Cosmic Queries – Proving Einstein Right

Summary

StarTalk Radio — “Cosmic Queries: Proving Einstein Right”

Host: Neil deGrasse Tyson
Guest: Prof. Jim Gates (Ford Professor of Physics, Brown University)
Co-host: Chuck Nice
Date: November 21, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into the significance and continued testing of Albert Einstein's theories—particularly general relativity. Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice are joined by renowned physicist Jim Gates to tackle listener “cosmic queries.” Together, they explore why Einstein needed verifying at all, how experimental science caught up with his ideas, and which predictions scientists are still chasing today. Throughout, the discussion weaves in history, personal stories, and physics concepts explained with clarity and humor.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Did Einstein Need to Be “Proved Right”?

(Starts ~02:32)

• Einstein’s Breakthroughs: Early work in 1905 reshaped ideas of space, time, and relativity, but the physics community was slow to recognize his genius.
  • “In 1907, he was still in the patent office … People think that as soon as he came up with his wonderful theories, the world beat a path to his door … but no, no, no, no.” — Jim Gates (09:31)
• General Relativity’s Experimental Challenge: Math alone wasn’t enough—real-world evidence was needed to validate Einstein’s predictions.
  • “Just because the math works doesn't mean it has to correspond to any objective reality.” — Neil (12:44)
• The Eclipse Experiment: Astronomers realized that during a solar eclipse, starlight should bend as it passes near the Sun if Einstein’s theory was correct. This became the key test.
  • “If you could watch starlight during an eclipse … you might be able to see the light being bent by the sun.” — Jim Gates (14:14)

Notable Quote

“He did this great piece of work, but it took two years for the physics community to recognize what he had done while he was in that patent office, still trying to figure out how to get a job as a physics professor.”
— Jim Gates (09:48)

2. Einstein’s Collaborators and Human Side

(07:29–17:09)

• Jim Gates’ book, “Proving Einstein Right,” focuses on the astronomers who collaborated with Einstein and the emotional journey behind scientific discovery.

  • “What we really want to do is get inside of their heads and tell the story of what they were feeling as they went through this almost decade-long struggle.” — Jim Gates (07:49)

• Discussion of Einstein’s wife’s role and the collaborative nature of science:

  • “Being a scientist means that you swim in a sea of information, and that information comes from your colleagues. … You use them to hone and to refine your thoughts and distill your thoughts and curate your thoughts.” — Jim Gates (16:25)

3. The Magic of Mathematics in Physics

(19:00–21:02)

• Why does the math we invent so neatly describe the universe?
  • “This is the only piece of magic that I've ever experienced and seen in reality.” — Jim Gates (19:26)
  • “It acts like a third eye for those of us who are scientists. It lets us see things that are not seeable otherwise.” — Jim Gates (19:58)
• Discussion about communicating science with other potential intelligent beings via mathematics.

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Cosmic Queries: Listener Questions

4. Special vs. General Relativity

(26:11–29:09)

• Special relativity: Deals with observers in constant motion; explains phenomena like the Doppler effect for light (bluer when toward you, redder when moving away).
• General relativity: Concerned with the nature of gravity—space and time forming a “spacetime,” curving near mass.
  • “Gravity is the bending of this thing [spacetime].” — Jim Gates (28:15)

5. Why Are Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity Incompatible?

(29:15–35:09)

• Quantum physics: Requires us to abandon the notion of particles as tiny balls; instead, entities are wave-like or particle-like. Classical gravity assumes particles.
  • “Quantum mechanics says, no, that's not the way it works for electrons. You have to think of these things that are more like waves, except when they act like particles. … When you now give that piece of mathematics up and try to do gravity, you find out you just get into a total mess.” — Jim Gates (31:06)
• Who “wins” the clash—quantum physics or gravity?
  Many theorists believe gravity, as currently understood, will have to change, or a new, deeper framework will reconcile both.
  • “There are people who will tell you that gravity is going to be one that loses this discussion.” — Jim Gates (33:13)

6. Future Tests of General Relativity’s Predictions

(35:31–39:03)

• Having detected gravitational waves and glimpsed a black hole's event horizon, “the next big thing” would be detecting the graviton, the quantum particle of gravity.
  • “Now that we have seen waves of gravity, we want to see the quantization of the energy carried by those waves … we will have the Star Trek graviton in our universe.” — Jim Gates (36:55)
  • No experiments currently exist to detect gravitons, but someday technology may allow it.

7. Is Curved Space Just a Convenient Approximation?

(38:17–39:03)

• Detecting the graviton may ultimately require rethinking gravity away from Einstein’s vision of geometry, to focus on field theory.
  • “I don't actually think about gravity in terms of geometry. It's field theory that's the tool for people like us.” — Jim Gates (38:50)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Einstein’s confidence:
  “He sort of says things like, if the theory of general relativity had failed to receive experimental and observation support, that he would have felt sorry for the good Lord, because that was a really brilliant idea.”
  — Jim Gates (17:33)

• On the social side of science:
  “I tell people all the time that being a scientist means that you swim in a sea of information … you are constantly in conversation with your colleagues.”
  — Jim Gates (16:25)

• On string theory and the “faith” of mathematics:
  “One of the weird things about mathematics is that you have to take some things on faith. There's actually a mathematical theorem that says this.”
  — Jim Gates (50:52)

• On multiple images of stars due to gravitational lensing:
  “If you have one object behind, that object will make a minimum of three images, one that comes straight through and then two that come around the side … You get to see the same event twice.”
  — Neil deGrasse Tyson (55:29, 56:03)

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Interesting Timestamps

• Einstein’s “patent office years” and the origin of general relativity: 09:14–10:53
• Book “Proving Einstein Right” and its unique approach: 07:05–08:07
• On the interplay between math and reality: 19:00–21:02
• Listener question: General vs Special Relativity: 26:11–29:09
• Why quantum mechanics and relativity don’t mix: 29:14–35:09
• Future experiments, the search for the graviton: 35:31–39:03
• Gravitational lensing and duplicate images: 54:33–57:33
• Humorous mustache and hair society banter: 48:36–49:39

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Lighthearted & Accessible Tone

• Chuck Nice regularly injects humor (e.g., comparing himself to a string cheese person; riffing on Einstein’s hair/mustache).
• Both Neil and Jim take complex physics questions and shape them into digestible stories and metaphors for the lay audience.
• Listeners genuinely curious about the intersection of science and story will enjoy the banter and gentle deflation of stereotypes about the solitary scientist.

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Takeaways

• Proving Einstein “right” was a protracted, community effort—math alone never suffices in science.
• Einstein’s major theories broke open new questions that are still active frontiers for experiment and theory.
• The “magic” of mathematics remains the deepest mystery for many working physicists.
• Einstein’s predictions continue to be tested and refined—a testament to how science and technology move together.
• The search for a quantum theory of gravity (and the elusive graviton) frames the big open question of the century.

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[Compiled summary stops at the end of substantive discussion, omitting ads, intros, sponsor segments, and outros.]

Transcript

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[Chuck Nice]

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You're about to listen to an episode specially drawn from our archives to serve your cosmic curiosities. The archives run deep. If you enjoy this, take a peek at the full catalog on your favorite podcast platform. There's a lot there to tickle your geek underbelly. Check it out. Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk. I'm your host, Neil Degrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And today's topic is Proving Einstein right. Chuck, I needed you for this one. Cause you're the man. You're the man.

[Chuck Nice]

I don't know how you need me because I never knew Einstein was wrong. So I'm trying to figure out where's the controversy?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Where's the controversy? Well, to talk about that controversy, I'm bringing a friend and longtime colleague, Jim Gates. Jim, welcome to Star Talk.

[Jim Gates]

Well, Neil, it's good to be back in the presence of a star.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, don't, James, please. It's okay. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate you.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh we'll leave that one at that. So, Jim, you've been at this for a long time. Well, you've been an Einstein fan for sure, but a theoretical physicist. And you're director for the center for Theoretical Physics at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. And that's a title. How long have you been doing that?

[Jim Gates]

So When I was 66, Neil, I was recruited from the University of Maryland to Brown. I went around telling my friends, asking friends, why do you think they want an old car?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No, it's not the age, it's the mileage. Okay, clear, we know this.

[Jim Gates]

Well, one of my friends said, jim, you're not an old car, you're an antique car.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, oh, there you go. A preservable antique.

[Jim Gates]

They hold their value.

[Chuck Nice]

I'm gonna go one better than your friend James. You are vintage, my friend.

[Jim Gates]

You are vintage.

[Chuck Nice]

Vintage gets you even more money than antique, as you say.

[Jim Gates]

Okay, well. Well, I switched after 33 years at my previous university. Came here.

[Chuck Nice]

And where was the previous university?

[Jim Gates]

University of Maryland, College Park. Wow.

[Chuck Nice]

And do they. Are you still in speaking terms? Because I would be kind of angry after 33 years that you just up and leave me. Just leave our marriage after 33 years?

[Jim Gates]

Well, I don't know if the marriage is the right analogy, but independent of debating that particular. We did part of good terms.

[Chuck Nice]

Excellent.

[Jim Gates]

In fact, I'm an emeritus professor there, and as an emeritus professor, I have taught two consecutive years courses on public policy. Nice evening courses. Yep. So I'm on good terms.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So if I remember correctly, you were on Obama's Advisory Council for Science and Technology, right?

[Jim Gates]

That's exactly right, Neil. Served seven years on the President's Council, Advisors on Science and Technology. Pcast. The acronym pcast. That's right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's right. So. But you weren't in the current administration. They didn't invite you back in there.

[Jim Gates]

I thought we were gonna try to keep.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, I just wanna.

[Jim Gates]

All right, up enough here.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We'll leave it at that.

[Chuck Nice]

That's all right. I was invited to be on this current administration's advisory council on writing jokes about technology.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

There you go. So if you're director of the center, that's not necessarily an academic title, that's a job title. So you're also professor of Physics.

[Jim Gates]

Indeed. I'm an endowed professor here at Brown University. The endowment is the Ford. I'm the so called Ford professor of Physics. I'm also an affiliate mathematics professor, and on top of that I'm a faculty fellow at the Watson Institute for Public affairs and International Affairs.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Wow. Excellent.

[Jim Gates]

Excellent.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay, Nice stuff.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So you're like, we should bring you back for seven other excuses, seven other reasons. Forget the theoretical physics. We got some policy we gotta figure out here. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna structure this program. We're gonna spend the first segment just talking about why was Einstein proved right or why did he need to be proved right. And then we'll go to Q and A, we go to go to our cosmic queries. And Chuck, you got cosmic queries for season two and three.

[Chuck Nice]

I have the questions right here. And I have to say these are some man. People are excited that you're here, Professor. They are excited that you're here. We got some great questions.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

There's no one that triggers more questions than Einstein and relativity. And we got the man for it.

[Jim Gates]

Well, I would say Einstein, relativity and Tyson.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And what?

[Jim Gates]

And Tyson.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay, right on.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right. So Jim, you published a book in 2019 called Proving Einstein right. And let me get the full title. The Daring Expeditions that Changed How we look at the Universe. Sure. And do you have a co author who was that?

[Jim Gates]

I do have a wonderful co author. Her name is Kathy Pelletier. She lives in Allegoch, Maine, which is just right across Walking to Canada. And this book is not what people expected usually. You know, Neil, your first book, as I recall, was partly autobiographical, right?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Well, that was one of my first. My fourth book. Yeah.

[Jim Gates]

Okay, fourth. So what I wanted to do with this was to do something I had never seen done before with physicists. Usually people talk about the wonder and the majesty of looking at nature and the struggle and what have you. But what I wanted to do, and I had wanted to do this for a decade, is to write a book about the interior lives of the people who do the science. And so this book is actually dedicated to eight astronomers and Albert Einstein. And yes, we tell the scientific story, but what we really want to do is get inside of their heads and tell the story of what they were feeling as they went through this almost decade long struggle. So the book surprises people.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so the book is published in 2019, and if I remember my history, that's basically the centennial of this big experiment that showed that Einstein was right.

[Jim Gates]

That's right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

But let me back up a little bit. So most people, I mean physicists know Einstein for both, for many things, of course, but for special relativity and general relativity, I think often when people think of Einstein, they think of the effects of sort of ordinary relativity like time dilation and this sort of thing. So that would all happen in 1905.

[Jim Gates]

That's correct.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So why, if that's all happened and it worked and it was, you know, it was smoking effective at explaining our understanding of the universe, why didn't everybody say, yeah, Einstein's the man? Why did it have to wait another 10 years for them to prove some other thing that he did?

[Jim Gates]

So let me talk about Einstein in 1905, and thank you for giving me this opening. As you know, Neil, in 2005, there was this so called Einstein Year of Physics, and there were celebrations all over the world. I gave 37 talks on six continents on Einstein in that year.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I thought there were only five continents. No, I guess there are seven. I get my numbers confused.

[Jim Gates]

Thank you.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You left out Antarctica. Yeah, okay.

[Jim Gates]

Because that's the one I've never been to.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

But the penguins will welcome you with open arms and happy feet.

[Jim Gates]

Yes, but the point was. Yes, you're right, Neil. In 1905, he came up with some amazing things about space and time and how they bend and warp and what have you. But do you know that in 1907, he was still in the patent office? People think that as soon as he came up with his wonderful theories, the world beat a path to his door saying, hosea, Hosea, you know, whatever. But no, no, no, no. That's not what happened.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's hosanna. Hosea.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah, Hosea's the prophet. But hosanna is the praise. But we knew what you meant.

[Jim Gates]

Well, this is what happens when you go off script, guys. But anyhow, I'm sorry. No, no, but you're right. But the point was that he did this great piece of work, but it took two years for the physics community to recognize what he had done while he was in that patent office, still trying to figure out how to get a job as a physics professor. He looked out the window one day and he saw some workmen on the roof. And he had this sort of story coming to him that if one of the guys fell, he wouldn't feel his weight. And so that started Einstein thinking about gravity.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

He's thinking about the death of someone working on a roof next door. I did not know this.

[Jim Gates]

Well, not the actual death, but the process that would lead to it.

[Chuck Nice]

Just his fall to imminent death.

[Jim Gates]

That's right. Just the imminent fall.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. I did know Einstein had this morbid side of him.

[Jim Gates]

Yes.

[Chuck Nice]

However, let me just say I totally get it. Cause I think about the death of the guy that blows that leaf blower outside my bedroom window every Saturday morning, so.

[Jim Gates]

And so Einstein started thinking about gravity, and by. So this is like. In fact, he calls this the happiest thought of his life.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Well, wait. So wait. So, Jim, this is like Newton's apple moment.

[Jim Gates]

Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

He sees the apple falling, and then he sees the moon, and then there's a eureka moment in there.

[Jim Gates]

And that's what happened with Einstein in 1907. So the thing that's curious about Einstein is, although people think about him as his mathematical genius, every time he did something, he actually had to learn more mathematics. So he didn't actually have the mathematics to realize what his intuition was. And he didn't get it right until 1915 or 16.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You know, Jim, that happens to me all the time. I have thoughts. I have to invent new math to. You know, that's just a thing.

[Jim Gates]

You know, some of us actually do that, Neil. That's another whole story, and I'll tell you about that one later. But anyhow, so he had this idea that took him almost a decade to get it down to the mathematics. And when he finished it, it was the theory of general relativity. It's the piece of thing that tells us that there was a big bang. It's the piece of mathematics that lets us know we live in a universe that is 13.8 billion years old. And so that came from that 1917 epiphany.

[Chuck Nice]

Wow.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Wait, no, I mean, 1907.

[Jim Gates]

1907. Right, right, right, right. Now, remember, it's all math. It's all math. So if it's all math, how do you know he got it right?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right. Just because the math works doesn't mean it has to correspond to any objective reality.

[Jim Gates]

Exactly. And so when he finally gets his discussion together, in fact, even before he gets the right answer, he starts talking about it, he starts giving talks about it. And so very early on, astronomers realize. Well, he realizes first that astronomers would be critical to try to prove that his math is actually, as you said, Neil, something that happens in the real world. And he begins it by talking to this German astronomer named Irving Findlay Feuenlich.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I never heard of the guy.

[Jim Gates]

No one's ever heard of the guy.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

If I ever met someone named Irving. Irving Fenli Freundlicht. Yes, I remember that. I think I'm pretty sure.

[Jim Gates]

Well, I have sent for your program. I've sent some photographs of all the people that we're talking about. That's the first guy that Einstein starts talking to seriously. As you know, I have a way to prove my man. And he first started saying, if you look at Starlights, could you show that starlight bends when it passes near Jupiter? And the astronomer says, you know, nah, that doesn't quite work. Then he starts asking questions about, but suppose we were looking at the night sky in the morning or early morning or late afternoon, could we see bending starlight around perhaps Venus or something? The guy says, you know, the astronomers come back, no, no, that won't work. And so finally, by this set of discussions with Freundlich, he hits upon the idea that if you could watch starlight during an eclipse. Right. You might be able to see the light being bent by the sun because.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You can't otherwise see a star in broad daylight.

[Jim Gates]

Exactly. So, you know, it's very special circumstance. And so that stars the race.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so this bending of starlight would have been the first experimental verification of his general theory of relativity.

[Jim Gates]

Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. And so now, so what year did that happen?

[Jim Gates]

Was that come these conversations around 1912 or so, that he starts telling other people about this idea?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. And that's how you get the creativity of other people, to help you figure out how to make it work.

[Jim Gates]

Bingo. And that's what our book is about. It's about the other people. It's not really about Einstein.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so what's all this we hear about his wife possibly being a big engine to his creativity?

[Jim Gates]

A lot of people have. Well, there's this one book, Einstein's Wife, I think is the title. There are a lot of people who have posited that as having been important, but from my reading of the history, she was certainly his partner, as he was working through in Berne, as a poor patent examiner trying to do physics, she was certainly a partner.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So Bern, the city in Germany, the city in Switzerland. Oh, Switzerland. Excuse me.

[Chuck Nice]

Right, right.

[Jim Gates]

So she certainly was his partner there. But in the actual settling of the special theory of relativity from. And I've read over a dozen books trying to get this straight in my own head. The preponderance of evidence is that he worked it out with a friend of his on a train ride, on a tram ride, thinking about the clock tower in the city of Bern. So, I mean, it's a fantastic story.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So what you're saying here, Jim, is had Einstein been a loner and not traveled anywhere, he wouldn't have come up with any of his ideas. How much life exposure is the right amount to fully realize your creativity that can be expressed.

[Jim Gates]

I tell people all the time that being a scientist means that you swim in a sea of information, and that information comes from your colleagues. And so you cannot be. I mean, I know the archetype stereotyped view is that as a scientist, you go off in the corner and you sort of think big thoughts, but that's not what actually happens. I've lived this life for almost for over 30 years. And you are constantly in conversation with your colleagues, and you use them to hone and to refine your thoughts and distill your thoughts and curate your thoughts.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So, Jim, the active word there is that you are swimming in these influences. Not drowning in the influence, I was going to say.

[Jim Gates]

Yeah.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah.

[Jim Gates]

So that's why, with Kathy Pelletier, we wanted to talk about these people that basically were using what Einstein inspired them to do, but to swim towards this discovery of whether his math was an accurate description of nature.

[Chuck Nice]

Wow.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Do you think Einstein had any doubts about whether it was all true?

[Jim Gates]

From my reading? No. He sort of said, you know, he sort of says things like, if the theory of general relativity had failed to receive experimental and observation support, that he would have felt sorry for the good.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Lord, because that was a really brilliant idea.

[Jim Gates]

Right.

[Chuck Nice]

Which is kind of say, a kind of way of saying, like, I'm smarter than God.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So it definitely says that.

[Jim Gates]

No, it doesn't. It really does.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No, no, Jim. Jim, you're lying. Jim.

[Jim Gates]

No, I'm not lying. If you read a lot about Einstein, you find out he's a very, very complicated character. And with respect. And if Chuck, since you brought up the issue of God.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay.

[Jim Gates]

And you did bring it up.

[Chuck Nice]

I did, Yeah. I mean, to me, when somebody says that statement, it kind of sounds like, you know, I'm smarter than God. No, no, no.

[Jim Gates]

But you see, Einstein, although you can interpret that statement that way, that's not really what Einstein felt, because, in fact, he talks also about the illimitable spirit that is a spirit without limits. So it's clear that if you could use a phrase like that, you're not putting yourself above such an entity.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, all right.

[Chuck Nice]

That's a very good point.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

He didn't use that phrase in that sentence, though. But.

[Jim Gates]

Okay, not in that sentence.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

In that moment, he felt badass is all I'm saying.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's. It's not.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, because it is. You know, Jim, before we go into the second segment and solicit our cosmic queries, Just give me a minute or two. I know it should be hours or two, but give me a minute or two on the idea that math is just something we invented as humans and it works. What's up with that? There's no reason that it should work at all.

[Jim Gates]

You know, Neil, this is one of the most. This is the only piece of magic that I've ever experienced and seen in reality.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I love that. I love that it's magic.

[Jim Gates]

It's a piece of magic, but it happens to be a part of our reality. I don't know of any other form of magic for which I can say this.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And this is human created magic. We create something and it magically describes reality and enables you to predict and understand and extend.

[Jim Gates]

It acts like a third eye for those of us who are scientists. It lets us see things that are not seeable otherwise. I made a presentation at the New York Academy of Sciences about three years ago, two years ago, and it's precisely on this point of the magic ability of mathematics. It's an hour long interview, so I'm not going to bore you with it, but I would.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Wait, is it on YouTube or something? Or is it.

[Jim Gates]

Yeah, it's available on YouTube. Absolutely.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Well, forgive me. I'll go find it. I'm gonna find it. Okay. The New York Academy of Sciences, a long venerated institution.

[Jim Gates]

Absolutely. And I was there with Margaret Wertheim and we discussed this magical thing, this thing about mathematics. And at the end of the day, what I. One of the things I said about it is that mathematics, as people like me use it, it's the only human language that we know accurately allows us to describe nature. However, other conscious, any other conscious being that could produce mathematics, will have access to this knowledge.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So hence the idea that if we meet up with aliens, we might start with this symbolic representation of what is and is not sure. And math could be the only way we can prevent ourselves from getting our brains sucked out by evil ways.

[Jim Gates]

Many of us think that that's right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So when we come back, more of this edition of StarTalk where we're talking about proving Einstein right. And we're going to go straight to our cosmic queries version of that. When we return.

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[Chuck Nice]

Hey, are you looking to learn, grow or simply get inspired? With Masterclass, anyone can learn from the best to become their best for as low as $10 a month. Get unlimited access to over 200 classes taught by world class business leaders, writers, chefs and more. One of their world class leaders I hear is really good at science. I think you might know who he is, but there's a lot more they offer than science. I recently started watching a series on how to be more confident. I wasn't trying to learn anything, I was just trying to see if I'm doing everything right. And what do you know? I'm pretty confident now that I am. Each lesson fits easily into your schedule. Watch anytime on your phone, your laptop or your tv, or switch to audio mode and learn on the go. Are you traveling for the holidays? Well, download the classes and watch them offline. I love the information that I get on photography and interior design, two things that a lot of people don't know that I really enjoy. All right, enough about me. Head over to Masterclass where they always have great offerings during the holidays, sometimes as much as 50% off. Head over to masterclass.com startalk for the current offer that's up to 50% [e-mail] startalk once again, master.

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I'm Joel Cherico and I support StarTalk on Patreon. This is StarTalk with Neil DeGrasse Tyson. We're back. Star talk proving Einstein right. Chuck, thanks for being there, as always.

[Chuck Nice]

Always a pleasure.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And we got Sylvester Jim Gates, a longtime friend and colleague who's an Einstein expert, theoretical physics expert. He's all the kind of expert you need for this.

[Chuck Nice]

Absolutely.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

For this incarnation of StarTalk. And we're going to devote this segment to cosmic queries. Jim, your. Your presence on our show was announced to our fan base, and they got completely excited by this prospect. Oh, my goodness. And so. So I have five. No, I have 3% overlap with Jim's expertise in the subject. So if I can find a 3% way to add, I will. But basically, this is all going to Jim.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay, so, Chuck, excellent.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Do it.

[Chuck Nice]

Not that it needs to be said, but I have 0% overlap with Jim, which is why I'm reading the question. So here we go. All right, let's start.

[Jim Gates]

You know what?

[Chuck Nice]

Before we start, let me just quickly. Can you, professor, give us a quick breakdown between the special and the general when it comes to relativity? I think that might be a nice framework for anybody who didn't ask a question to be a part.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Good.

[Jim Gates]

Thank you, Chuck. So let me start with special because it's simpler. You know, if you were standing by a road and there was a car that was speeding towards you with its horn blaring, what would you actually hear? It would go something like. Right, right. Because you hear that dip in the.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Tone, that's gonna sound like you were dying.

[Chuck Nice]

I was gonna say, no, I could.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Do better than that. Here you go.

[Jim Gates]

Ready?

[Zepbound Advertiser (continued)]

Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay, so we'll go with.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Let's work with that. Nothing's dying.

[Jim Gates]

We'll work with the cat sound.

[Chuck Nice]

By the way, in his spare time, Neil does sound effects for Warner Brothers.

[Jim Gates]

And so the point is, that effect is because sound changes its frequency. If it's moving towards you, that's when it's high pitched. But if it's moving away from you, this pitch goes down. No, exactly. So the point is, light actually does the same thing. When a light source is coming towards you, it appears to be bluer than it actually is when it's moving away from you, it is appearing to be redder. And that is one of the primary effects of special relativity. It's about the relative motion of you and the source of the light. And my car analogy, it's this motion of the car either towards or with you. So that's what special relativity is all about, is if I'm moving and you're not, how do I perceive things? How do you perceive things? That's the simplest. That's my five minute class on special relativity. Cool. We good?

[Chuck Nice]

And so, and then general. Now general relativity, can you juxtapose that against the general. And the distribution of mass and all that stuff?

[Jim Gates]

So the general theory of relativity is something very, very, very different. And what the general theory of relativity is about is what is gravity? You see, in the special relativity, Einstein wasn't thinking about gravity. He was just thinking about how things would look if I'm moving. But in the general theory of relativity, theory of relativity, the question is, what actually is gravity? It's a very deep question that even Sir Isaac Newton didn't get the answer to. And the answer that Einstein teaches us through his mathematical wizardry is that gravity is the space which we move through and time which we experience durations in are combined with this, like, thing he called space time. And gravity is the bending of this thing. So that's my short course on general religion. Cool.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Well, there you go.

[Chuck Nice]

All right. That was great. That was great. Okay, let's go to Izzy Rohr. Who says Izzy Rohr? Neil.

[Jim Gates]

Chuck.

[Chuck Nice]

Jim. This is your friend Violetta, the astrophysics loving kid here in Birmingham, Alabama. My mom. Oh, you know her? Okay, cool.

[Jim Gates]

We've been in contact.

[Chuck Nice]

Excellent. My mom and I have many discussions, have had many discussions about this. Scientists like to describe Einstein's general relativity as being incompatible with quantum mechanics. They say things like they mathematically don't work out or don't work together. So our question is why the heck is that?

[Jim Gates]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Jim.

[Jim Gates]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

What's up with that?

[Jim Gates]

Okay, so let me give me a second here, because I got to phrases without the mathematics. So the idea.

[Chuck Nice]

That is so funny, by the way. Okay, let me just say that may have been the most physics thing I've heard in a very long time. I've. I've got to figure out a way to say this without the mathematics.

[Jim Gates]

Well, you see, I don't know if.

[Chuck Nice]

You folks, it's like, I'm sorry, men don't speak English. Me speak mathematics.

[Jim Gates]

Let me speak English. Well, Chuck, you Chuck, you may not know this, but Neil can tell you this often at the end of my email messages, I ask forgiveness for spelling and punctuation errors because my first language is mathematics. English is my second language.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, my.

[Jim Gates]

So I'm at a disability when people ask me to talk.

[Chuck Nice]

Listen, I've never heard a person admit a fault that makes you better than most people.

[Jim Gates]

I don't know about that, but it causes me difficulties, Chuck. On many, many occasions. Okay, okay, but. Okay, but to.

[Chuck Nice]

Back to quantum.

[Jim Gates]

Back to quantum. Okay, so what essentially happens is if you believe the universe is quantum mechanical, then it forces you to forget about things like electrons, because electrons we think about as little tiny balls. That's the classical pict that you're tall. And in fact, quantum mechanics says, no, that's not the way it works for electrons. You have to think of these things that are more like waves, except when they act like particles. So that's the first thing. Quantum mechanics. It gives you this really weird thing that you have to give up an idea, except sometimes. Right, Right. Okay, so now when you. So there's a piece of mathematics around this called Schrodinger's equation. So I gotta bring that in, and it tells you how to calculate.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

If you're bringing up Schrodinger, you got. You can't leave out his cat. Exactly. So just keep going.

[Chuck Nice]

Or that litter box, which hasn't been changed in God knows how long.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Schrodinger's litter box.

[Chuck Nice]

That's what I'm about. Schrodinger's litter box.

[Jim Gates]

We could also go back to Neil's rendition of a car horn as it approaches you. But anyhow. So you have a piece of mathematics around giving up the idea of particles. And when you now give that piece of mathematics up and try to do gravity, you find out you just get into a total mess, that you cannot calculate answers anymore that take into account the quantum behavior. And that's the mess.

[Chuck Nice]

So that's the disconnect there. Is that Schrodinger's equation. Once you remove anything, none of the gravity stuff works.

[Jim Gates]

Because the way that Einstein and Newton and all those folks thought about gravity has the idea of particles embedded in it. That's the problem.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right, wait, so. All right, so at the end of the day, who's gotta give? Good question. Is gravity gonna bend to quantum physics.

[Jim Gates]

Or is it quantum physics?

[Chuck Nice]

I see what you did there. I saw what you did there, Neil.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The gravity bends. Yeah.

[Chuck Nice]

Yes.

[Jim Gates]

Oh, you know, Neil, this is actually a very deep question.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Or is there a third idea bigger than both of those that then encloses them under one umbrella.

[Jim Gates]

Oh, there are variants of all of everything that you've just said. Well, first of all, who's going to bend? There are people who will tell you that gravity is going to be one that loses this discussion.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

If I had to bet, I'd lean that way too.

[Jim Gates]

Yeah, yeah. And there are a lot of people who believe that somehow gravity is going to have to give way in some manner. There are other people who have this third idea approach that you were talking about, Neil. And one of those, and sort of emblematic of that is a discussion that's underway about information and black holes. I know Neil is probably aware of this, but there's this whole discussion about whether information is conserved. Like we say energy is conserved. Is information conserved. And if you have a universe with black holes, doesn't that mean that some of the energy disappears? I mean, some of the information disappears and then you violate a conservation law. So there's a whole big discussion in theoretical physics that's been underway for over a decade about black holes and information.

[Chuck Nice]

All right, so when you talk about information, are you referring to. Because we just talked about this last week. Give me one second, please. That when Neil was talking about virtual particles and the evaporation of a black hole, and if I'm not mistaken, then this particle actually materializes on the outside of the black hole, and then that is what escapes. And so then if that were to happen. Are you saying that that somehow messes up this whole idea of the conservation of information?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Chuck, you were really paying attention in that episode.

[Jim Gates]

It does seem like it, man.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Chuck.

[Chuck Nice]

Neil, why you think I do this job, man?

[Jim Gates]

I'm getting a free education.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Damn, Chuck.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah, okay, so that's what. Okay, that's.

[Jim Gates]

But the point is that it's in a state of flux. We don't know what the final solution is gonna be. But many people like me, actually think that string theory will have something to do with the resolution.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so the string people think this.

[Jim Gates]

Yeah, well, it's not just string people, I think. I don't consider myself a string person, for example. I am someone who spent their life working on super symmetry and strings happen to intersect that.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay, well, I consider myself a string cheese person.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

String cheese, yes.

[Chuck Nice]

That's about as close as I'm getting to it. All right, cool.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right, go to the next one.

[Chuck Nice]

Here we go. This is Paul Vogel who says recently, between the detection of gravitational waves and a photo of an event horizon of a black hole, some significant predictions Made by Einstein's general relativity have been verified. What's the next big prediction made by general relativity that scientists are testing? Thank you.

[Jim Gates]

So that's a great question, and it's a great question. And the answer is the following. In 1905, Einstein wrote four papers. Among those four papers is one that points out that energy has to be quantized. Now, we know that Einstein doesn't like quantum theory, but in fact, he's one of the fathers of quantum theory because of this 1905 paper on the photoelectric effect that when you.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Just to be clear, he didn't like it because he didn't think the universe should be probabilistic, right?

[Jim Gates]

That's exactly right. He wanted determinism, as it's called. Whereas quantum mechanics says, no, you can't have determinism. You have to go with probabilities. So the answer to your question, Chuck, is now that we have seen waves of gravity, we want to see the quantization of the energy carried by those waves, because when we do that, we will have the Star Trek graviton in our universe.

[Chuck Nice]

So the same way we know light has a particle. Are you saying that gravity has particle? Or wait a minute, it would. It would have to be that we find this gravity particle.

[Jim Gates]

That's correct. That's the next big prediction that want to find from the kind of experiments watching gravity. You want to be able to see the quantization of the energy that the gravity waves hold. That tells you that gravitons, just like you hear in Star Trek, you know, all this talk about graviton waves, at that point, it is no longer science fiction, It's a piece of science.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And Chuck, just to follow your line, so a photon is a particle of light, but you can also speak of light as waves.

[Jim Gates]

Right?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right. So that is a proper analogy. We've measured gravitational waves. Now we want to measure the gravitational particle.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, my God.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You have a photon, then you have the graviton. So I don't know any experiments out there to measure a graviton. Is there something in the works?

[Jim Gates]

No, nothing to my knowledge, Neil. I don't know anyone who's. This is going to have to be an exquisite experiment. And we're just at the stage of just being able to see the gravity waves. So, you know, is it 50 years? Is it 100 years? I don't know. But as our technology improves, Someone is eventually going to figure out how to do that detection. And then we can stop saying that Captain Kirk is the only guy who gets to Talk about gravitons.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Correct. So if. Just a quick question. If we have gravitons, then gravity being the curvature of space and time, has no meaning in the presence of a graviton.

[Jim Gates]

Ah, you're following along here. For a lot of people, the detection of a graviton will likely necessitate a real rethinking of what gravity is. I've already. I mean, some of us already are there. I don't actually think about gravity in terms of geometry. It's field theory that's the tool for people like us.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right, so what you're saying is Einstein's curved space happens to be a convenience under certain situations that get you the right answer?

[Jim Gates]

Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And you're good with that, but it's not the total story.

[Jim Gates]

Nope.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

Wow.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

There you go.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay.

[Jim Gates]

Yeah.

[Chuck Nice]

That is.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Just let the record show, Chuck, that Jim Gates just said Einstein had his head up his ass. He just said that just to make it clear.

[Chuck Nice]

That's funny. Okay, James. I'm not saying that.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I'm not saying.

[Jim Gates]

I didn't say that.

[Chuck Nice]

He was like. I'm not saying that. He was like, send your letters to Neil. The professor's like, send your letters to Neil, because I did not say that. Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Actually, we got to take a break, and when we come back, we'll go through our third and final segment of cosmic queries proving Einstein right on Star Talk.

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

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[Jim Gates]

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We're back with StarTalk. Moving Einstein.

[Chuck Nice]

Right?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And Chuck is helping me, you know, in his. Because he's. You're a big fan of special and general relativity, aren't you, Chuck?

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, without a doubt. Are you kidding me?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Come on, man. Yeah, yeah, of course.

[Chuck Nice]

I mean, but of course some people like reality tv. I like Relativ. Okay, that didn't work.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No, that just so did not work. But anyhow. But you're on social media. Where? What's your best place people can find you on social media?

[Jim Gates]

Uck.

[Chuck Nice]

Nice comic. Thank you, sir.

[Jim Gates]

Appreciate it, Chuck.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Nice comic. And you even have a. I stumbled on this. You never told me this. I stumbled on one of your. You have a TED Talk on technology and the future.

[Chuck Nice]

I do. Technology and the unintended consequences of human interactions.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, or the absence of human interaction by technology. Yes, I stumbled on that. I'm angry with you for not telling me in advance about that because I have to find that on my own. We've got Jim Gates, an expert in theoretical physics. Jim, do you have a social media platform?

[Jim Gates]

I do. It's Dr. Jim Gates. You can see there's a Twitter version and a Facebook version, but it's Doctor.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Doctor. It's just Doctor, I presume.

[Jim Gates]

Just doctor, yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right, we'll find you there. And you've got this book, Proving Einstein right.

[Jim Gates]

Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And co authored with Cathy Pelletier.

[Jim Gates]

Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, yeah. So we're continuing our cosmic queries. And just before we begin. And Chuck, before you read one in Jim, you've got a background there that looks. It looks kind of spacey, actually, but then not quite.

[Jim Gates]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Could you give us a minute on that?

[Jim Gates]

Sure. So I'm in the odd position, Neil, where it looks like both of my twin children are gonna become physicists. So this is. You know, this is not something I set out to do, but.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, right, yeah, keep telling yourself that. Okay.

[Jim Gates]

So my daughter works on black holes, and so she's actually. Actually started publishing, and I actually had a chance to watch her give a talk this week. So, you know, big props to my daughter. Her name is Delilah. But I also got to give big props to my son. The background that you're looking at, these green little splotches, are artificial neurons that he's been growing in the laboratory because it looks like he's going to be a biophysicist. Wow. As a whole.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, Chuck. He's creating the next generation superhero or superhero villain, without a doubt, black holes and growing neurons.

[Chuck Nice]

So the daughter will harness the power of the black hole, and the sun will imbue some. Some being with that.

[Jim Gates]

With that power to rule the world. Have you ever heard of. Have you ever worried about dark side?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The dark side. There it is. There it is.

[Jim Gates]

So who knows?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Jim is breeding the dark side. So this. So this. Is it an actual photo or it looks like artwork?

[Jim Gates]

No, no, it looks like artwork. This is actual photo of some of the first successful cell lines that he's been growing where you can see the evidence that they're developing a ganglia, like real brain cells. Wow.

[Chuck Nice]

Sweet, man.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

Wow. That's amazing.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Well, watch that space.

[Chuck Nice]

That's so important.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, cool. All right, let's get to the next question. Chuck.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. Big brain stuff going on in that family. All right, here we go. Let's go to. Let's go to Lisa Hansen, and she says hello to you all from the Bay Area. String theories are so involved and fascinating. I love trying to wrap my brain around them. I'm wondering what, if any, other scientific disciplines are involved in the research for evidence and proof of these theories, what those clues might be.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Well, yeah, clues in this real universe, Jim, and not just an imagined one.

[Chuck Nice]

I knew he was gonna say.

[Jim Gates]

Interesting that that question came up because just last summer I did something for the first time in my life because I tell people I exist at the boundary of mathematics and physics. So I'm a fallen mathematician in some sense. But last summer I published a paper along with my colleague Stefan Alexander here at Brown University, Evan McDonough, who was one of our postdocs and my postdoc Constantino scout, as well as our graduate student, Leah Jinks. And in this paper, we set out a premise that strings might be able to write structures, create structures that could potentially be observed in the cosmic microwave background. We call these structures Susie Rhels. They're like these funny patterns. I hope people are familiar with the cmb. It's this microwave radiation that you can detect by looking out at the universe. And what we showed in our paper is if you take the ideas of string theory seriously, they have a way of writing a kind of signature in this structure. So what kind of science do you need? You need to be an astrophysicist, someone who can actually look in microwaves at how the universe gives us a perspective.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Once again, it comes down to the astrophysicist.

[Chuck Nice]

There you go.

[Jim Gates]

Of course. Absolutely. Look, Einstein. Now, wait, Einstein needed astronomers, right? String theory may well need astrophysicists.

[Chuck Nice]

So that begs the question, in that collaboration, who was Batman and who was Robin?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Just a quick thing if I remember. Stefan Alexander, isn't he. He's the jazz musician, isn't that correct?

[Jim Gates]

That's exactly right. Stefan is a professional level jazz musician, although he is a physicist on faculty here at Brown University.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I should have said that differently. He's also a jazz musician, so he wrote that book, the Jazz of Physics or the Physics of Jazz or something.

[Jim Gates]

Jazz of physics is his work.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, all right. Cool.

[Chuck Nice]

Cool, man. All right. Great stuff. That's great stuff. Let's move on to Josh B. Who says, who has more impressive mustache, Albert Einstein or Neil Degrasse Tyson?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Do you know, I gotta say, anytime I'm on, I gotta show up in a movie or in a documentary, and they put you in hair and makeup, you know, and so they do the makeup, fine. And then they get to the hair and they say, can we trim your eyebrows a little? And can we get some of the loose hairs out of your mustache? And I'm Saying, wait, this is my Einstein look. You want to be all trimmed and.

[Chuck Nice]

Manscaped, you need a wiry, unkempt, just wild mustache. Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So what's with that look, Jim? That Einstein sported.

[Jim Gates]

So I'm not sure what the question is.

[Chuck Nice]

You know what? With that as the answer, we should just move on.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Cause we should just move on.

[Chuck Nice]

That was hilarious. Let's just go to Sam o'. Neill.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Jim Gates]

This is.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Wait, wait. Just wait. Just about eight years ago, I just want you to know I was nominated for the Mustache hall of Fame. Just so you know. Just so you know.

[Chuck Nice]

Right on.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Jim Gates]

Okay. Well, I'm gonna return that. I was once inducted into the Luxuriant Hair Association.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Very nice. That's a thing?

[Jim Gates]

It was at the time.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, okay.

[Jim Gates]

All right.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay, here we go. This is from Sam O'. Neill. He says. Hey, Dr. Tyson. Hey, Dr. Gates. What's up, Chuck? My question is, what do you theorize that the strings in super string theory are made of? Love, you guys. I would give you money, and I do. Samantha from Earth.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

From Earth.

[Jim Gates]

Excellent. I love that. My question is PayPal.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No, we don't Patreon on this side of that fence.

[Jim Gates]

Okay, okay. Well, someone's got to explain that to me. You know?

[Chuck Nice]

There you go.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Well, that's all you, Jim, so go for it.

[Jim Gates]

Yeah. Yeah. So the thing about string theory, which perhaps isn't completely understood, is that we don't think strings are made of anything. They are the fundamental thing. If it's a correct picture of the universe.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

They are the thing everything else is made of.

[Jim Gates]

That's right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Therefore, you can't say what it's made of because it is the thing that everything's made of.

[Jim Gates]

That's all we know.

[Chuck Nice]

Wow, that.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That feels like a cop out there.

[Chuck Nice]

I was about to say that's a little circular. Yeah, but that's slightly circular.

[Jim Gates]

Just a little bit.

[Chuck Nice]

No, no, but.

[Jim Gates]

No, no, Chuck, you're right. But you see, one of the weird things about mathematics is that you have to take some things on faith. There's actually a mathematical theorem that says this. It's called the. One of Goethe's theorems. And so this is one of the really weird things about math that people do not appreciate.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Well, no, Jim, be fair. It's not that you have to take it on faith. It's that you have to assert that it's true. And if you assert that it's true, then everything else works. It's an assertion. It's not. Gee, I hope it's. No, you just Declare that it's true and then take everything from there. But you can't prove the thing that you assert that's true, that's not true.

[Jim Gates]

And therefore it's an element of faith.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Neil, I use faith in the different.

[Jim Gates]

I know. I know you do. We have to have another discussion about the whole faith.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We'll get you. I said we'll get you back seven other ways on this show.

[Chuck Nice]

Without a doubt.

[Jim Gates]

I'd love to talk to you about it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Forget Einstein. We got other business to resolve here.

[Chuck Nice]

If only George Michael were here to settle this debate. Okay, sorry. Pop culture reference. Probably shouldn't have bought it then. Here we go.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

From 1980s.

[Chuck Nice]

I know, I know.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Damn, Chuck, I can't help it. How old are you?

[Jim Gates]

He looks young, doesn't he, Neil?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

He does. He uses that oil of old age.

[Chuck Nice]

Did you say oil of old age? Yes.

[Jim Gates]

Knowing exactly what he said.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay, I never heard that before. I like that.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I heard that from an old friend of mine.

[Chuck Nice]

Said that oil of old age. I like it. All right, here we go. This is Woody. He says, after seeing Neil's enthusiastic response. What are Jim's thoughts on a cosmic gravitational background? And you just talked about the cosmic microwave background and string being able to be visible in that. What about a cosmic gravitational background? Do you have any questions?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So this would be. This would be the. The paw print of the birth of the universe expressed in gravitational.

[Chuck Nice]

Right, right. Would be.

[Jim Gates]

And I don't see. I've never actually heard a scientific discussion of this. But that idea, it really seems well grounded that one could imagine that if one could. I mean, look, the cosmic microwave background is an electromagnetic background. Is microwaves. Right. Just like the microwaves you cook.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's life. It's life.

[Jim Gates]

Right. It's a form of light. Right. But a gravitational background, a gravitational signature from the Big bang. I don't see any reason why that's not possible. I've not heard of any scientific discussions of the concept, Howard.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so part of why the cosmic microwave background is so useful to us, not only that it exists, but we have a map, a very detailed map of its structure. And right now, when we're detecting gravitational waves, oh, something happened, we think, over in that direction of the sky, you know, we have nowhere near the mapping precision to possibly do anything interesting yet. And I don't know when it would come.

[Jim Gates]

Oh, I would give us about 20 to 30 years. Because in order to do what you're saying, Neil, first of all, we have to get a sufficient number of gravity wave detectors Right now, there are about four in the world that are one. There's one, for example, in Europe, there's one in Australia, and there are two in the US So that's the minimum number you need to do the mapping. And they're not all sort of fully functional. So we got some time.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right. And then you need. Then you want to get gravitational waves of different wavelengths.

[Jim Gates]

That's.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So it's not just this one that came through. Get the whole spectrum, if I can borrow that word from light. And then you have this two dimensions of information.

[Jim Gates]

Exactly.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

To interpret. So, yeah, so, yeah, we're not there yet, but if we were there, it would tell us a whole lot about the very first moments of the.

[Jim Gates]

Exactly. And that's where science is pushing toward cool.

[Chuck Nice]

That is super, super cool. All right, Roman Prekup, or Precop says this. Is it possible that some of the stars observed in the night sky are duplicated or multiply duplicated due to light bending and gravitational fields of a massive object like super. Like some super black hole?

[Jim Gates]

I should let. Neil.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, I could. I could take that. Thank you.

[Jim Gates]

Go ahead, Neil.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, I could take that one. So the answer is yes. Next question, no. So what happens is that the way this unfolds, by the way, Einstein first predicted that you could make a ring called Einstein ring, where the light would bend symmetrically in all directions around a single object and create a ring of light from that single object from behind. It turns out that's not realistic because that requires exact lineup.

[Jim Gates]

Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So that there's a perfect geometry of all sight lines that go around it. Most things don't line up exactly, but when we do find them sort of line up, even if not exactly, you find distortions that resemble rings, arcs. They don't make a full ring, but they make arcs. Now, if you have one object behind, that object will make a minimum of three images, one that comes straight through and then two that come around the side and up from there. It can make three, five, or seven images. So, yes, in fact, something cool. Here's something cool. You ready?

[Jim Gates]

Ready.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. So we found objects, quasars, whose light bent around galaxy clusters that were sort of midway from Einstein's gravity, but the path lengths were not the same. Okay, so the path on one side is a little longer than the path on the other. And you know how we know? Because quasars vary. They have explosions. The light varies, so we see it, and it varies up here. And then a scheduled time later, it varies over in exactly the same way. So you get to see the same event twice.

[Chuck Nice]

That's because of the change in intensity of light due to the explosion. Is that what's happening?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Well, no, there are things. Yeah, the quasars can eat things episodically, a lot of weird things, episodic things that can happen in quasars. But the fact that you have two different path lengths is extraordinary. Testing of the shape of the curvature of space and how much gravity is in the cluster and how far away the. The quasar is. So it's an amazing. It's an amazing thing.

[Jim Gates]

So it's funny to me that you've come back to this, because this is what my daughter works on. We talked about the cells behind me. But when you have rings of matter around rotating black holes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Chuck, he's just giving equal time here.

[Chuck Nice]

I know, exactly.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Because he didn't want to pick his children.

[Chuck Nice]

He's a good dad.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

He's a good dad. Go on. Good dad.

[Jim Gates]

You know. So we have rings of matter that glow around spinning black holes. You can actually see their backside of the ring because the gravity bends the light from the growing light. That's what my daughter works on.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah, that's very cool, man.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

One last quick one and we gotta call. We're over done with it.

[Jim Gates]

Okay?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, yeah, Chuck, go ahead.

[Chuck Nice]

This is from Glenn. He says, Dr. Gates, do you think that white holes exist? Was Einstein observing. Gave what was Einstein observing? That gave him the impression that they did. All right, now I'm just gonna answer this for you. No, there are no white holes. Einstein was racist like everybody else back at that time and just couldn't let it be just black hole. Started off, Chuck couldn't just let it be a black hole, could you? Okay, yeah, so go ahead.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Of course, Chuck got right off his chest.

[Chuck Nice]

You know what I love? Here's what I love about the professor. He's sitting there like, I have nothing to do with this. Whatever Chuck is saying right now, that's his crazy business.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I only just met Chuck.

[Chuck Nice]

Exactly. He's like, I don't know this man. All right, go ahead. Sorry.

[Jim Gates]

Okay, so make it quick, Jim. So what's really quick. What's really interesting is black holes aren't black. It turns out that because of Stephen Hawking, we know that they actually had this very slight radiation called Hawking radiation. So they're not exactly black. That went out a long time ago. So, you know, got to keep up with the news and physics.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. But the white hole concept.

[Jim Gates]

The white hole concept, people who. Look, I don't know Any solid scientific arguments about the existence of such things I have not encountered.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. And plus, we don't see anything in the universe that would resemble what a white hole would be predicted to be, which would be the mathematical opposite of a black hole.

[Jim Gates]

Right?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right. So everything is spewing out and that should look like something in the signature of light.

[Jim Gates]

Be something spectacular we don't see.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, but we really gotta cut it there, Jim. Okay, we gotta get you back for nine other subjects.

[Jim Gates]

That's okay, Neil.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We got you on the Rolodex.

[Jim Gates]

I got game.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right. And we'll get a picture from your other child's twin child behind you on the next program. Okay?

[Jim Gates]

Black holes, man. Black holes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Chuck, always good to have you.

[Chuck Nice]

Always a pleasure.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right, this has been StarTalk. I'm Neil DeGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. As always, keep looking out.

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