu]

It's a perfectly legitimate question. Because even if you ask, say, 50 quantum physicists, you might get 51 different answers as to what quantum entanglement really is.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay, that's because I did not know.

[Charles Liu]

It's kind of like if you ask a hundred biologists what life is, you'll get 101 answers. Same sort of situation, but the fundamentals. Biologists know what life is when they see it. Right. The same is sort of true for quantum physics and quantum entanglement, but boiled down to its most basic point. You can basically think of two entangled particles as being one particle that somehow gets separated. But even if it's separated in space and in time, they are still the same particle. You're just stretching it. So imagine if you have a little ball and you break it in half, and then you're kind of moving it. It's kind of like this quantum taffy or caramel almost, that continues to connect them. Even though there could be a huge amount of space or time between those two parts, they are still the same particle.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And that's a quantum thing that you're describing.

[Charles Liu]

That's right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Not a classical thing.

[Charles Liu]

That's right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Because classically, there's nothing between them. Yes, but that. I'm speaking like a classical With a classical brain to say.

[Charles Liu]

And we all do that. It's very, very hard for us, even those of us who have done a lot of work in quantum physics.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And just to be clear, these two particles. I like the way you're saying it's the same particle, but they have slightly different properties that complement each other.

[Chuck Nice]

Gotcha.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

To make the whole particle. Right. So they. They have very well said, each side took out some features of that same particle.

[Chuck Nice]

So is this like the twins, where if you slap one on the butt, the other one goes, ow.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Sounds like you've done that.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I think that's. I don't want to say that's true, but I think that's true.

[Charles Liu]

That requires an additional assumption about classical physics of twin butts.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah.

[Charles Liu]

Interacting with quantum butts. And then you have some real issues.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Do we get to the point where we say the universe is one single particle and it's just all of a sudden done its thing? And it's.

[Charles Liu]

Great question. We are definitely not all one particle, but the universe could be one single entity that contains a multitude of very, very small, more complex parts. This is something that happens a lot. We think of, for example, atoms as being some sort of indivisible piece. But then we've learned. Well, the Greeks, right. We've learned since Adam means indivisible, that.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Word in Greek means indivisible.

[Chuck Nice]

Nice.

[Charles Liu]

We've learned since that atoms are made.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Up of the Greeks. Any good at anything?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The Greeks suck. Those idiots.

[Charles Liu]

They did pretty well in the World cup back around 60 years ago, right?

[Gary O'Reilly]

No, they won the European Championship.

[Charles Liu]

That's right.

[Gary O'Reilly]

A few decades ago.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, the democracy thing is overrated. You know.

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[Kristen Bell]

Edu Buying a car in Carvana was so easy. I was able to finance it through them. I just.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Whoa, wait.

[Kristen Bell]

You mean finance? Yeah, finance Got pre qualified for a Carvana auto loan, entered my terms and shot from thousands of great car options, all within my budget. That's cool. But financing through Carvana was so easy. Finance financed, done. And I get to pick up my car from their Carvana vending machine tomorrow. Financed.

[Charles Liu]

Right.

[Kristen Bell]

That's what I said. You can spend time trying to pronounce financing or you can actually finance and buy your car today on Carvana financing subject to credit approval. Additional terms and conditions may apply. Hello, I'm Vicky Maroque Allan and I support StarTalk on Patreon. This is StarTalk with Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Should we jump into the next question?

[Charles Liu]

Let's go for it.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Ezekiel Reeves. Hello. Neil, Chuck, Gary and Lord Lou. My name is Ezekiel from Wawa, Ontario. I love this.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Well, it's not Lord Lou, It's Geek in Chief Lou.

[Charles Liu]

Okay, I accept. No any title.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I adjudicate titles here. Okay.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Quantum physics is rooted in observation and particles deciding which state they are in depending on probability. Can this explain how we evolve the conscious mind and free will?

[Chuck Nice]

Wow.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Do you have four hours?

[Chuck Nice]

I did not see that coming.

[Charles Liu]

Oh yeah. Oh, no, no no, that's great. The key question in my mind, based on your question, Ezekiel, is the word deciding. Right. The decision of something to go this way or that, that suggests that there was something behind the ultimate outcome. Right. When you and I decide to have a ham sandwich, or we decide to.

[Gary O'Reilly]

No, I want one now.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You said it.

[Charles Liu]

Yeah, right. Or we decide that we're going to dive left for a penalty kick instead of dive right. That has a whole bunch of stuff behind it. And the causality of it is dependent on everything from the goalie's life experience to the muscular twitches of that very moment and everything in between. So when individual particles are switching or landing in certain states, Niels Bohr would have called it the wave function collapsing. Right?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Niels Bohr, a physicist from 100 years ago.

[Charles Liu]

Yeah. When you have that kind of an interpretation, then you can ascribe, perhaps intention. Right. But we just cannot say. Even now, we still don't really understand what free will is. The definition of it varies from person to person. The idea.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Because people are still writing 500 page books on it.

[Charles Liu]

Sure.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's the evidence that we don't know anything about.

[Charles Liu]

Interesting.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

But keep going there. So we've got quantum probabilities, so that a particle quote decides, is it gonna decay or is it not? And we know that probability precisely. That's what's fascinating.

[Charles Liu]

That's right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Here's something that's completely probabilistic, that we know with precision. It's a weird combination of facts there. All right, so you're not prepared to analogize. I love the thing, the goalie leaning right or left to the particle decaying in one moment or another. You're not prepared to have your free will be a similar kind of expression.

[Charles Liu]

That's right. Because that's the problem. Right. If you decide that free will is something where, say we humans decide to do a thing. Yeah, right. There's a whole host of events that happened before that moment that helped us to make that decision.

[Chuck Nice]

And there's also a number of events that lead up to the moment before the event that also influences that.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Isn't that what he just said?

[Chuck Nice]

No, he was talking about immediately before the event.

[Charles Liu]

Like it's okay.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah, yeah. But. Okay, so I'm saying. I'm saying that you can take that all the way down. You can keep slicing these layers all the way down.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Turtles all the way down. That's right.

[Charles Liu]

Turtles all the way down.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. Okay, so. And there are those psychology experiments.

[Charles Liu]

That's right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Where they put probes in the brain. I'm gonna mess up the details here, but the results are what I'm landing on, where they can trigger you to stand up and whether you want to. Then you're standing up to say, why did you stand up? And then they make up some reason for why they stood up. When the neuro signatures, the neurosignals already were prompting him to stand up, and he made up a reason after the.

[Chuck Nice]

Fact, and they were. So the signals were generated externally, but you internalize him and say, oh, I stood up for this reason.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So you think you had free will to do it when in fact it was predetermined. That's spooky.

[Charles Liu]

It is.

[Gary O'Reilly]

You talked about probability and the certainty of probability. What is it? Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. So where does that fit in? Because you don't really.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I'm not certain about that.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Well, I didn't expect anything else.

[Charles Liu]

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. That's a great question, Gary. It actually has a little bit.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Werner Heisenberg, German physicist, once again, from 100 years ago.

[Charles Liu]

Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah.

[Charles Liu]

It has a slightly different connotation because what we're saying is that we cannot measure things precisely with infinite precision. That uncertainty describes how much you don't know, no matter what. So Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is actually describing a minimum amount of uncertainty in any measurement. Any measurement. Not necessarily uncertainty about. Yes, about what's going to happen or what's going to happen or not going to happen.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And part of that is because. Yeah, I can know that you're sitting here and the measurement of that is completely sufficient for anything I might do to you or with you. But when particles are involved, which is the whole world of the quantum, if you try to measure it, the act of measuring it changes what it is you're trying to measure.

[Chuck Nice]

Right?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right. So the interaction with the particle confounds your ability to measure what that particle is doing with precision. And I think that's foundational. That's what's foundational. That was so hard to accept by classical physicists.

[Chuck Nice]

Well, that's hard to accept by anybody.

[Charles Liu]

Any step of science going forward, whether it be classical quantum has been hard to accept. It takes time and we should allow ourselves that time.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Don't feel like it's for me to quote. Was it. Yes, it was. It was Max Planck, was it, who said, no great new. I'm paraphrasing. No great discovery in physics gets accepted by the guard of the day. They just get old and die and the next generation takes it on as though it has always been.

[Charles Liu]

Well, the cosmological constant might be an exception to that.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I know, but he predates the cosmological constant in that quote. But anyway, go. Whatcha got?

[Gary O'Reilly]

I'll go with the next one. George Valakis, back with the Greeks. Hey, from New Jersey. Can someone please tell me what a qubit is made of?

[Charles Liu]

Aha.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Is it an electron stuck inside some type of magnetic box? Is it an atom with multiple electrons frozen in multiple quantum states? How is one made?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I love.

[Charles Liu]

Wonderful, wonderful.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Thank you, George.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

But let me just preface this by saying our geek in chief in the past year published an entire book on quantum physics. What's the title of it?

[Charles Liu]

The Handy Quantum Physics Answer Book.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

There you go.

[Charles Liu]

Right?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

There you go.

[Chuck Nice]

So we're not going to answer your question. Just go buy the book and we.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Can go have a beer right now, okay?

[Gary O'Reilly]

Give that back.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Buy the man's book and then we can all just have a beer, okay? The Handy Quantum Physics Answer Book.

[Charles Liu]

Yeah, man, yeah. It's not designed to be a textbook or anything like that, but you're still. If you have Q and A, you.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Don'T have to with a title like that.

[Charles Liu]

Well, again, I cannot claim actually having made any of those discoveries. I was just trying to put together a little guide for people who had questions and answers. And they are quantum questions, as one.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Would have someone come along and hold your hand, just walk you along.

[Charles Liu]

It's great, amazing stuff that our colleagues have done over the centuries. And this year being, of course, the 100th anniversary as designated by the United nations of International Quantum Physics.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Did they declare that? Yeah, International Year right in the middle of the decade. Yes, the whole decade goes to quantum physics.

[Charles Liu]

It's really quite amazing. So a qubit is actually. Doesn't need to have a physical form. It's a piece of information. Let me make an analogy to regular bits, okay? Bits are just pieces of information. So for example, if you've got a 64 bit chip in your computer, all right, all that is is that it can carry or hold 64 pieces of information that are either 0 or 1. If you have a bit, it's just a piece of information. And you can store it either electronically in a chip with a plus 5 volts or minus 5 volts or something like that. Or you could say, store a bit of information in a QR code which is just a square that's white or a square that's black. Or you can do a coin flip whether it's heads or it's Tails.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So the bit with the QR code, that's the little thing we scan.

[Charles Liu]

Yeah, little scan thing with.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I always thought of that as like a two dimensional barcode.

[Charles Liu]

This is exactly what it is.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. Because barcodes are you white or black and how thick is the black?

[Charles Liu]

That's right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And now that's all the information, right? Yeah. So I presume, because we added a dimension, the QR codes can hold way.

[Charles Liu]

More information with the same amount of.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Area than a, than a bar, than a barcode. So you have QR codes that have entire web addresses on this. Right.

[Charles Liu]

And they can be little bit things, but in the end it's just squares. Some square that's white or square that's black, square that's white, black, next to each other. And that is the information. So the bit is the information, it's not the thing that it's stored in. So, George, your question. What is a qubit really? It's a quantum bit, but it's a piece of information and you can store it in any kind of container that quantum systems can hold this information in.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Didn't Microsoft just bring out a quantum chip they tried in the last few days?

[Charles Liu]

That's right. It's the very beginnings of using quantum computing in regular computing that we use. But they are far, far away from a true quantum computing.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, you just said that it's not a thing, it's information. But now tell us the difference between a traditional bit, which is a 0 or 1 or black or white, and a qubit, which is a statistical occupation of a. So just go there.

[Charles Liu]

Okay, Well, a bit is either a 0 or a 1 or black and a white. Black and a white. Just a piece of information that is or is not. So it's binary. And so it's a binary piece of information.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Binary.

[Chuck Nice]

Thank you.

[Charles Liu]

Right. The qubit is binary when you read it. But before it becomes red, it is not yet settled. So it can be somewhere between 0 and 1. And the complexity of the amount of zeroness or oneness a qubit has fluctuates and varies until such time as you read it. Right. So if you have a computer nowadays, we want to make a bit switch as quickly as possible. All right? So we want our computers to switch from 0 to 1 or 1 to 0.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The speed of the computer is fast as you can. Better than that.

[Charles Liu]

Yeah. Right. With a qubit, you might want to slow it down a little tiny bit. And while that stuff inside the qubit is settling out, it may actually be able to make calculations you can Actually ask the qubit using various electronic inputs to give you a number, doing some sort of a calculation or some sort of a figuring that you could not do in real time at high speed. And because the quantum timeframe is so fast, even if we slow it down, you still wind up being able to do certain calculations way faster than any classical computer.

[Chuck Nice]

So probabilistically, you're no longer bound by the binary.

[Charles Liu]

Yes. During the time in between the 0 and the 1, you've got a chance to really mess with it and really gain some new knowledge that you couldn't have done before.

[Chuck Nice]

So the moment you read it, all that's over.

[Charles Liu]

That's right.

[Chuck Nice]

Because probabilistically, you are now back to the binary. It either is or it is not.

[Charles Liu]

That's right. And so what you're trying to do when you're creating a qubit with technology is to figure out how you can sustain that qubit, how you can make it last for a tiny fraction of a second longer than otherwise would. Or what? You can make that qubit do a calculation for you, which you can't watch.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Why can't I make a VR code qubit that has a grayscale in it?

[Charles Liu]

Eventually you could, but right now we don't have the technology.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Because that would be everything between the 0 and 1. Yes. The black and white on a grayscale.

[Chuck Nice]

That'd be amazing.

[Charles Liu]

That would be awesome.

[Chuck Nice]

That would be amazing.

[Charles Liu]

But we're not anywhere near near there yet. But the technology is getting us there slowly but surely.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's called black hole.

[Chuck Nice]

That's all it is. Yeah. But this is why they say, like, encryption ends when we have a quantum computer. And it's because all of those possibilities you could actually figure out, manifest it, Manifest it inside of that, inside of those qubits kind of all at once.

[Charles Liu]

That is very similar. Yes. You have. Right now, the way we keep our Internet connections secure is through a particular kind of algorithm or strategy. That strategy can be broken according to the theoretical calculations. If you have a quantum computer, it's an encryption. Right. The only thing is, once that code can be broken, can we make another one that can't be broken?

[Chuck Nice]

That can't be broken.

[Charles Liu]

Right. So there will always be this race.

[Chuck Nice]

So now you got quantum encryption.

[Charles Liu]

That's right.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay.

[Charles Liu]

And this, the back and forth. Those are some really interesting stuff.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah.

[Charles Liu]

Yeah.

[Gary O'Reilly]

George, thank you for that. I think we've learned a lot from that answer. James Kovacs. Hello, gents. From Detroit. Michigan.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We said about Detroit.

[Gary O'Reilly]

I know.

[Chuck Nice]

I'm Getting there like a black man.

[Charles Liu]

But did you say Kovacs? Correct.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Probably didn't say Kovacs. Kovacs, yes. Sorry. Mangling. So we know speed and mass cause time to slow down. In the case of speed, we know the universe's speed limit is the speed of light. You may disagree. You may not. Time stops altogether at the speed of light, and nothing can surpass that speed. Is there a similar mass limit? Is there a point at which you have so much mass that time stops?

[Charles Liu]

Let me make first just a tiny bit of adjustment to the question. The assumption is that the faster you move through space, the slower you move through time. It's not that time will stop if you are moving very fast or at the speed of light. Right? That speed limit, it is relative. Everything is relative. So that question has a little bit of a nuance to it. But to answer that basic question, is there a mass limit of objects? The answer is no. You can make an object of arbitrarily large mass in the universe and that would be totally fine. But there is a limit, because if you have too much mass in any given location in the universe, you create a Schwarzschild radius, which is the outer boundary of a black hole. So the way to think about a maximum mass in the universe is to think about the maximum amount of mass that can fit inside a limited volume. Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And not be a black hole.

[Charles Liu]

And not be a black hole.

[Chuck Nice]

I was going to say, because don't black holes. Isn't the idea of a singularity as unlimited volume inside of no limits on volume.

[Charles Liu]

Great, great point. A singularity is defined as something that has no volume but infinite density because it has non zero mass. However, a black hole, just to be clear.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So density has volume in the denominator, right? And if the denominator goes to zero, you're dividing by zero.

[Chuck Nice]

And there you go.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

There you go.

[Charles Liu]

And that number doesn't exist in our mathematical system. See?

[Chuck Nice]

And so now this is what I'm going to say.

[Charles Liu]

What?

[Chuck Nice]

Y' all been lying to us all these years, man.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

But about what? Y'.

[Chuck Nice]

All. Everything.

[Charles Liu]

Okay, Sorry, dude.

[Chuck Nice]

No, I'm joking.

[Charles Liu]

That's a joke. The situation really is that if you add more mass to an object, right, and it's already at its black hole mass limit, it just gets bigger. The black hole itself gets bigger. Inside the black hole's event horizon, you could have an incredibly massive object or a singularity or something like that, but we will not be be able to know because information cannot pass through that event horizon at Least as far as we know now.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right.

[Chuck Nice]

The cosmic blood brain barrier. That's what I call it.

[Charles Liu]

Excellent.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Very organic.

[Charles Liu]

Of, yes. But does that mean our brain is inside the barrier or outside the barrier?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It depends on who you are.

[Chuck Nice]

All right, that was good.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Keep it going.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Next one up comes from Raluka Alexandrescu, formerly of Bucharest, Romania, but now living in Toronto, Canada. My question is, how would we study the universe if light traveled at infinite? Oh, yeah. I knew you'd like this.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I love me some.

[Charles Liu]

Infinite.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Okay, it goes on. There's more.

[Charles Liu]

All right.

[Gary O'Reilly]

If we lived in a universe where the speed of light was infinite and we did not have the benefit of seeing back in time as we look into deep space, how would the study of the universe change? Would other laws of physics be changed if light traveled at infinite speed?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And let me tee this off. And I'm going to pass it off, pass the baton. If the speed of light were infinite, we would know nothing about the history of the universe, because we couldn't. Okay. The Big Bang would be forever lost in time because there's no time lag from things that happened 14, 13 billion years ago. We need the finite speed of light to know anything about our past. It would be like in geology, where anything just got in sedimentary rock. It just dissolved or disappeared and removed all record of anything that had happened before. So the universe wants us to add universe.

[Gary O'Reilly]

The universe wants us to know.

[Chuck Nice]

Ooh, wow, look at that.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

This is deep in. You got your white robe on here. This is very.

[Gary O'Reilly]

I'm not actually sat in this chair. I'm actually levitating just a bit out of this seat.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So that would be sad to me if we lose all of that knowledge and information. Charles, you have any other insights here?

[Charles Liu]

I don't know how sad it would be. It would be different, that's for sure. Our ability to tell time would be essentially wiped out. That's what Neil is saying. And that's kind of a trouble.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Well, tell history time. I can know it's 2 in the afternoon.

[Charles Liu]

I could know that the causal time gets messed up.

[Gary O'Reilly]

But it's just us as a species that registered the concept of time.

[Charles Liu]

Not at all. We know that there are many species that can tell difference between day and night, for example. Right. And they actually age. And they know when to spawn and when to come back to the stream. So they do measure time, but not in the way that we understand it, as ticking and so forth. Right. But clocks here on Earth, if the speed of light were infinite, would also run Funny, there would be an ability to see things that are happening, but the way that we measure them is dependent on how fast that information gets around the universe. So there's lots of interesting, cool results. I don't know if they'd be sad, but it certainly would be very, very different. But I'm gonna focus on something that's slightly different. And I gotta give credit to our former colleague Ken Croswell.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I remember him.

[Charles Liu]

Yeah, Ken Croswell wound up writing a number of books about astronomy. Also a very, very talented astronomer. He wrote a very good insight that I saw in one of his books. And that is, if the speed of light were infinite, night would always be day.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Good point.

[Charles Liu]

Because the light from distant parts of the universe would get to us immediately, as well as stuff close to us. As a result, every single spot in the sky would be covered somewhere by a star. Right. So all the lines of sight in the universe would be brightly light. And so we would never have a sky that we could look at night and see what's out there. So that's the most fundamental difference in our study of the universe.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Wait, wait. Wouldn't an expanding universe still dilute the light even if it traveled?

[Charles Liu]

If the expansion rate is finite and the speed of light is infinite, it doesn't matter. Then it doesn't matter. You will never catch it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's right. So there would be no nights.

[Chuck Nice]

Light outraces everything all the time.

[Charles Liu]

If it were infinite, that would be it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And if memory serves, the fine structure constant has the speed of light in it.

[Charles Liu]

Yes.

[Chuck Nice]

I'm sorry, you lot.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so the universe has, among its several constants, speed of light is one of them. Some constants are combinations of other constants.

[Chuck Nice]

So the fine structure constant, structure constant.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It gives us information about the formation of energy levels inside of atoms. Okay, and so if that were infinite, what does that mean?

[Chuck Nice]

All right, we got to do an explainer on the fine structure, but we.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Have to bring geek in Chief back for that.

[Charles Liu]

Well, it actually is a really, really interesting history because for a period of time in the history of quantum physics, the fine structure constant was measured to be exactly one divided by 137. And no one knew why 137 was this magic number. And today we know that that was actually an approximation. It's off by a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction. But that's something fun to talk about in the future and about the advancement of history and how we tried to create ideas, isn't it?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

1 over 137, 0.16 or something.

[Charles Liu]

0.00, blah, blah, blah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, it is that clean.

[Charles Liu]

Very, very flat in there.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. That's another thing. So. So it could mess with other stuff as well.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Because the speed of light shows up in our calculations. And if it's infinite, what does that do to the calculations and our understanding?

[Chuck Nice]

I see what you're saying.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You change everything.

[Charles Liu]

Yeah. Yes.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, that's so wild.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Just saying.

[Charles Liu]

Yeah.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Blowing stuff up now.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You really have to. You blow up the system.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, my God.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's right. And it almost doesn't even mean anything to say the speed of light is the limit.

[Chuck Nice]

Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Because if it's infinite, relativity doesn't even make sense.

[Gary O'Reilly]

That's no longer relative.

[Charles Liu]

Albert Einstein's. Albert Einstein's theories are not useful.

[Chuck Nice]

It's no longer relative.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's no longer relative.

[Charles Liu]

That's right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right. And simultaneity would be real.

[Charles Liu]

You actually would have things happen because.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We could all experience it.

[Chuck Nice]

Wow.

[Gary O'Reilly]

We just, we can screen. We've just put the notes down for screenplay for another movie.

[Charles Liu]

Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. What is kind of fun, though, to.

[Chuck Nice]

Think of the whole speed of light in light, though.

[Charles Liu]

Yeah.

[Chuck Nice]

The entire universe.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Well, we kind of already are, but it would be more intense than your.

[Chuck Nice]

It would just be.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I, I. You're right. That's a screenplay that we got to work on. Yeah.

[Gary O'Reilly]

That's ours.

[Charles Liu]

Start tomorrow.

[Gary O'Reilly]

You know who I'm talking to.

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[Kristen Bell]

Hi, I'm Kristen Bell, and if you know my husband Dax, then you also know he loves shopping for a Car. Selling a car, not so much.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We're really doing this, huh?

[Kristen Bell]

Thankfully, Carvana makes it easy. Answer a few questions, put in your van or license, and done. We sold ours in minutes this morning, and they'll come pick it up and pay us this afternoon.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Bye, bye, Truckee.

[Kristen Bell]

Of course, we kept the favorite.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Hello, other Truckee.

[Kristen Bell]

Sell your car with Carvana today. Terms and conditions apply.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So, Gary, a couple minutes left.

[Gary O'Reilly]

All right. Mahawi, Gehrezia. Apologies if it's mispronounced. Time is impacted.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Trump never apologizes when you mispronounce it.

[Chuck Nice]

Because it's a privilege to have me mispronounce your name. Better be happy I even said it anyway.

[Charles Liu]

Go ahead.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Mahawi's from Dallas, Texas. Time is impacted by extreme gravity, like with a black hole and extreme speeds. Do these things have something in common? For example, is the extreme gravity really just making things move faster and that's why they both impact time?

[Charles Liu]

I think the question you're asking is indeed answerable, thanks to Albert Einstein.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Let me just set it up again. So two things can slow down time. The strength of your gravity field and how fast you're moving.

[Charles Liu]

That's right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Relative to observer. So they feel different. But are they different?

[Charles Liu]

The thing is, they're not actually slowing time for the whole universe. It's just slowing the amount of time or the rate at which time is being experienced by the object that is either moving very quickly or the object that is in a gravitational field.

[Chuck Nice]

Because time is the same for the observer.

[Charles Liu]

That's right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

In both cases.

[Chuck Nice]

In both cases.

[Charles Liu]

So in fact, what's going on is the effect is on space time. It's that gravity affects space time in such a way that if you're in a gravitational field, you experience time more slowly than if you were not in that field. So you have the same effect. If you're moving faster, you experience time more slowly, but the effect is not on you as the object or on time as the dimension. The effect is on space time overall. And, Alberta, why?

[Chuck Nice]

It literally slows down in the measurement. Okay. Which is why, if I get this right, please help me out. Particles actually decay slower as they approach the speed of light. So it's not the perception of time. It is a literal slowing down for the object that is approaching the speed of light.

[Charles Liu]

Absolutely.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay.

[Charles Liu]

Yes. Yes. It was space time.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I like your angle on that. Because what that even says is it's not even what's happening inside you. It is your place.

[Charles Liu]

Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

In the space time.

[Charles Liu]

It is your location.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Your location.

[Charles Liu]

And the Rate that you're changing out of that location, otherwise known as speed. Right.

[Chuck Nice]

That's crazy.

[Charles Liu]

But yes, Your. Your statement about the decay of particles was actually one of the most important confirmations. Experiments was done to prove that the special theory of relativity was correct.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. Because the particle has an expected decay time.

[Chuck Nice]

Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And very precisely measured. You accelerate, that puppy takes longer to decay.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah, right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Something happened inside there. Yep, Yep. And a fun fact is we've said this before, but now it has foundational context. Our GPS satellites are not on Earth's surface with us. We are in a higher gravitational field than the GPS satellites. So that has their time tick faster. However, they're also fast in orbit, which would have their time tick slower. It turns out the gravitational well is a stronger effect on the time reckoning.

[Chuck Nice]

Than the speed itself.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Than the speed. And so that in fact GPS time is ahead of us. And it has to correct with Einstein's relativity before it sends to the cell phone towers. So we have the time that is our space time, the surface of the Earth.

[Chuck Nice]

Gotcha.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Not space time. Up in middle Earth orbit without regular.

[Chuck Nice]

And is that an adjustment between the speed and the gravity world?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, they calculate. We got top people. We got people. I got people.

[Charles Liu]

All right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I got people.

[Chuck Nice]

Hey, Harry, listen. Something's wrong with your calculations, man.

[Charles Liu]

Neil, just for future reference, middle Earth orbit is what you go around like orcs and dwarves and mountains.

[Chuck Nice]

What about second breakfast?

[Charles Liu]

Medium orbit. Medium Earth orbit.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

What'd I say?

[Charles Liu]

Middle Earth.

[Chuck Nice]

I think middle's better. I'm sorry. I like it when I hear people say middle Earth orbit.

[Charles Liu]

Well, Middle Earth instead of medium Earth orbit. Well, the middle Earth orbit is reserved for the Hobbit Space Telescope.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, good one.

[Chuck Nice]

I like what you did.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, I gotta tell you, okay, so I have to say medium or.

[Charles Liu]

No, it would be better.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I'll just say Mio. There's Leo and Mio. Leo.

[Chuck Nice]

Mio and Geo.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Leo and Geo and Geo.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Soon enough you'd cover it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The triplets.

[Chuck Nice]

Here's why I don't have three kids.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And they're triplets that call Leo and Gio.

[Charles Liu]

Really?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, I would totally call them that.

[Charles Liu]

I would call them Huey, Dewey and Louie.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's. That's too old.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah.

[Charles Liu]

Really?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. Those are the. The chipmunks. Huey.

[Charles Liu]

I would call those with a duck.

[Chuck Nice]

I would call them. Do we cheat him?

[Charles Liu]

And how.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

One last question.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Okay, one more. Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

This one.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Doug D. In Danbury, Connecticut. What do you think about. Who's this Doug D. From Danbury in Connecticut.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Doug D. From Danbury?

[Gary O'Reilly]

What do you think of the grabby aliens theory? Is it similar to the dark forest Fermi paradox solution as depicted in the three body problem books, do you think is just one example of an opportunity for speculation?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Grabby aliens.

[Charles Liu]

What a great question to end this episode on.

[Gary O'Reilly]

I know you'd like it.

[Charles Liu]

The concept of the grabby alien. First of all, just clarify for everybody, right? Grabby is a word that was invented for precisely this. G, R, A, B, B, Y, as in aliens that want to grab things, not crabby aliens. Actually, they invented the word grabby. The people who sort of are trying to talk about this so that they would not ascribe any kind of emotion or ethics or morals to these aliens. Just that they have a tendency to want to expand. And wherever they go, they tend to want to take things. Natural resources.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Here we go again.

[Chuck Nice]

If you we.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So colonization has one sentence. Is that yours? It's mine now. Okay? That's colonization.

[Charles Liu]

There is a colonial imperial connotation to this, right?

[Chuck Nice]

Of course.

[Charles Liu]

Because what do we say when we want to go live somewhere else? We colonize Mars, Right? That's actually not what we would want to do in a moral environment or an ethical environment. We might want to live there. We might want to visit or explore or be immigrants or something like that, but we wouldn't want to colonize them. But the point of grabby aliens is that they don't ascribe that kind of, say, imperialistic or colonialistic kind of idea.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's just in their native.

[Charles Liu]

This is in the nature of, say, human species. If we go somewhere, we want to take a look and see what's there and use it and improve our society or improve our lives. Grabby aliens are a version of the kind of aliens that would, for example, if they show up, take advantage of their environment and improve themselves as a result of it. Okay? That would mean that if your civilization actually interacted with a grabby alien civilization, you would have very little time between the time you found them and the time they showed up and took all your natural resources. Okay? So the interaction between grabby aliens and non grabby aliens becomes a very interesting dynamic of science. Should we, as a species, attempt to be grabby? In other words, be open to the universe, send out explorers and pods, and then establish ourselves as being, say, a dominant species in this part of the universe? Or should we hide ourselves and be quiet and not let other aliens who are grabby find us and take our natural.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Let me tell you something. If a grabby alien showed up Here, I'm kicking its ass.

[Charles Liu]

That would be nice. Except most likely the grabby aliens that showed up would have superior technology to us now.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You know what's wonderful?

[Charles Liu]

As long as they have one.

[Chuck Nice]

What's great about what you're talking about.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Ellie, where's your ass?

[Charles Liu]

So the three body problem books and now TV shows and so forth are describing a scenario where they are so afraid, humans and other species of being detected by other aliens that they hide themselves. And the moment that they're detected, it's not that grabby aliens that come and take their stuff, it's that actually vicious, devastating, angry aliens want to remove them immediately from a third threat. So instead of trying to exploit them, they will wipe them out preemptively. Yes. So it's not exactly, you know, without spoiling the series, it's not exactly the same thing as the three body parts.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

As of now, there's only one season posted. Right.

[Charles Liu]

But without spoiling anything, the basic point is watch this and you can see one idea. Well, he has ways. That's another time.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

He has ways.

[Charles Liu]

It's best to think about how alien civilizations interact with one another from the sense of should we be quiet or should we be loud? And grabbiness is just one aspect.

[Chuck Nice]

Here's another great movie on this subject, but completely the antithesis of what you said. And that's District 9 where they are super advanced and they come here and we're the grabbies.

[Charles Liu]

Yes.

[Chuck Nice]

Without even. We never left home and we're still like total a holes.

[Charles Liu]

Isn't that something? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So cool. I learned. So I'd never heard about grabby aliens.

[Charles Liu]

It's fine.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I'm just aliens. You come down, I'm gonna kick your ass. You ain't taking my stuff.

[Chuck Nice]

I have no problem with grabby aliens.

[Charles Liu]

If actually just as a little point.

[Chuck Nice]

Sometimes you have to grab them by the alien. They let you do it. They let you do it.

[Charles Liu]

There are some very good YouTube videos about grabby aliens. Not that kind of grabby alien, but generally grabby types of aliens.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And so I would find philosophical point.

[Charles Liu]

Yes. And you can find lots of discussions motivations of species. I think there's a channel called Rational Animations that has a whole series of them. But just look.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So, Charles, thank you for illuminating.

[Charles Liu]

It is always a pleasure. I love being here with you guys. Such great questions. Congratulations to you guys for having such an amazing.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

There it is. So it's got me thinking if I might offer a perspective on this, especially that last question, quantum physics. We're reminded that we can measure things, but we don't know what is really going on. That frustrates so many of us. And maybe aliens would know are they more advanced? And if they are, they probably do. Maybe they have access to higher dimensions. Grabby aliens, that I'm gonna kick their ass if they come down here. But I can tell you this, that if aliens are grabby, and that is a feature of them all, that is a self limiting property of their behavior. Because a grabby alien wants to grab everything they see. And if they grab everything they see, that is the spread of the grabby aliens. And then they want to grab the same thing as each other, as one another. And they would then have wars, wouldn't they? Because some other part of their grabby aliens grabbed something that the other grabby people wanted. And now it's not available for them anymore if it's so fundamentally part of their inner soul, of their inner source of exploration and discovery. So it seems to me grabby alien scenario would implode just the same way the European colonization scenario imploded, where you had the Dutch and the British and the French and the Spanish and everybody trying to claim land on Earth's surface. And there's a finite amount of land on Earth's surface, eventually they start fighting each other. So I don't see grabby aliens as a stable future of the universe, but I'm still kicking the ass if they come.

[Gary O'Reilly]

All right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That is a cosmic perspective. It's a badass cosmic perspective. This has been special edition. Yeah, man. Dude, thank you for putting this together.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Oh, you're welcome. And thank you for our audience. They're just brilliant with their questions.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And geek in chief, we're going to follow up on your quantum insights. We're going to all get your book. Give me the title again.

[Charles Liu]

The handy quantum physics answer.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You can't want more than a title like that.

[Charles Liu]

Come on now.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right, Right. Chuck, good to have you, man.

[Chuck Nice]

Always.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Always. This has been Stark Talk special edition. Neil DeGrasse Tyson, as always, bidding you to keep looking up.

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[Charles Liu]

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[Charles Liu]

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Artist, an actress, to visit another country.

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