Cosmic Queries – Pure Spacetime

Summary

StarTalk Radio: Cosmic Queries – Pure Spacetime (July 7, 2026)

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Episode Overview

This episode of StarTalk Radio, hosted by renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Paul Mercurio, is a "Cosmic Queries – Grab Bag" edition. The duo fields a wide array of science questions submitted by Patreon members, focusing on spacetime, relativity, consciousness, black holes, cosmic structure, and the simulation hypothesis. Listeners are treated to both deep scientific insights and playful banter, making complex topics entertaining and accessible.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Time Dilation and Observing from Different Gravitational Wells

• Interstellar and Time Dilation (04:32)
  • A question about the film Interstellar asks what would happen if someone on the spaceship looked at their crewmate on Miller’s planet (close to a black hole) through a telescope. Would they see their colleague’s time passing faster?
  • Neil’s Explanation (05:02):
    • If you’re farther from the black hole, you’d see everything near the black hole moving in slow motion. Conversely, from near the black hole, you’d witness the rest of the universe speed up.
    • “There’s nothing special about the light that happens. It arrives to you at a different pace depending on how deep into a gravitational well you are.” (05:16)
  • Relativity of the Present (07:07):
    • “You are a prisoner of the present, forever transitioning between your inaccessible past and your unknowable future.” (06:21)
    • The concept of “now” loses meaning when time unfolds differently for different observers due to gravity or velocity.

2. Simulation Hypothesis: Would You Want to Know?

• Would You Want to Know If We’re Simulated? (08:54)
  • Both hosts agree: they’d prefer to know if reality is a simulation.
  • Neil’s View (10:17):
    • “To live a lie is to not fully be in touch with all that controls your life, all that matters. … I want to know all truth so that I can reckon with that truth in whatever way I see fit.” (10:18)
  • Paul’s Humor:
    • "Who picked my avatar? ... Why did you give me mild acid reflux?" (11:24)
    • Neil jokes about the “overlord” programmer being a bored alien kid “in his parents’ basement.” (11:47)
  • What Would Neil Ask the Overlord? (12:23)
    • “Is every bit of this universe knowable through laws of physics or is there something you just got lazy programming and it will never make sense to anybody?” (12:23)
  • Limits of Science in a Random Universe (18:25):
    • If the universe is fundamentally random, science becomes impossible because no patterns or laws would reliably predict behavior (19:15).

3. Superconductivity and the Temperature of Space

• Can Asteroids Become Superconductors in Deep Space? (22:01)
  • At 3 Kelvin (the temperature of interstellar space), certain metals might become superconductors.
  • Neil’s Explanation (22:46):
    • Superconductivity occurs when electrons in some materials, at very low temperatures, behave collectively, enabling zero-resistance electricity flow—a quantum phenomenon.
    • The ambient temperature around asteroids near stars is usually higher than 3 K, so true superconductivity is more likely in intergalactic (very cold) space.

4. Tides Without the Moon

• Would Ocean Tides Disappear If the Moon Left Earth’s Orbit? (25:01)
  • The oceans would still have tides, caused by the gravity of the Sun—but they'd be roughly one-third as strong.
  • Neil’s Insight (25:04):
    • “The Sun’s tides are about one third the strength of the Moon’s tides… A third of that height is attributable to the Sun.”
  • On Timing and Alignment (28:04):
    • High tides are highest during the new moon and full moon when the Sun and Moon align (new and full moon “spring tides”).

5. Atoms, Memory, and Consciousness

• Are Memories and Consciousness Made From Atoms? (29:59)
  • Neil’s Explanation:
    • “We have come to learn that the brain operates via electrochemical signals between the synapses... once your brain ceases to undergo electrochemical changes, then you don’t exist anymore. Everything we know about you no longer exists.” (34:03)
    • He uses mini-strokes and dementia as examples of how bits of identity and memory disappear as brain tissue is damaged.
    • “Atoms don’t have agency... You have to credit or blame the functioning of living tissue.” (34:48)
    • Memorable kid-friendly science joke: “Never trust atoms. They make up everything.” (30:07)

6. Black Holes: Purpose, Role, and Information

• Purpose of Black Holes (39:01)

  • Physics doesn't generally assign "purpose" to cosmic phenomena; black holes are simply a result of gravitational collapse and follow the laws of physics.
  • Clarification:
    • Black holes aren’t “giant sucking machines”—if the Sun became a black hole, the planets would continue their orbits (though they'd freeze in darkness). Gravitational “pull” only becomes extreme close to the event horizon. (40:11)

• Can You Experience Pure, Unwarped Spacetime? (41:24)

  • Nowhere in the universe is gravity truly absent; its influence extends infinitely, just grows weaker with distance.
  • Neil’s Explanation (42:59):
    • “You cannot escape the extent of gravity, no matter what, but it weakens over time the farther you get away from Earth. It’s never zero.”

• Black Holes and Information Theory (43:38)

  • Why is Information Preservation Important?
    • According to information theory, information in the universe should never be destroyed. This becomes complicated with black holes.
    • Hawking radiation and particle pair production at an event horizon suggest information may be preserved and “re-encoded” in what a black hole emits, but there are limits and open questions—notably, the challenge of reconstructing complex information like DNA. (44:53–45:58)

7. The Cosmic Web

• Is the Cosmic Web Real, and What Is It? (46:10)
  • The “cosmic web” is an actual structure—galaxies are organized into filaments and knots, with vast voids between, due to early universe fluctuations and gravity.
  • Neil’s Analogy (47:11):
    • “It’s just a word… used to describe the network of filaments and clusters—a bit like the texture inside a sponge, or a (non-uniform) honeycomb.”
    • Gravity doesn’t organize in symmetric perfection; randomness can lead to clumps and patterns: “You can always tell if they fake the street [with artificial leaves] … people don’t understand random. They think random is scattered everywhere. Random has clumps.” (48:33)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Time:

  • “You are a prisoner of the present, forever transitioning between your inaccessible past and your unknowable future.” — Neil deGrasse Tyson (06:21)

• On Accepting Truth:

  • “To live a lie is to not fully be in touch with all that controls your life, all that matters.” — Neil (10:18)

• On Simulation Humour:

  • “Who picked my avatar? … Why did you give me mild acid reflux?” — Paul Mercurio (11:24)
  • “The programmer of the simulation gave you freedom to join a fitness center, which you haven't done.” — Neil (11:56)

• On Atoms:

  • “Never trust atoms. They make up everything.” — Neil (30:07)

• On Science and Randomness:

  • “Science exists only because something I figure out here applies over there and I can predict its behavior … If it were all random, there would be no such thing as science.” — Neil (19:25)

• On Universal Law:

  • “On Earth, as it is in the heavens, laws of physics on Earth apply to the moons, planets, stars, and galaxies—not only across space, but through time. That is not an assumption. That is a measurement we have made. And that’s extraordinary.” — Neil (21:11)

• On Black Holes:

  • “Black holes are not giant sucking machines.” — Neil (40:11)

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Timestamps of Key Segments

| Time | Segment | |-------------|---------------------------------------------------------------| | 04:32-08:22 | Time dilation near black holes and relativity of "now" | | 08:54-16:22 | Simulation hypothesis: Would you want to know? What would you ask? | | 22:01-24:08 | Superconductivity of asteroids in deep space | | 25:01-28:39 | Moon removal and effect on tides; sun’s contribution | | 29:59-34:48 | Are memories and consciousness made from atoms? | | 39:01-40:59 | "Purpose" of black holes, misconceptions | | 41:24-42:59 | Experiencing "pure spacetime," infinite reach of gravity | | 43:38-45:58 | Black holes and information conservation | | 46:10-48:51 | The reality and nature of the cosmic web |

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Tone and Style

The conversation is lively, playful, and deeply curious—mixing rigorous scientific explanation with wit and banter. Paul Mercurio keeps the questions coming and injects humor, while Neil deGrasse Tyson brings clarity, context, and memorable analogies.

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Summary for First-Time Listeners

This episode delivers a whirlwind tour of cosmic curiosities, grounded in both science and the philosophical implications of modern physics. Whether discussing the relativity of time, the possibility of reality as a simulation, the nature of black holes, or the underlying structure of the universe, Neil and Paul keep it accessible, thought-provoking, and fun. If you enjoy learning the “why” behind cosmic phenomena—or just want to hear smart answers to wild questions—this Grab Bag edition is a must-listen.

Transcript

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

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[Paul Mercurio]

That sounds nice.

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[Paul Mercurio]

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[Paul Mercurio]

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Paul, that was a good set of questions. Oh, my gosh.

[Paul Mercurio]

It's amazing. We, you know, we learned a lot about sponges and webs and all sorts of things.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Coming up, another installment of Cosmic Query's Grab Bag edition. Welcome to startalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk Cosmic Queries Edition. This time I got Paul Mercurio. Paul, welcome back, dude.

[Paul Mercurio]

All right. Good to see you again, Neil. How are you, buddy?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right, Paul, at some point, somebody christened you Baron Paul Mercurio.

[Paul Mercurio]

That is true. And we had a ceremony which was quite lovely in your office, if you remember. You did.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We used my Excalibur.

[Paul Mercurio]

Excalibur store, yes. We did the whole thing. Yeah. For some reason, there's no red carpet here, but, you know.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And are you. You still have your traveling show permission to speak?

[Paul Mercurio]

I do, yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

This is a theater show, Right. It's a.

[Paul Mercurio]

It's a. It's a wagon and I sell medicines. I'm a medicine man now because I'm going to be out of a job at the Late Show. So. Yes. Touring with that. I've got my podcast Inside out with Paul Mercurio because it's the law and everyone's supposed to have a podcast now.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And you've been in the biz a while.

[Paul Mercurio]

Yeah, I go back to the Daily show and one of the original guys

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

on that and, well, even predating Jon Stewart.

[Paul Mercurio]

Jon Stewart, that tiny little man? Yes. He's. He's. He's. He's only this big. A lot of people don't know. The cameras are amazing. That. That we would have. Yes. With Craig Kilborn and then. And Lewis Black was on. And we would have all this crazy fun and nobody knew what they were doing, but they were letting us. We were like, you know, you would appreciate this. We were like in the, in the lab, just, just said, just go make it and blow things up. And then we'd get yelled at by the president of the network every once in a while because we went too far. He would literally yell at you like your father would yell at you, like, that he couldn't get, why did you think that that could be okay on tv? And he's like screaming at you.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We got a grab bag this session. Yeah. So that means some great questions, by

[Paul Mercurio]

the way, some really good questions, whatever

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

subjects just sort of landed in your lap. And these are questions asked by our Patreon members.

[Paul Mercurio]

And whenever I do these, I'm always. And this isn't false praise, like you're the fans of our show, just how smart they are about this stuff. Like, they're really great questions.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, oh my gosh, we should be handing out degrees at the end of.

[Paul Mercurio]

Except for this first guy. This first guy's an idiot. No, I'm just kidding. No.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so what you got for me?

[Paul Mercurio]

This is Farouk from Uzbekistan writing from Norwich, uk. It's my favorite movie. Interstellar. After I've seen your interview with Kip Thorne, there's something that bothers me now. When they were on Miller's planet with giant water waves next to the black hole being immensely time dilated relative to one of their crew that remained behind on the ship and aged faster. What if they had telescopes and looked through the windows of the ship at their crewmate aging years for their minutes? Wouldn't they be able to see the faster passage of time? Or would it have. Or what would it have looked like? Or is light itself affected and won't allow this to happen?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So if he had a telescope and looked down at them near the surface of the black hole, everything would be going in slow motion.

[Paul Mercurio]

I understand, but it's also kind of insensitive looking through the telescope. Hey, guys, look at this. Look at. He's aging so fast. He just took out a reverse mortgage on his house. Like, what?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

He's turning gray while we watch it?

[Paul Mercurio]

Yeah, I just had a sandwich. And during that time, he's been divorced three times and he doesn't have any visitation rights. Like what?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

They would look down and see them moving slowly. And when you're near a black hole, you see the rest of the Universe unfold in rapid speed. And so, yeah, there's nothing special about the light that happens. It arrives to you at a different pace depending on how deep into a gravitational well you are. And the reason why that orbit was chosen to be very close to the black hole, it was to maximize the time dilation. It's called time dilation. When you create this difference in the rate of time, by the way, that exists for our GPS satellites, we are closer to the center of the Earth than the GPS satellites are. So we experience slower time than they do, yet we get our precise time from them. So when they send down their time from orbit, they pre corrected for Einstein's general theory of relativity, so that our time works at our location on Earth's surface.

[Paul Mercurio]

Got it. So but in saying you're looking through the telescope, you're seeing things in slow motion, essentially. Is that right?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

If you're looking at their behavior on the planet? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Paul Mercurio]

Because even if the guy. Because light itself gets stretched and so it looks like he's buffering, basically. Is that what we're saying?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Buffering? That's an interesting word to bring into relativity. I have to think about that. So. No, just the timeline. So here's the thing. You are a prisoner of the present, forever transitioning between your inaccessible past and your unknowable future. That's all you know about your own timeline. There are other timelines that are proceeding at different paces than your timeline, depending on how fast they're moving in space relative to you, and depending on how much gravity they are subjected to. So time is not absolute. That's that. This was the big discovery of Einstein. Isaac Newton is turning in his grave upon hearing this.

[Paul Mercurio]

If he could hear it, who's present are we? It's basically like, whose present are we talking about? Right. Does this relativity, does this mean there's no shared now? So the idea of watching someone age across frames is already kind of the wrong question in a way.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, yeah. Some of those questions, you're right. Some of those questions just kind of lose meaning. Like, what is the now for everybody if your timeline is unfolding more slowly than mine? Right, right.

[Paul Mercurio]

Because you can't watch them age and fast forward because the universe won't let you skip ahead to the consequences.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It won't let you skip ahead. But you can watch a timeline unfold faster than yours.

[Paul Mercurio]

And if time is that dilated, does that mean you couldn't actually watch him aging and fast forward? Because the light carrying that information is stretched and delayed as well. So the Universe.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. I think if you're tracking time, the stretching of the. So rather than think of stretching of the light, think of light pulses. Right, got it. And so what's the interval between pulses? And that's a nice way to sort of tick out the time. The pulses you would see down on the. On the planet, I guess it was called Miller's Planet. I didn't remember the name of it.

[Paul Mercurio]

Yes, no issue.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

If you all agreed, let's pulse every second. And then you see their pulses down there, and their pulses happen every two or three seconds, even though, according to their watches, it's every one second. So it's not that the light stretches so much as the pace at which time unfolds shifts. And so. Yeah. And they did it right. They did it right.

[Paul Mercurio]

Mark Phillips of fluorescent, Missouri. Hi, Dr. Tyson. This is Mark Phillips. Fluorescent. That's a town. Fluorescent F O F L O R I S S A N or fluorescent Flores.

[Tina Anderson]

Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Paul Mercurio]

If we are living in a simulation, would you want to know and would you choose to embrace your place or attempt to break the cycle and communicate to the Overlords? Knowing you, Neil, you'll need to communicate because it's gon a lot of that.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I love that question.

[Paul Mercurio]

And what would. And third part of the question. What would you wish to gain from contact with them or have you already and you are just controlling us?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I'm not authorized to comment. That's a great question. I love it. I embrace all objective truths, no matter what. I mean, it's not that long ago in the era of our grandparents, perhaps, where it was perfectly acceptable for the doctor to lie to you, to tell you you don't have terminal cancer and know you're not gonna be dead in six months. That was somehow accepted.

[Paul Mercurio]

That's right. You're right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

In fact, I think there was such a scene in. Was it A Streetcar Named Desire? What's the story that has Big Daddy in it?

[Paul Mercurio]

Oh, that's mendacity. That's a cat on a hot tin roof.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Well, cat on a hot tin. Cat on a hot tin. I don't know why I confused those two. So Cat on a hot tin roof, Big Daddy or whatever his name was, he told everyone else knew he was going to die, and the doctor told him he was like, just fine.

[Paul Mercurio]

Right?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's right. To me, that is today completely unacceptable, at least for me. I want to know all truth so that I can reckon with that truth in whatever way I see fit. To live a lie is to not fully be in touch with all that controls your life, all that matters. All that. So, yeah, maybe that's because I'm a scientist. Some people just say lie to me. Lie to me. That happens. A lot of politics, right? Lie to me. Tell me there is no global warming. Tell me we're not. Tell me. Just lie to me and everything will be better. And that's okay? Temporarily. And then it catches up with you and by then it's too late.

[Paul Mercurio]

Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So, yeah, I would want to know if I was in a simulation.

[Paul Mercurio]

I agree. I would want to know.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

B, I totally want to talk to the overlords.

[Paul Mercurio]

Absolutely. I want to talk to the manager. I have questions.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You want to be careful.

[Paul Mercurio]

First of all, I want to speak

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

to who's in charge.

[Paul Mercurio]

Who's in charge. First of all, who picked my avatar? Why don't I have a better body? That would be one. You had infinite rendering power and you chose to make me a guy who pulls a hamstring tying his shoe. That would be number two. Why did you give me mild acid reflux? I have a lot of issues with this overlord person. And with our luck, it's a 14 year old kid who gets like a triple A.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's an alien kid in his parents basement.

[Paul Mercurio]

Yeah, listen, if we're in a simulation, I just want the patch notes. That's all I want. Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The programmer of the simulation in which we live gave you freedom to join a fitness center, which you haven't done. It is obvious to me you've never stepped into a fitness center in your life.

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[Paul Mercurio]

Okay. This is why I don't want to know all truths. This is why I want. There are some things I don't want to know. So what would you change?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No, no. Question is, what would I ask? And I would ask, is every bit of this universe knowable through laws of physics or is there something you just got lazy programming and it will never make sense to anybody and no one can ever create a law for it because you just pulled it out of your ass. That's what I'd want to know. Because if they didn't, then I would still continue to explore with the laws of science.

[Paul Mercurio]

Well, it's funny because in my mind when I read this question before we came on the air, it was like it's sort of maybe the. The other side of the coin of what you just said, which is, is there only a simulation or is there some being or power, ephemeral, ethereal, that has some hand in how we exist? Does that.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I don't know, that we would ever be able to deduce the difference.

[Paul Mercurio]

Well, but could you? That's the point. Right. So the simulation maybe only exists because of this greater power being. Like, we don't. You'll never know the answer later.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Is the greater powerful being.

[Paul Mercurio]

Yeah, but that's.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Deal with it.

[Paul Mercurio]

But that's. Yeah, but. But we don't know what the sim is. Assimilator. A human being? Is it a. Is it an alien of some kind? Like, what is. Who is the simulator?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Doesn't matter. I mean, I'm saying it's someone vastly smarter than us. That's.

[Paul Mercurio]

Whoa.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's like an answer.

[Paul Mercurio]

Speak for yourself, buddy. Mr. Insecure Low IQ Guy I can catch. First of all, in this one question, you told me I have arms like wimp spaghetti noodles in terms of my body type, and I'm dumb as a stump. Is this how we're going to do the whole show?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Or talk about your arms? I didn't talk about your brain. You have a brilliant brain. And spaghetti noodle arms. No, no. So that's what I would do. I would say, shall I continue as a scientist exploring the knowability of the universe, or is there some point where you just gave up and it's all random? That's what I want to know. It has good precedent. There was a day before Newton, you'd look up and the planets would move against the background stars and the moon and the sun, and no one really understood it. We could sort of trace it, but an understanding eluded us. But that was okay, because the sky was the realm of. Of God. And how could you possibly understand the mind of God? And then Isaac Newton says, here it is. It's three equations. And some accused Newton of heresy for stepping where previously only God had tread. And so in this case, is God a deity as known through religious texts, or is God a programmer in an alien basement? In either case, whatever is going on is created by them and is vastly more complex than we are. And we're just inside of it, just poking.

[Paul Mercurio]

Well, what is it? I mean, if it's so sophisticated that it can create all of this, One question I would have, in all seriousness is why have you created so many imperfections when you have this amazing ability to create this simulation?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so I have an answer to that. I have an answer. Okay. Okay. Just when everything is going fine, Just when everything is going fine, the programmer gets bored and say, let's throw in Covid.

[Paul Mercurio]

Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Stir the pot.

[Paul Mercurio]

I know. Let's throw in the feature where Paul has to get up Three times a night to take. How about that? Let's throw that in there just to make it like, you know, that's tmi, Paul.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I don't need to know about your bladder conditions. So then we finally get through Covid okay, and we have the vaccine.

[Paul Mercurio]

Then

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

a billionaire New York real estate developer becomes the most powerful person in the world. Stir the pot some more. If there were ever evidence that an alien programmer were in charge just for their entertainment,

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Paramount plus is now the home of all your bet favorites.

[Paul Mercurio]

That sounds nice.

[Paramount Plus Announcer]

With all new new episodes of all the Queen's Men.

[Paul Mercurio]

You stand up when you talk to the Queen.

[Paramount Plus Announcer]

Plus a whole new world of movies like Gladiator 2.

[Paul Mercurio]

I must have Power.

[Paramount Plus Announcer]

Original series like the Shy.

[Paul Mercurio]

Life comes at you fast whether you ready for it or not.

[Paramount Plus Announcer]

And live sports like ufc.

[Paul Mercurio]

Unbelievable.

[Paramount Plus Announcer]

New home.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Welcome to paradise.

[Paramount Plus Announcer]

Same family.

[Paul Mercurio]

That's all that matters to me.

[Paramount Plus Announcer]

Your BET favorites are now on Paramount plus. Subscribe now.

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

hi, I'm Ernie Carducci from Columbus, Ohio.

[Paul Mercurio]

I. I'm here with my son Ernie

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

because we listen to Star Talk every night and support Star Talk on Patreon. This is Star Talk with Neil Degrasse Tyson. So Paul, here's an interesting fact. If we reach the point where. Where in our exploration of the universe where it's all random because the programmer got lazy, Right? That's interesting. At that point, science loses all utility. Science exists only because something I figure out here applies over there and I can predict its behavior and understand it and manipulate it and use it in the service of my own survival. And if it were all random, there would be no such thing as science.

[Paul Mercurio]

Well, but, no, but couldn't you use science to help explore and try to explain the randomness and the chaos? Seriously.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So you want a scientist to say, okay, Paul, today your whole day will be chaotic. I predict that. Go forth. What are you expecting?

[Paul Mercurio]

No, no, no, no. But can't you make the argument that you could use science to sort of explain chaos? I mean, isn't that truly random?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I mean, chaos is a very specific thing and in mathematical, Mathematically. And the interesting thing about chaos is you can predict with precision how uncertain certain quantities will become over time. And you can watch the chaotic regime unfold. This is what makes weather predicting so challenging because there's so many variables. The heat from the sun, the absorption of the Earth, the reflectivity of the Earth, the oceans, which are a different temperature from the land, how much moisture is in the air. All of these factors come together, and the more they come together and the more in the future you try to understand it, the more chaotic it becomes. So we try to get handles on it. That's why they say the models, we have this model and we have that model. And here's where they agree. So you go where they agree to try to boost your chances of understanding the objective reality in the system. But I'm just saying if, if, if, if no laws discovered here apply over there, and it doesn't matter where here is, and it doesn't matter where there is, then that undermines the entire profession of science.

[Paul Mercurio]

Right. It makes it the fact that I

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

tell you that on Earth, as it is in the heavens, laws of physics on Earth applied to the moons, planets, stars and galaxies, not only across space, but through time. That is not an assumption. That is a measurement we have made. And that's extraordinary. Is there any reason. Is there a tablet in the sky that says that must be so? I don't know. I'm delighted we live in a universe that it is so.

[Paul Mercurio]

Absolutely. All right, let's move on to the next question. This is Mikhail from Canada. Since it's around 3 Kelvin in space, could an asteroid be a superconductor? And if so, would it get stuck if it went too close to a huge magnetic field like the sun's or ours? There you go.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I love that question. Very clever. What's the person's name?

[Paul Mercurio]

This is Mikhail.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Mikhail. So thank you for that question. Mikhail knows that metals, certain metals and other materials, when you reduce the temperature in which they're immersed, the behavior electron changes so that they no longer act separately from one another as the temperature drops. As they get cooler, the wavelength of each electron grows bigger and bigger and bigger until it reaches. I'm simplifying this, but it's basically what's happening until the temperature's so low. By the way, this is quantum. It's a quantum phenomenon.

[Paul Mercurio]

Is that absolute zero.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Three degrees above absolute zero. Right, Right.

[Paul Mercurio]

So no more heat can be taken

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

out when it gets to zero. Right. So as you drop the temperature, the wavelength of the electrons gets bigger and bigger. Quantum mechanics dictates this to a point where the wavelength is so large, all the electrons behave as one electron because the waves overlap and synchronize. And when that happens, electrical current passes through without any resistance at all. And so that's called superconductivity at 3 degrees. Ought to get some superconductivity in some metals. I haven't checked the chart lately at who goes superconducting at what temperature? Some go superconducting at even cooler than 3 degrees Kelvin. So let's start with that. So, great question. I'd have to check my numbers to see who would be superconducting at those temperatures. A, B. It's not entirely 3 degrees if you're near a star. So the asteroids are orbiting the sun. Many of them are very dark. Sunlight gets absorbed, raising their temperature. So you're only going to hit 3 degrees. Like an intergalactic space. We are so far away from nearby stars that there's very little heat added to your. To your. To your rock temperature.

[Paul Mercurio]

Jason Ashton from Liverpool. Liverpool?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The Beatles are from Liverpool? Yeah.

[Paul Mercurio]

Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Wait, wait. If he's from Liverpool, you have to read it with a Liverpool accent.

[Paul Mercurio]

Oh, please.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No, that's not Liverpool. That's like Irish or something.

[Paul Mercurio]

Yeah, Paul. Paul, the home of the Beatles. Yeah, I like Yono Yoko. You know, I had Paul McCartney on my podcast, you know, along with you. You've been on it. Okay, let's move on. I've been a Patreon member for over a year and finally have a question that is probably more basic than. Than my and your expectations are. So I'm feeling a little bit dumb here. If the moon left Earth's orbit, would the oceans no longer have tides?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

They would still have tides caused by the sun.

[Paul Mercurio]

Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The sun's tides are about one third the strength of the moon's tides. Or to put more precisely, whatever is the height of the tide that you measure. A third of that height is attributable to the sun.

[Paul Mercurio]

Yeah, Smaller, less Dramatic. It's like what I like to call decaf gravity. It's like decaf gravity.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That works. That works. And what's more important here? And by the way, it's a perfectly legitimate question. I love it. And so, in fact, there's a whole book written by a colleague of mine called what if there were no moon? And then the whole book just goes, talks about the consequences of that. And we probably wouldn't have moons because they're named after the moon.

[Paul Mercurio]

That's true, yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. We have some other reckoning of time. So the moon has the dominant tidal bulge. All right, so there it is. And the Earth turns in and out of that bulge. That bulge is always there, however, and

[Paul Mercurio]

it's always in the same place.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Well, it's a little bit ahead of the moon in the moon's orbit. Right. But we rotate faster than moon's orbit around us. So we rotate into and out of the tidal bulge. And because the moon still moves around us, high tide shifts each day by about 45 or 50 minutes. Because of this effect, it's all one synchrony of tidal bulb.

[Paul Mercurio]

Because of the effect of the tidal bulge being slightly ahead of us, it's

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

slightly ahead of the moon, but the moon is orbiting the Earth. So how far does the moon go in a day? It goes about 45, 50 minutes worth of your clock time around the Earth. So therefore the tidal bulge has shifted by that much. But that's not even my point. The bulge is always there when we line up with the sun. The sun's high tide adds to the moon's high tide, and you get full moon, high tides. So when people think the full moon has some extra tidal forces on us.

[Paul Mercurio]

No sun.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's the sun line added to the moon's tide. And the moon tide is just always there. But the sun adds to it. And so it's a delusion. We think, oh, the rays of the sun, the moon. We have werewolves, we have all lich cantopic stories that have been written. We've got all of this about moonlight. And plus the moon is only reflected sunlight. So if the werewolf turns into a werewolf under full moon, it should definitely do it under sunlight and a lot

[Paul Mercurio]

faster and with a lot more hair, bigger teeth, bigger fangs. But what, so what is the remind us? The full moon high tide, which means sort of the sun and the moon have sort of aligned. That happens every. How often? What is the frequency of that?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Once a month? Well, actually twice a month. So. So it'll work for full moon because Earth Moon and sun are lined up and it works for new moon where the moon is on the other side and you get the tidal bulge. So you get the highest of the high tides during new moon and full moon. So people aren't thinking that the new moon has special powers, even though it's making tides just as high as full moon because you can't see the new moon. So people are very influenced by what they see and what they think is true rather than all that they can't see and what we otherwise know is true.

[Paul Mercurio]

Yeah, that is. Yeah, there's a lot there. It's sort of. Hello from Flesherton, Ontario. Not going to be a part of the 51st state, Canada, But we need your.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We need your health care.

[Paul Mercurio]

We need your health care. Your, your pleasant qualities, your lovely manner with people, your, your maple syrup. Europe. We've only got a couple of states that really generate that. Come on.

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Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Vermont, New York. That's from New Hampshire. Yeah.

[Paul Mercurio]

Maybe some Maine too.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah.

[Paul Mercurio]

Yeah. Neil, my 13 year old son was so blown away by our experience at your show, he wanted me to pass on this question. Why are your T shirts so expensive after the show? No, that's not the question.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I don't sell T shirts after this. I have no merch. I mean, people said I should, but there's no merch. There's no merch.

[Paul Mercurio]

You sell those Neil DeGrasse Tyson fake. You sell those Neil Degrasse Tyson fake mustaches for $15 each. I know you do. All right. Neil, my 13 year old son was so blown away with our experience at your show, he wanted me to pass on this question. Could you ask if he thinks your memories and consciousness are made from atoms? Love you guys. And keep the laughs coming. Andrew Nisker.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So there's my favorite joke that's safe for elementary school.

[Paul Mercurio]

Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Never trust Adams. They make up everything that's safe for like third graders. We're good there. So. Yeah, I mean, we so want to believe that there are forces and things going on that defy account or description or investigation by the laws of physics. That urge is very strong because you might explain language, whatever, but you'll never explain love. And I say, is it because you don't want us to ever explain love or do you have some reason for thinking that this is really true? So a couple of things about our consciousness or our thoughts. Let's just talk with our thoughts. We have come to learn that the brain operates via electrochemical signals between the synapses of our nerve cells of the brain cells in your head. Okay. And there it is, by the way. The medical profession could not have known that before the discovery and the harnessing of electricity. Think about that. So much of physics has fed the medical profession's powers to diagnose and treat the human body that if anyone says, okay, we're done with physics, now let's invest all in medicine, that yet there's a limit to how far that'll go, given how much they've tapped. Discoveries by my people in my fields. Okay, so when you know that thoughts are communicated through electrochemical signals, and then you stick a probe in there and stimulate a part of the brain that, you know, behaves in a certain way, and then you see the person react, you kind of know what's going on there.

[Paul Mercurio]

This is evidence that, yeah, atoms are the building blocks of everything, blocks of

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

cells, and the cells are the building blocks of our neurophysiology. Okay, so, so. But the real evidence here, because you can't just experiment on people's brains that, you know, really can't do that.

[Paul Mercurio]

Hang on a second. All right, let them go. We can't.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's your kids. Your kids in the lockbox.

[Paul Mercurio]

Yeah. Get them out of the box and give him some peanuts and hit them. We can't do the experiment. Go ahead. Sorry.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

People who have mini strokes, right? So a stroke, a broken blood vessel, there's oxygen doesn't get to a part of the brain. Mini strokes, the identity of the person begins to fade depending on what part of their brain was touched by the stroke. And so is it their facial recognition? Is it their spatial recognition? Is it their appetite for food? Is it their ability to speak? Is it their hearing, sight, locomotion? If you have a series of mini strokes, bits and pieces of you basically disappear. So everyone who says what happens to your consciousness when you die? A series of mini strokes are mini deaths of your brain. And as far as we can tell, that's what's happening to you when you die. None of that works. So now that's not very comforting to people, especially not to religious people who have a whole story of what happens to you when you die. All I'm saying is, if you're gonna ask a scientist to answer that question, the point is, once your brain ceases to undergo electrochemical changes, then you don't exist anymore. Everything we know about you no longer exists.

[Paul Mercurio]

So, I mean, dementia is sort of in that family, right? So that's.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Well, for example. Correct. And that's not even a stroke.

[Paul Mercurio]

I should have included in that family. Of, you know, so my mother has it right now and you can see there's just pieces of it. But the fascinating thing is her long term memory is insanely accurate.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's stored differently and possibly even in a different place.

[Paul Mercurio]

I would introduce you to her and 10 minutes later she'd be like, how do you. How do you know my son again? But then she can in the same breath relay a story when she was 12 of spending a day with her father with great exactitude. And so it. Is it the shifting of the atoms in the cells? Is it, Is it the shifting of the atoms of the cells that's happening there? Is it the death of some atoms and cells? Like what is.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The atoms don't have life or death, they just comprise larger molecules and the cells are composed of the molecules. So you can't blame atoms directly. You have to. You break, you. You have to credit or blame the functioning of living tissue. Okay. That's really what it is. The atom is just an atom. Now, if I may, I mean no disrespect, but I heard this joke told by another comedian who said that if you're a comedian, being around people with dementia is excellent because you could tell the same joke every 10 minutes.

[Paul Mercurio]

Absolutely.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

People with short term memory dementia, it

[Paul Mercurio]

also helps with guilt because you could say to your mother, well, I haven't seen you in a while. No, I was just here yesterday. Oh, that's right. You know what I mean? So, like, you don't have to feel so bad. Yeah, exactly. It's like, oh, you're such a good son. I know. I was here yesterday and I painted the whole house.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Point is, atoms, everything that is not empty space or energy in the form of photons represents as particles in the universe and certain combinations of particles we call atoms. If you have a nucleus and at least one electron, it's an atom. And so atoms comprise everything. Hence the joke, don't never trust atoms. They make up everything. If you go down to like a snowflake and a snowflake, six sided snowflake. It's a crystalline structure of the water molecule. Water is H2O. You break that apart, you have two hydrogen atoms, one oxygen atom. So atoms are everywhere. But atoms don't have agency. They're just. Well, sorry. They might want to combine with other atoms to make molecules. But that's. It's a very simple. Are we mating or not? It's not otherwise. Let me give Paul Mercurio dreams that happens based on life experience and leftover neurosynaptic history of your brain and stuff you unresolved trauma that might have happened in your life joys. So yeah, atoms are everywhere.

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[Paul Mercurio]

That sounds nice.

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

you talk to the Queen.

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So Paul, we got enough time for like a lightning round.

[Paul Mercurio]

This is Todd Chambers from Yuba City, California. In the system of the universe, what is or are the purposes of a black hole? Do they recycle matter and energy?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

To speak of purpose implies intent. And in physics, we generally don't think of the universe as having intent. They're just laws and forces, and things flow according to those forces, guided by the laws of physics as we've come to describe them. So you can ask what role they play. And if you wander too close to a black hole, that's all she wrote, you'll get pulled in spaghettified and you won't be able to tell anybody about it. So to think of a role, no, there's roles that there are no roles. There's just what it does. And by the way, if the sun became a black hole today, Earth would plunge into darkness. But we can still continue to orbit around it in just the same way we are right now.

[Paul Mercurio]

We wouldn't be pulled in.

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Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Black holes are not giant sucking machines.

[Paul Mercurio]

But there's stronger gravitational force only at its surface. Don't disagree with me. You don't know what you're talking about.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No, I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just simply saying you're wrong. There's a difference. Two politicians will disagree.

[Paul Mercurio]

Yes, okay,

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

but if one person is wrong, you're just wrong. It's not that we disagree.

[Paul Mercurio]

I'm just flat out wrong.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah.

[Tina Anderson]

Yeah.

[Paul Mercurio]

Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. So it doesn't become a giant sucking machine. We speak of the high gravity of a black hole because of the high surface gravity. Because the black hole's so small, you get really close to its center, and that's where the extreme gravitational phenomenon occurs.

[Paul Mercurio]

Got it. Okay, lightning round. We'll keep going here. Liam Corcoran. Hi, Neil. This is Liam from Rhode island, my home state, the best little state in the union. Is there anywhere in the universe that you could be outside the gravitational influence of any matter besides your own? And would this be the closest you could get to experiencing pure space time, totally unwarped by matter?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I love that question. I love that question. So there is. Oh, I forgot what the metric is called. There are approximations we make when we're doing some calculations. We assume space has no matter or energy in it so that it's perfectly flat. Okay. And then you can do some calculations more easily than if you admit that there are stars or planets or black holes distorting that space time. The mathematics becomes much more complicated if the space time is curved than if it's flat. So now, in 1968, if memory serves, Walter Cronkite, the anchor for CBS News, was describing in December the voyage of Apollo 8 to the moon. And he says, as of 9:22 this afternoon, Apollo 8 astronauts have left the gravity of Earth. And I remember hearing this, like, what? They're on their way to the moon. And last I checked, the moon orbits Earth, so I know what he meant, but that's not what he should have said. Okay? What he meant was we reached a point where the moon's gravity pulling it in is stronger than our gravity trying to come back to Earth so that the Moon's gravity takes over and it just falls towards the moon. That's not the end. Earth's gravity extends to infinity, as does every other gravitational field. You cannot escape the extent of gravity, no matter what, but it weakens over

[Paul Mercurio]

time the farther you get away from Earth. It dissipates in strength the weaker and weaker it is.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

But it's never zero, Right? That's true for everything. The sun, the galaxy, galaxy clusters, everything.

[Paul Mercurio]

My name is Emily from Berkeley. I am a first time poster. I hope this is an interesting question. Many times when people talk about particle pairs being separated at outer surface of black holes, where one half of the pair is on the outside and one half is doomed to the inside, they will say that it should be theoretically possible to reconstruct the information that fell into the black hole. Why is it important to theoretically retain this possibility?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, this comes from information theory because there's a certain amount of information. And if you fall into a black hole, was the information destroyed? That's the question. And so there's a big debate about information. Information theory is relatively new. You know, it's sort of. Well, it comes out of entropy. So in the last hundred years or so, especially in the last 50, 50 years, puts it in the 1970s, I guess. Wow. Yeah. And if you believe or want it to be so that information is never destroyed, then when the black hole later evaporates, which it will do by Hawking radiation, well, that is, excuse me, that is the way it evaporates. Okay. So that particle pair is conjured out of the gravitational field. And if you took an inventory of the particles that appear out of the gravitational field of the black hole, they will exactly match everything the black hole has ever eaten in its life.

[Paul Mercurio]

How so?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Well, what's freaky is it's not the same particle coming out that survived the trip in and survived the trip out. Particles are being created from the energy field of the black hole. Energy is creating it and it has a memory of what was there before. That's tantamount to preserving the information that went in. So now there's a little bit that I'm unsure of. We're have to bring Jana Levin on this. If you throw in a DNA molecule, there's a lot of information there. It's your whole identity. It's not going to come back out as a DNA molecule in particle pairs. No. So where's the information?

[Paul Mercurio]

It'll come back altered in some way.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It won't come back as a molecule at all. It'll come back as particles. So how do I recover the information that the DNA molecule contained as a representation of you? I don't have an answer for that. We gotta check with either one of the two. Brian's or with Jan11 on that. We'll bring him back on, don't worry.

[Paul Mercurio]

About it. I got it. I got it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You got this?

[Paul Mercurio]

Yeah. What happens is it goes in and then centrifugal force that happens, along with a certain level of radiation, red wave. And then you get your thing. All right, moving on.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Paul Mercurio]

Mercedes Dominguez. Hello. Mercedes here from Denver, Colorado. I've heard of the cosmic web before. My question is, is that a real thing? And if so, what is it?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, so it's just a word that we apply to how we find the galaxies configured in the universe. So galaxies are not evenly separated. There's gravity operating, and there was some fluctuations in the early universe that preloaded some parts of the universe relative to others. When you step back and take a look at it all, you see this sort of network of filaments and clusters, and it's as though you took a sponge, cut it in half. Like a nice thick sponge, cut it in half. And look at the textures and structures. There are places where the fibers meet. They're on places where it's empty.

[Paul Mercurio]

It's almost like a honeycomb in a way. Not as symmetrical.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, but not as organized, not as structured. Correct.

[Paul Mercurio]

So the galaxies aren't sprinkled evenly. They line up along huge strands of matter, mostly dark matter, with these, like, empty voids in between. And it looks like a three dimensional spiderweb in a way.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Or a sponge. Yeah, I mean, cosmic web sounds a little more romanticized than cosmic sponge. Yeah, right, exactly.

[Paul Mercurio]

Yeah, that's a little. That's a tough sell to the. Yeah, but the point is, the universe isn't random. It's organized. I mean, it's not like Pinterest organized.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I wouldn't even use the word organized. I mean, gravity collects it. You want to call that organization.

[Paul Mercurio]

It's like a garage with stuff piled into the corners of every possible spot.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's a good point. In fact, here's an interesting phenomenon. If you look at a movie where they show a scene in the fall, basically they're set designers scattering leaves onto the street. Okay. If it's not actually in the fall. What they always get wrong is they try to scatter the leaves evenly on the street. It's never that. A breeze comes by and it piles into one corner. Some other new leaves fall down, but it's never evenly distributed. You can always tell because people don't understand random. They think random is scattered everywhere. Random has clumps. That's how that is. So I can always tell if they fake the street for that reason.

[Paul Mercurio]

But science can't answer the. The randomness question here. Right. Like that's. That's. Isn't that, to me, is. The fascinating thing here is sort of. It's sort of organized. It's, in a way, organized chaos. Maybe that's not the right technical term.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Forces of gravity are operating on it, so there's nothing more mysterious than that. And dark. Dark matter is mysterious. We don't know what that is, but that's operating on the gravitational fields around which all of this is collecting. So we speak of that entire. That entire map of the universe as the cosmic web. So, Paul, that's all the time we have. Plus, I think I hear your mother calling you for lunch.

[Paul Mercurio]

Bob Meatloaf. It's great to be on with you.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yes, man. And keep us posted on the end of Colbert or the end of days.

[Paul Mercurio]

Oh, you'll know I'm gonna be. I'm coming out to your neck of the woods. I'm doing landscaping after this. I need the money. Budd. Can you buy a place and get a lawn so I can cut it? I need to. Come on, be a friend. Be a friend, will you, Leo?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right. We'll work on it.

[Paul Mercurio]

All right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right. Paul Mercurio. Always good to have you, man.

[Paul Mercurio]

Yeah, always great. Chubby Terry Crews.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

This has been another installment of Cosmic Queries. Grab bag edition with Paul Mercurio. Neil Degrasse Tyson. As always bidding you to keep looking up.

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You're never just one thing.

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You're the boss.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Hey, Google, when's my next meeting?

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The athlete that class wrecks me and their mommy.

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Everyone in the the all new Mazda CX5 more to move every side of you.

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Learn [e-mail] Google is a trademark of Google LLC. Sequences shortened and simulated.

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That sounds nice.

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