Cosmic Queries – Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking with Charles Liu

Summary

StarTalk Radio: "Cosmic Queries – Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking with Charles Liu"

Host: Neil deGrasse Tyson
Guest: Charles Liu, Professor of Physics & Astronomy, College of Staten Island
Date: March 6, 2026
Theme: A cosmic queries "grab bag" exploring deep questions in physics, information, entropy, astronomy, and the origins of the universe, featuring spontaneous symmetry breaking with comic insight and expert commentary.

---

Episode Overview

This episode features astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, comic co-hosts Chuck Nice and Gary O'Reilly, and guest physicist Charles Liu as they tackle a spectrum of listener-submitted cosmic questions. The discussions delve into the role of observers in the universe, the nature of physical information, entropy, how astronomers interpret starlight, the origins of the Big Bang, and advances in astronomical instrumentation. With characteristic humor and clarity, the panel demystifies some of the most mind-bending concepts in science, tying together quantum mechanics, cosmology, and the human place in the universe.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Do Observers "Matter" to the Universe? (04:17–13:58)

• Listener Question: Are observers necessary for the universe to realize its information, or are we just byproducts?
  • Charles Liu explains the basis of this philosophical and physical debate within quantum mechanics:
    • The Copenhagen Interpretation (06:07): “The universe is in a flux state of sort of unknown states in the quantum level until you observe it. And then... reality appears.” (Charles Liu, 05:32)
    • He clarifies that measurement doesn’t create reality but determines our knowledge of it.
    • Human Brain vs. Universe Complexity: Tyson notes, “It may be that the universe is less complex than the human brain.” (07:32)
    • Descartes and Personal Reality: “Reality is only conveyed to our brains through our senses... Each of us... lives within a reality that is distinct from every other reality.” (Charles Liu, 08:26)
    • The Double Slit Experiment: Charles explains measurement affects outcomes in quantum systems, but the necessity of observers for physical reality remains debated.
    • Notable Moment: Charles produces his own book on air: “You mean this book? Physics answer book. Wow.” (10:56)

2. Physics of Information and Entropy (11:17–23:32)

• What is "Information" to a Physicist?
  • It's about the distinguishing features of a system, independent of substance; it requires consideration of system states (Charles Liu, 11:56).
  • Tyson: “If I give you two oranges... But if I give you two newspapers, you don’t have twice the information...” (11:17)
• Information Hidden in Entropy:
  • Coin Flips Example: The possible arrangements of coin flips far exceed the simple outcomes (Charles Liu, 19:09).
    • The “hidden information” is entropy, representing all possible microstates behind the observed macrostate.
    • Boiling Water Analogy: Explains latent heat and entropy in phase transitions (22:24).
  • Tyson wraps up: “So, material can have information completely coursing through it. And unlike quantum physics, if no one's there to measure that information, the information is still there, correct?” (12:49)
    • Charles: “Yes... but if you don't measure it, then you don't know what it is.” (13:02)

3. Color of Stars: Age/Composition or Motion? (24:42–32:29)

• Listener Question: How do astronomers distinguish between color changes caused by composition/age vs. movement (redshift)?
  • Spectroscopy: “The answer to this quandary is spectroscopy... By dividing all these colors up into little bits... the patterns of those different lines... are preserved regardless of whether you redshift.” (Charles Liu, 25:20)
  • Tyson and Liu discuss effects like dust causing "extinction," requiring complex corrections (“It’s actually called extinction…” – Charles Liu, 29:19).
  • Dust corrections allow us not only to see beyond interference, but also to study the dust itself, which is "stardust" essential for life (Charles Liu, 31:26).
  • Memorable exchange about how easy it is to make mistakes in calibrating for dust, with Tyson noting “Every other week a paper should come back, 'My bad, it was dust'.” (Chuck Nice, 32:41)
  • AI and Astronomy: Charles addresses AI’s promise and limitations in making extinction maps. ("AI isn’t sophisticated enough... It just sort of chooses the best option and sticks it in." – 33:17)

4. Why Didn’t the Big Bang Create a Black Hole? (35:12–39:52)

• Listener Question: If all matter was once ultra-condensed, why wasn’t it a black hole?
  • Answer: At the Planck time, the total mass-energy was smaller than required for a black hole (less than a glass of water). Later – after inflation injected more energy – matter forms and black holes become possible (Charles Liu, 36:20).
  • On the source of the energy: "Where that energy came from is still a hundred percent unclear. I don't know..." (36:40)
  • Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking: Key idea for the episode. Early universe had one fundamental force; symmetry breaking split this into the four known forces, injecting tremendous energy and driving inflation. (Charles Liu, 37:52)
  • “The resulting chaos, it's almost like unleashing... that entropy we were talking about when trying to boil water. But now we're unleashing just straight up energy in such huge densities and such huge amounts...” (38:13)

5. The Limits and Frontiers of Science (39:52–52:36)

• Science as Storytelling and Discovery:
  • Referencing Sabine Hossenfelder, question of whether we can ever know the conditions before the Big Bang.
    • Charles: “The difference between a story that is non scientific and a story that is scientific is that the scientific story seeks to... confirm or refute.” (40:39)
    • Discovery is propelled by questions, not the assumption of limits (Tyson, 43:03).
    • Famous anecdote: Before spectroscopy, it was thought impossible to know what stars were made of; now that’s basic science (Tyson, 43:34).
    • "The questions are more important than the answers..." (Charles Liu, 44:07)
    • Humorous moment: Chuck Nice jokes using philosophy to dodge tough personal questions. (44:39)
  • Changing Scientific Paradigms: Eddington’s eclipse experiment confirming General Relativity (47:10–49:06), lauded as a simple but brilliant approach.
  • Definition of genius: “The genius is the person who sees what everyone else sees, but thinks the way no one else has thought.” (Tyson, 50:20)
  • Looking for new ways to extract information from noise, both in cosmic dust and quantum communications (51:01–52:36).

6. Cosmic Microwave Background & Pigeon Poop (52:36–53:59)

• Tyson recounts the discovery of the cosmic microwave background, where scientists had to clean pigeon dung from an antenna before realizing there was a universal microwave “noise.”
  • “That was the cosmic microwave background. Nobel Prize winning discovery after they removed the pigeon poop.” (53:45)

7. Future of Astronomy: New Telescopes & Techniques (56:41–59:51)

• Listener Question: What new breakthroughs will next-gen telescopes demand?
  • Space-Based Laser Interferometry: Charles: “The one breakthrough... is the ability to fly spaceships in formation... You can use something called laser interferometry... find gravitational waves from space at a level that's hundreds or thousands of times greater than we can on the ground.” (57:20)
  • Tyson adds: Beyond light—seeking "multi-messenger astronomy" (gravitational waves, neutrinos, and more) (58:34–59:47)
  • Trivia: Galileo’s book "Sidereus Nuncius" ("Starry Messenger")—now the phrase "multi-messenger astronomy" is NASA lingo. (59:52)

8. Scharnhorst Effect & Theoretical "Speed Limits" (60:18–64:45)

• Listener Question: Can the Scharnhorst effect let advanced civilizations exceed speed of light?
  • Briefly, the Scharnhorst effect predicts that in tiny regions between close plates, the speed of light might slightly exceed its usual value—but by an exceedingly tiny, practically unexploitable amount (Charles Liu, 61:27).
  • It's related to the Casimir effect; both are quantum phenomena.
  • No, you can't use it to send lossless energy through the universe or create causality-breaking "bubbles." (62:51)
  • “The concept of zero point energy... is still highly uncertain. We would love to find out more about it...” (62:58)

9. Self-Education in Astronomy & Physics (64:47–68:34)

• Listener Question: Where can I learn more, both theoretically and practically?
  • Charles recommends his book The Handy Quantum Physics Answer Book as a versatile, modular resource.
  • For those wishing to go deeper (including math), Charles recommends OpenStax—free online science textbooks (67:00).
  • Tyson notes: “If you’re not in a hurry, this is for you!”

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “If a big bang happens in the multiverse and there's no one there to see it, did it really happen?”
  — Chuck Nice (05:25)
• "The universe is not just sitting there waiting to be discovered. We have to figure this stuff out."
  — Neil deGrasse Tyson (31:17)
• "The questions are more important than the answers, because we can't get all the answers... But if we ask the right questions, someday we will be able to answer them."
  — Charles Liu (44:07)
• “The genius is the person who sees what everyone else sees, but thinks the way no one else has thought.”
  — Neil deGrasse Tyson (50:20)
• “The resulting chaos, it's almost like unleashing to some extent that entropy... but now we're unleashing just straight up energy in such huge densities and such huge amounts...”
  — Charles Liu (38:13)
• Pigeon poop Nobel Prize moment
  “That was the cosmic microwave background. Nobel Prize winning discovery after they removed the pigeon poop.”
  — Neil deGrasse Tyson (53:45)
• “It was there or it wasn’t there until I observed it. And all of a sudden, there it was.”
  — Charles Liu (11:11)

---

Important Segments & Timestamps

• 04:17 – 13:58: Observers and the "reality" of the universe
• 13:58 – 23:32: Physics of information and entropy
• 24:42 – 32:29: Identifying starlight, composition vs. redshift, and the challenge of cosmic dust
• 35:12 – 39:52: Big Bang vs. black hole and spontaneous symmetry breaking explained
• 39:52 – 44:07: Can we answer ultimate cosmic questions? Philosophy in science and discovery
• 47:10 – 49:06: Einstein, Eddington, and testing General Relativity
• 52:36 – 53:59: Discovery of cosmic microwave background (and pigeon story)
• 56:41 – 59:51: Future of telescopes—formation-flying spacecraft, multi-messenger astronomy
• 60:18 – 64:45: Scharnhorst & Casimir effects—quantum speed limits
• 64:47 – 68:34: Resources for learning more about astrophysics and quantum physics

---

Summary Tone

The episode blends serious science with humor and approachability. The hosts and Charles Liu use analogies, real-world examples, and jokes to distill deep concepts. There’s an undercurrent of wonder and humility, emphasizing the immense unknowns in physics and the persistent drive to probe further—paired with classic StarTalk comic banter.

---

For Further Exploration

• The Handy Quantum Physics Answer Book by Charles Liu
• Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson
• OpenStax — free online science textbooks
• NASA’s multi-messenger astronomy resources

---

Takeaway:
This episode tackles cosmic questions with expert nuance and playful wit, helping listeners explore the deepest mysteries of physics—from information theory and the observer problem, to how we probe the universe’s origins, to what future discoveries technology might unlock. The discussions are both ambitious and humbling, highlighting science as an ongoing, communal process driven by curiosity.

Transcript

[Gary O'Reilly]

Startalk Radio is supported by Claude from Anthropic. Science isn't about rushing to conclusions. It's about sitting with the uncertainty until it starts to make sense. Claude is the AI built for that kind of thinking and anthropic committed to not running ads in Claude. So when you're chasing down an idea, there's nothing pulling you towards someone else's agenda. Try Claude for free at Claude AI StarTalk and see why problem solvers choose Claude as well as their thinking partner.

[Chuck Nice]

Hey, are you traveling soon? Imagine arriving and actually understanding the language. Imagine being able to communicate with the people that are there waiting for you to arrive. Rosetta Stone's immersive, intuitive method helps you naturally absorb your new language. The lessons are simple. They fit into your day wherever you want them to. You learn at your own pace. And you can access the lessons on your laptop or your phone or your table. It's super easy, very convenient and important because, of course, everybody loves it when you're able to communicate with them in their own language. Are you ready to start learning a new language this spring? Visit rosettastone.com startalktoday to explore Rosetta Stone and choose the language that's right for you. Now, for me, that language was Spanish. One, because you know, I live in this hemisphere and there's a lot of Spanish speaking people. But two, because I secretly am listening mother in law talk about me behind my back and she doesn't even know that I understand what she's saying. All right, I've shared too much. How about you? Go to Rosetta Stone.com startalk today to explore Rosetta Stone and choose your language. Go to Rosetta Stone.com startalk right now and begin your language learning journey today. Quantum paradoxes, information and entropy.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Space dust.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All of that and more on StarTalk special edition cosmic queries with our one and only geek in chief at the helm, Charles Liu. Coming right up. Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk Special Edition. We're doing a cosmic queries grab bag. Normally you see these over on our flagship star talk show, but we've got with us not only, of course, Gary O'Reilly. Gary.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Hey, Neil.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And of course, Chuck. Nice.

[Chuck Nice]

Hey. Hey.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

But the only way this becomes a party is when we bring in our geek in chief, Charles Liu. Charles, how you doing, man?

[Charles Liu]

Hey. Hey. It is a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much as always.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right, All Right. Charles is a professor of astronomy. Is that the department? What's the name of the department, Charles?

[Charles Liu]

Department is physics and astronomy.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Physics and Astronomy.

[Charles Liu]

College of Staten Island.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

College of Staten island of the City University System of New York. Longtime friend. Many people don't know that Charles co wrote the exhibit copy that lives in the Rose center for Earth and Space. He was with us at the birth of the whole facility.

[Charles Liu]

That was so much fun. We had a great time, didn't we, Neil?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It was all good. All good. And Gary, former soccer pro. Yes, dude. And I don't think Charles knows this. You're a new American citizen as of a few days ago.

[Charles Liu]

All right.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Freshly minted.

[Charles Liu]

Welcome to the club, Gary. That's awesome.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Thank you. Thank you. And the three gentlemen here are part of the reason why being a US Citizen for me, is fantastic. So thank you.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, wow. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Now we have to live up to that.

[Gary O'Reilly]

No pressure.

[Charles Liu]

We are honored, sir.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So we're going to, you know, find topics that really only Charles could give us the best answer on. That's what we put in this show. So let's get this party started. All right, who's got the first question?

[Gary O'Reilly]

All right, I'll dive in first. And thank you to all our Patreon members for their questions and their curiosity. If we don't manage to get to your question this time around, apologies. There's only so much time in the universe. Talking of which, let's start Hannah Cantley from Oregon City. And guess where that is. Yes, Oregon. I'm a big supporter and love the show. So here's my question for Dr. Lou. In a universe where gravity, matter, and information all seem to emerge from the same underlying rules and observers like us made of that exact same material, what does physics currently think observers are for? Are creatures like us just accidental byproducts of the laws? Or does the universe actually need observers in order to manifest or realize its own information? Oh, straight in the deep end. Here we go.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

What does it mean for there to be information anywhere if there's no sentient thing to record it as such?

[Charles Liu]

Yeah, right. No, this is actually a deep philosophical question right now. Yeah. In physics and the philosophy of physics, we've.

[Chuck Nice]

If a big bang happens in the multiverse and there's no one there to see it, did it really happen?

[Charles Liu]

Right. It's that kind of situation, Right. Early on in quantum mechanics, right, there were people like Niels Bohr, the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics, which basically said that the universe is in a flux state of sort of unknown states in the quantum level until you observe it. And then the wave function collapses is what they say. And then reality appears. Right. So in that kind of position, it is absolutely necessary for observers to observe something in order for a wave function

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

to collapse just real quick. So it's called Copenhagen because Niels Bohr was. Was Danish. Was Danish a, B. Weren't the conferences there where a lot happened so that people associated these new thoughts with that country, in that city.

[Charles Liu]

That's right. That's right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. So I just want to.

[Charles Liu]

And even to this day. Yeah, Denmark, even to this day is a hugely important part. They have a cosmology center there. Lots of neat science going on.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, okay.

[Charles Liu]

Sorry to interrupt. Yeah. So the question then has since moved on. And clearly, even back then, Niels Bohr wasn't saying that the universe didn't exist if there were no observers. It's just we didn't know what the universe consisted of until it got measured. Right. But that has been taken to sort of its logical conclusion. And by saying that, yes, actually, observers are necessary. And you'll find physicists today that stick to that point if you don't have someone seeing what's there and it's not actually there. I remember also something that you did a long time ago, Neil, about reality in our brains. How the complexity in our neurons and the neural nets and so forth and consciousness and things like that rivals the complexity on the large scale of the universe itself in the galaxies and the stars and things like that. And the numbers that we look at,

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

the total number of connections in the brain, and you look at the total number of stars in the universe, and they all interact with each other gravitationally. And so in our neural circuitry all interacts with all the rest of the neural circuitry. So it may be that the universe is less complex than the human brain.

[Charles Liu]

Interesting possibility there on the large scale. And so if you take that into the next level, before quantum physics was established, there was a philosopher named Rene Descartes, whom you've probably heard of before. He's named, well, the Cartesian plane, the X, y axes that you guys all did in algebra back in the day, right?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

What do you mean, you guys. What do you mean, you guys? Like, you didn't do it, too?

[Charles Liu]

It's true.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay, what makes you think I actually showed up for algebra class? You're assuming facts that are not in evidence, sir.

[Charles Liu]

Well, okay, this guy Descartes basically said that reality is only conveyed to our brains through our senses.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Right?

[Charles Liu]

So each of us actually Lives within a reality that is distinct from every other reality that is visible. So in your brain, Chuck. And in my brain and Neil's brain. Yeah.

[Chuck Nice]

And he. I mean, honestly, that's demonstrable. Now we actually have, you know, psychological experiments that have been conducted to show how we actually do live in our own distinct realities based on our experience and where we are and how. How we are receiving the information of the world itself. And one of those things that is most. I'll say, Stark, is how we remember things.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Yeah.

[Chuck Nice]

Events. We all remember events in a very distinct way.

[Gary O'Reilly]

So go back to the point of observing. So correct me, and you probably will have to. The dual slit Slit. Thank you. The dual slit experiment where particles go through and they look just singular, and then all of a sudden they become waves, but as soon as you observe them, they go back to not wanting to be observed. So they become single again. So how does that sit in with that explanation of observing?

[Charles Liu]

That's actually one of the big questions about that. The Young's two slit experiment, which has now turned into a big part of explaining so called wave particle duality, is one of the manifestations of this. If you're looking at it or trying to measure it with certain kinds of machines or detectors that are detecting waves, you'll find waves. But if you measure it using something that detects particles, you'll find particles and you can switch midstream and get a whole different thing that you expected originally just by how you choose to measure it. And so it's a really amazing confluence between what's going on inside our heads, what's going on outside our heads, how much of it do we share, and how much of it is really, truly only our own? And I wish, Hannah, I had an answer for you, but it is still being discussed. It is not yet confirmed whether or not observers are necessary for the universe to actually have an objective reality.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You know, Charles, your account was so good, I think you should. I think you should write a book on this.

[Charles Liu]

You. You mean. You mean this book? Physics answer book. Wow.

[Chuck Nice]

Wow, Chuck, you wrote that really quick, man. You work fast, brother.

[Charles Liu]

It was there or it wasn't there until I observed it. And all of a sudden, there it was.

[Chuck Nice]

It's amazing.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So, Charles, in that question, there's a direct reference to information. And information feels kind of intangible when you think about it. Because I said in an earlier episode, you know, if I give you two oranges, you have two oranges, but if I give you two newspapers, you don't have twice the information than you would have had on one newspaper. So information is clearly a different thing from what we think of as material reality. So could you give us like a quick primer on what what a physicist means when information isn't is the topic?

[Charles Liu]

Oh, it's kind of hard, but I'll do my best. If you think about information as you're looking at a system with lots and lots of stuff, what is it about the stuff that distinguishes this stuff from other stuff? Okay, in other words, you have a blob of matter in the universe, then you have another blob of matter. What makes this blob different from that blob? It's the information you get from it. Okay. It's not. The form is not, for example, whether it's an atom or whether it's a proton, whether it's a neutron, but rather whether it's spin up or spin down or whether it is this temperature or whether it is that. So it's information in the way that we think about it. Yes, but it also requires you to sort of think about it in systems of stuff. And not just the things themselves, but almost an abstract way of considering material.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So material can have information completely coursing through it. And unlike quantum physics, if no one's there to measure that information, the information is still there, correct?

[Charles Liu]

Yes. It's kind of like a objective thing that's there no matter what. But if you don't measure it, then you don't know what it is. An example might be a bit. You've heard of the term a bit in a computer, right? 16 bit chip or something like that. The bit is the information 1 or 0 or on or off. But it doesn't matter whether the bit is an electronic chip or whether it's a quantum bit or whether it's a pair electron positron or something like that. That information is still the important piece of the input or output that you're getting from that system. Does that make sense? So, yeah, a lot of computation and thinking requires about the information that the physical thing is carrying and not the thing itself.

[Chuck Nice]

T Mobile 5G Home Internet has some big news you should know about. They now have the fastest 5G home Internet, according to the experts at Ookla Speed test. All right, so let's unpack that. It means photo backups happen faster. Streaming a documentary does install halfway through. What's really notable is that the jump in speed doesn't come with added complexity. Setup is simple. Plug it in and you're online in less than 15 minutes. And the value side of the equation holds too, with a plan price that's backed by a five year price guarantee. So if you want the fastest 5G home Internet with a simple setup and savings that stick, get t mobile 5G home Internet. And if you don't want that, wait a minute, why wouldn't you want that? Just visit t-mobile.com homeinternet to check availability today. Price guarantee exclusions like taxes and fees apply. Fastest based on Ookla Speed test intelligence data second half 2025 all rights reserved Picture this. You're doing some online shopping when all of a sudden you see it. That one product you've been looking for. You add it to your cart and as you're filling in your address, you realize you don't have your card anywhere near you. And just when you're about to give up, you see that purple pay button. One tap and you're checked out in seconds. Shopify's Shop Pay button is used by millions of businesses around the world and it's why Shopify has the best converting checkout on the planet. It also helps boost conversions, meaning less carts going abandoned and more sales for you. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e commerce in the US from household names like Heinz and Mattel to brands just getting started. See less carts go abandoned and more sales with Shopify and their Shop Pay Button. Sign up for your $1 per month trial at shopify.com start talk. Go to shopify.com startalk that's shopify.com startalk a thoughtfully built wardrobe comes down to pieces that mix well and last. That's where Quint's shines. Premium fabrics considered design and everyday essentials that feel effortless. Effortless to wear and dependable even as the seasons change. Quince has the everyday essentials you'll love with quality that lasts Lightweight cashmere sweaters, short sleeve Mongolian cashmere polos, linen bottoms and shorts. Did you say short sleeve Mongolian cashmere Polos? Because I don't have one of those and that's going to be my next Quince edition. These are versatile pieces that make a wardrobe actually work season to season. You've heard me talk about all the pieces I own from Quint and you just heard the next piece that I'm about to buy. So you can do the same. I mean, if you want to look good, wear quality clothing that lasts. I mean, if not, what is wrong with you? If not right now, go to quince.com startalk for free shipping and 365 day returns. That's a full year to wear and love it. And you will quite as a skip, I've never returned one thing I've ever bought. Now available in Canada too. Don't keep settling. For clothes that don't last. Go to Q U I n c e.com startalk for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com startalk

[Charles Liu]

this is Ken the Nerd

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Neck Zabera from Michigan, and I support StarTalk on Patreon.

[Charles Liu]

This is StarTalk Radio with Neil Degrasse Tyson.

[Chuck Nice]

If you change the chemistry of something, you haven't lost any information because the information has changed, but yet the thing itself is no longer the thing. For instance, you've set wood on fire, okay? You end up with the charred remains and smoke and flames. The smoke is part of that information, but it's something else now. The flames are part of that information, but there's something else now. You know, they're the release of energy and heat, and then what's left over is what's left over that is no longer a piece of wood. So even though you didn't lose any information, the thing is no longer the thing. So what is, what is the importance of, of the information then?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, So I. Chuck, Chuck, I think you just stepped on the big toe of entropy.

[Charles Liu]

Ah.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay.

[Charles Liu]

Entropy and information are closely linked, and

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

you just stepped on its toe because a log has much less entropy than a burned log. Right, okay. And, and, and so, Charles, can you walk us through that?

[Charles Liu]

I sort of can walk us through, but it's, it's long and complicated. Right, but you, you hit your nail. Information has a lot to do with something. Okay, Gary, let's say you flip a coin.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Yes?

[Charles Liu]

Okay. And it can be head or tail, Right? Now what happens if you flip 10 coins? What are the possible combinations of heads or tails?

[Gary O'Reilly]

Well, one would imagine 50, 50 if you toss them enough times.

[Charles Liu]

That's right. Over if. What if you tossed 100 or a thousand or a million coins, almost certainly you would wind up with 50% heads and 50% tails. But there are actually a lot of different combinations. In fact, if you flip 10 coins, there are 1024 possible combinations. Coin 1 is head, coin 2 is tail, coin 3 is head, coin 4 is tail, coin 5 is head, etc. Etc. Etc. But the number of heads and number of tails at the end of your flipping, there are many fewer than 1024. There's only 11 right 0 and 10, 1 and 9, 2 and 8, et cetera. Right? So out of the 1024 flips that you can do, there's only 11 actual results that come up with the numbers of heads and tails. All of that extra stuff, the other 10, 13 rolls are rolled into the entropy of that 10 coin flip. In other words, that stuff is the hidden information that will allow you to sort of come up with how often you're going to get 5 and 5, how often you're going to get 4 and 6 and so on and so on. So entropy is hiding in there. The information you get off the top is hidden by that stuff inside. And then right now, what people are doing with quantum computing is really trying to figure out the kinds of entropy, the kinds of disorder that can hide in your systems when you're actually just looking at the top of the system, finding out how many heads and how many tails there are.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, is it my turn?

[Gary O'Reilly]

Yes.

[Charles Liu]

Did I do it right? Please correct me if I'm wrong.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No, no, no. You said it. What you said is just fine. I just want to make it clear that Chuck was saying something different. And I have to point that out. Okay, if you roll 10 coins and there's some chance that two will be heads and eight will be tails, okay, that is not the total probabilities that Charles is talking about. Charles is talking about these particular two coins giving you heads and those particular eight coins giving you tails. And if each coin is specific in that enumeration, then you get to the 1024. But if it's just two heads and eight tails, and you don't care which two coins are giving you the two tails, that's a different question asked of the 10 coins or of the hundred coins, whatever it is, is all I'm saying there.

[Charles Liu]

Yes, Neil is precisely correct. And so the stuff that's hidden, that information underneath, that actual specific coin flips, and then the actual result information that you want, how many heads, how many tails, that difference could be said to be the entropy of the system that you don't see when you're getting the information out of the flips.

[Gary O'Reilly]

So it depends how close you wish to look as to regards which data you get back.

[Charles Liu]

Yes, absolutely. This happens when we boil water, for example, when you're trying to turn water from liquid to gas on your stove. What happens is that it stops at 100 degrees Celsius, right? A standard temperature, boiling temperature, for a period of time, and then the steam that comes off is still 100 degrees Celsius. But it has so much more entropy, is so many more possible states of the individual atoms moving around compared with the liquid versions. It's not a matter of how far apart they are. It's a matter of how much freedom

[Chuck Nice]

they have moving inside of it.

[Charles Liu]

That's right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right.

[Charles Liu]

And so in order to compensate for that, you have to heat the water up extra. You don't change the temperature, but you're changing the amount of energy inside because of the entropy increase that you have to put in in order to turn it into gas.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

In other words, the flame that was raising the water temperature gets the water to 100 degrees and it stops raising the temperature. Where does that heat go?

[Chuck Nice]

Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Where does that heat. It's going somewhere.

[Chuck Nice]

Into the transformation.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Into the transformation. Yeah. There you go.

[Chuck Nice]

Right, right, right.

[Charles Liu]

Excellent.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right, let's keep going.

[Chuck Nice]

All right. Yeah, that was.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Keep that coming.

[Chuck Nice]

It's freaking good stuff. That's good stuff. Yeah. All right. This is Andrew Martin.

[Charles Liu]

Hello.

[Chuck Nice]

Doctors Tyson and Lou and the Right honorable Lord. Nice. Well, thanks, buddy. I'm right. That's the first time I've ever been right and honorable.

[Gary O'Reilly]

He says.

[Chuck Nice]

I'm Andrew from Stamford. Stafford.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Yes.

[Chuck Nice]

In the English Midlands.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Well, we don't know what that means. We don't know. We don't know what that means.

[Gary O'Reilly]

It's a town in the. The West Midlands of England. Very pretty.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, dear. Yes. So good. So good of you. Chime in from the staff in the Midlands.

[Gary O'Reilly]

The shires. I say it's the shires,

[Chuck Nice]

indeed. I believe that's somewhere near.

[Charles Liu]

They make good whiskey there, no? Oh, well, they may.

[Gary O'Reilly]

They may do. But it's not known for whiskey.

[Charles Liu]

No. Right.

[Chuck Nice]

Is it anywhere near Downton Abbey? Because.

[Charles Liu]

Okay, guys. All right.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay. Here we go.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Here we go.

[Chuck Nice]

He says. Anyway, I understand that a star's color is determined by its age and composition. I also know that its velocity relative to our collective selves can redshift its light. How do you resolve between the two? In other words, how do you know a star is made of something and traveling at a certain velocity isn't really made of something else and traveling at a different velocity?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Man, people think that. People think deep about the Superb question.

[Charles Liu]

And in fact, I will say that that is actually a problem for astronomers. Sometimes we don't know whether or not the object's colors are caused by or the redshift of emotion, as opposed to the redshift of the expansion of the universe, or the colors intrinsic to the objects themselves. The answer to this quandary is spectroscopy. It Is a technique where we divide the colors into component colors. So instead of just seeing red, you see very red and an orangish red. Orangish, Orangish red. Orangish, orangeish, orangish red, and so on and so on and so on until

[Chuck Nice]

you finally get to the most orange of all.

[Charles Liu]

Okay, yes, until you get to that orange. But what happens is that by dividing all these colors up into little bits, the components of that reddishness that you see from a star are broken up into emission lines, absorption lines, and continuum radiation. And the patterns of those different lines and continuum are preserved regardless of whether or not you redshift due to velocity or not. So if something looks red, which you thought was blue, you measure the object using spectroscopy, and you take a look to see if the patterns, absorption and emission lines have been preserved in the red part of the spectrum when you thought it should be in the blue. If they're preserved, then we know it was because of redshift. If they're not preserved, then we think, oh, there's something physical going on in the star that made that color change.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You know what else happens? A star can sit behind an absorptive gas cloud, a cloud with dust in it, and it could shift a white star, the color that you'd see for a white star, into a regime that makes it look red. Big challenge for us. Do we really know what's in our sight line that could be messing with the star itself?

[Chuck Nice]

So what you're saying is you're looking through this dust cloud at the star, but basically you don't know it. It's like a little screen.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You try to understand the dust cloud, and sometimes you forget that they're there. And Charles, wasn't there a huge discovery made about the big bang. But because they didn't correct for the reddening in our own galaxy of the cosmic microwave background, there was some paper that had to be retracted because they not retract. You don't retract it. Not because it was fraudulent. It was just they had to say we messed up.

[Chuck Nice]

They were wrong.

[Charles Liu]

Yes, that's right. Yes. Because the cosmic microwave background, as it currently exists today, produces the same wavelength of microwave radiation as dust of a certain composition at a certain temperature. And so that dust turns out to envelop our Milky Way galaxy at different thicknesses or different densities, depending on which direction you look. And so if you were unable to get that signal cleared away from the cosmic microwave background, that interference will completely mess up your interpretation.

[Chuck Nice]

I was going to say it's like the tear function on a. On a. On a scale.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yes.

[Chuck Nice]

You know what I'm saying?

[Charles Liu]

Excellent point. That's what it is.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Very good, yes.

[Charles Liu]

So. So being able to see that, how do we a.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Make it go away? And if it's not possible, how do we navigate through this sort of natural filter that's there?

[Charles Liu]

Neil, do you want to tell them about extinction curves or do you want me to do it?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No, we got you on here. You the geek in chief. All right, I'm just the geek deputy.

[Charles Liu]

It's a great question, Gary, and it's actually pretty complicated, but I'll try to make it as simple as possible. Essentially, the effect of dust in making things look dimmer and redder is known in astronomy as extinction. Okay? Not the kind where, like, dinosaurs go away because they're hit by an Earth is hit by an asteroid, right? But the kind of extinction that says that your light has been extincted or extinguished because of this dust. What you have to do is a. Actually understand what dust does. And so there's a whole branch of astrophysics that is done in a laboratory where you make dust that might approximate what interstellar dust looks like is made of, what shape things like that. And then you shine light through it, and then you see what that dust does to the light that you might expect coming from a star or something like that. And then the second thing you do, you have to measure where dust is throughout your lines of sight from Earth out into deep space. See how much dust and what kind is in that line of sight. And everything you see in that direction has to be corrected for this extinction. And so there's something called an extinction curve, okay? And every kind of dust has a different extinction curve. So you look in a direction. Say I look at a galaxy that's in that direction, far away. I first have to ask, okay, what does the galaxy's light look like from my telescope? And the second thing is I have to ask somebody who did measurements of extinction, say, hey, what is the dust capacity? What is the dust density and the dust variety in this line of sight? And then that person will say, oh, that line of sight was measured to have this much extinction and these kinds of gases and dusts. And then you go, okay. And then you make a correction to make your galaxy light what it would have looked like had the dust not been there.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, my God.

[Charles Liu]

It's a complicated stuff.

[Chuck Nice]

That's insane.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So the universe is not just sitting there waiting to be discovered. We have to figure this stuff out.

[Chuck Nice]

That just sounds Awful.

[Charles Liu]

Although it sounds awful in one way. Yes. It makes our ability to understand those distant galaxies that much tougher. It's also a blessing in disguise because it allows us to understand dust in the universe. If we want to know what we humans are created out of, literally stardust, stuff that came off of stars, cooked in the hearts of stars, and then split, spewed out into the universe in the Milky Way galaxy. So if we want to know where we came from as human beings or as life forms or even as planets. Right. We need to understand that dust. So the combination of being forced to be able to compensate for that dust and to be able to know what's behind that dust has given us the opportunity to study the dust itself, which I think is pretty awesome.

[Chuck Nice]

That is pretty awesome. But I will also say when you were talking about the discovery of the. That the paper had to be retracted. At first I was just like, God, God, man, you know, these guys really screwed up. Now I'm like, yeah, I'm on their side. Like, you know, basically, I'm surprised anybody's able to find anything. That's right. Like basically every, every other week a paper should come back. My bad. It was dust. It was dust, guys.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So there's another feature of that. There are, I would call them ambulance chasing theorists who saw these results, saw these results and said, I can explain that with a new model of the Big Bang. And that there were people who published papers on these false results.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So yeah, so that's an important reality check on the front, the moving frontier.

[Charles Liu]

But that's what we do in science.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Charles, this sounds like an awful lot of man hours to log chart and then tabulate all of this information. Surely this is perfect for AI.

[Charles Liu]

Yes. People spent entire careers doing these kinds of maps. I'm sure, Neil, you'll remember Schlegel did a lot of this. Bruce Drain did a lot of this. Some of the giants of our field are remembered for their legacy of making these maps happen. The problem with using an AI to try to make those maps is that you have to have the AI interpretation. Just as the question was saying, how do you tell the difference between what dust is causing and what the light is causing from behind it? AI isn't sophisticated enough to tell that difference yet. It just sort of chooses the best option and sticks it in. So there's that human need to be able to disentangle these two effects, which something like a large language model is still not quite able to do. So AI eventually will be extremely helpful in refining maps. That we had found a long time ago and used optimal methods to figure out what they were. But they won't be able to make maps on their own because they don't have the decision making capability yet that distinguish between the different things that are causing what we think dust might be causing. Okay, well, at least that's my opinion.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And you're sticking to it.

[Charles Liu]

Okay, for now.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right, bring on, bring on another.

[Gary O'Reilly]

We ready for the next one?

[Charles Liu]

Okay.

[Gary O'Reilly]

April Walsh. Hello, Sir Neil, Lord Chuck and Sir Charles. I'm April Walsh. It's yes, and you're right, April. This is an easy one to pronounce. My 16 year old son and I are obsessed with style talk. Well done. We absolutely love it and thank you for making it great. My question is, when all of the matter. Here we go again. Dust, gas, etc. In the universe was condensed into something smaller than a pinhead at the Big Bang, how did that not immediately create a black hole?

[Chuck Nice]

Ooh, interesting.

[Charles Liu]

Wonderful question, wonderful question.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Get out of that one, Charles.

[Charles Liu]

It turns out that we don't have to get out of that one because the universe got out of that one for us. When the universe was the pinhole sized, it actually wasn't that massive. We think of the Big Bang or think about the Big Bang as rolling back the history of the universe and making it smaller and smaller and smaller. But at the moment of the Big Bang, the mass of the universe was, well, at 10 to the minus 43 second after the big Bang, what we'll call that Planck time, the mass of the universe was less than a glass of water. And it's actually not enough to have turned it into a black hole at that time. Something further happened to inject the universe with so much energy that, that inflation happened that you probably have heard of, where at the nearly the beginning universe, you wind up inflating the universe beyond its regular expansion rate by factors of many, many trillions. And then you wind up with all this extra energy in there which then condenses into matter and becomes the galaxies and stars and planets and black holes that we have today. So there was a period of time early on where black holes didn't even do.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

But where'd that energy come from?

[Charles Liu]

Where that energy come from is still a hundred percent unclear. I don't know, but there are some

[Chuck Nice]

guesses we know where it came from. Came from Jesus.

[Charles Liu]

Came from Jesus. Well, that's part of the problem, right? A lot of people do in fact have a problem with that Big Bang cosmology at that early time. Because there seems to be no way for us to explain that injection of energy any way other than some sort of divine supernatural activity. But if we were to do that, then we'd just be like, oh, okay, we've given up on science. We're not going to try to figure out how it actually works. Let's just go home and have a drink and forget about. So we refuse to sort of give up and just say, oh, it was something that we'll never be able to understand. It was some divinity or it was some supernatural thing. So if we try to think about nature, then the way you can actually inject energy has to do with something called spontaneous symmetry breaking. Neil, have you told our distinguished Patreons about the fundamental forces in the universe?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Assume no. Assume no.

[Charles Liu]

Yeah, yeah. Okay, Assuming no. Currently, we think that the universe has four forces in it that sort of determine all of the transfer of energy and material and so forth. Around the Universe, there's something called the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, the electromagnetic force, and gravity. Okay, now, gravity is its own strange beast, because there is a hypothesis that gravity as a force actually has more to do with the structure of space time than the transfer of little particles back and forth. But electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force, and the weak nuclear force are now separate forces. They have different mathematical explanations, and they behave differently depending on where they are and what size and scales and so forth are around. It makes sense to hypothesize that right around the time of the Big Bang, there were not four forces, but there was only one. And something happened at the quantum level to break forces off from one another. And that break is called a spontaneous symmetry break. Okay, so when I was saying spontaneous symmetry breaking, you can imagine something breaking. And from the inside of that break that used to be symmetric, this one beautiful force that followed all of its Math now is 2, or now is 3, or now is 4. And the resulting chaos, it's almost like unleashing to some extent that entropy we were talking about when trying to boil water. But now we're unleashing just straight up energy in such huge densities and such huge amounts that it will propel the universe to grow at such a rate and such a speed that we pass the black hole thresholds, and then you have to start all over again and turn that energy into matter and then make black holes thousands or even millions of years later.

[Chuck Nice]

Wow, that's pretty wild. Okay, so how do you feel about. We didn't have her on the show, but we were supposed To, I believe her name is Sabine Hoffen something. She's. It is. I mean, I don't know, but you guys know who I'm talking about. Hasen Felder. Now, she says that anything, anyone who tries to surmise what happened at the Big Bang is only telling a story because we don't have, and we never will have, data that will allow us to make a conclusion. How do you feel about that?

[Charles Liu]

Well, that's a great philosophical point of view. I would answer. All of physics, all of astronomy is trying to tell a story, right? The hypotheses of every explanation as to why something happens in our universe is a story. The difference between a story that is non scientific and a story that is scientific is that the scientific story seeks to find ways to confirm or refute that story. And so we're always pushing in that direction. If you could tell a story that can be falsified, that can be shown to be untrue based on observations or experiments or something like that, then you are trying to do science. We have forever thought that, oh, we would never be able to see like the origins of our Earth, and yet here we are able to understand planets because we kept asking questions and finding ways to look further and further back in history. We used to think we could never understand how our solar system was formed. It must have been supernatural, must have been divine. But no, now we know because we looked and we found ways to find a hypothesis that we could test. Now we're going further and further back. How can we find the formation of galaxies? How can we find the birth of black holes? And now to the point of the Big Bang itself. The recent results from the DESI Group Dark Energy Survey Group are remarkable. They are looking at echoes of the imprints of, of matter and energy in the large scale structure of our current universe that were put in there very, very close to the Big Bang before even the cosmic microwave background was established. We're talking about like ripples in a pond that have been imprinted in the galaxy distributions of our universe for the past 13 and almost 14 billion years. And we're seeing that imprint, which itself is long past the beginning of the universe. But maybe that's fossilized information that could tell us about things like the Big Bang, which we just can't see anymore.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Damn.

[Charles Liu]

So it's a philosophical point. That's what science is so cool about.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And you have to watch out to presume that just because we have ideas about something that it'll never be tested. There was one of the more boneheaded predictions made by a philosopher. 19th century was. I love this. I'm paraphrasing. I love this field astronomy. We can know where the stars are, we can know what colors they are, but we will never know what they're made of. That is forever beyond our reach. And he's presuming to know what something's made of. You have to go there and got there.

[Chuck Nice]

Right. And take lab.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

This is like 10 minutes before spectra as applied to astronomy was invented. And with spectra, as Charles said earlier, you can find out what the. What are the chemical components of stars. As one of the great triumphs of 19th and 20th century modern astrophysics. But the fact that we didn't know and someone got clever and figured out how to know. We are never stopped on the frontier. Just because we don't know how to do something yet, that we'd still be in the caves. If that's how we function as scientists.

[Charles Liu]

Yeah. And that's why I always tell everybody that the questions are more important than the answers, because we can't get all the answers now. But if we ask the right questions, someday we will be able to answer them.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The German poet Rainer Maria Rilke in his book Letters to a Young Poet. I hope I don't mangle this too badly. One of the poems ends, be patient with all that stirs within your heart. Learn to love the questions that themselves.

[Chuck Nice]

See, that's what I tell my wife when she's like, where. Where were you last night? I'm like, sweetie, you need to learn to love your questions. The answers are not really the whole issue here.

[Gary O'Reilly]

How'd that work for you?

[Charles Liu]

Not probably what you're saying, but, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Gary O'Reilly]

So what. What we're dealing with here is known unknowns rather than known unknowables. So to try and get ourselves into the position where we do know different thinking again, because we've used our own thinking that we brought historically. So, I mean, it's not quite the change of angle of approach, but a different way of thinking about the same conundrum. Subject.

[Charles Liu]

Yes.

[Gary O'Reilly]

How do we go about altering our thinking as to provide us with an answer for this?

[Charles Liu]

Well, the history of science is not linear, nor is it continuous. Right. What we found over the centuries is that people ask a question and they can't answer it. And then you wait sometimes a really long time, and then somebody just goes, hey, how about this? And then someone goes, wow, that's neat. Most people go, whoa, that's crazy. We can't ever figure that out. And then somebody else says, you know what? We probably could. I'm thinking, of course, of general relativity, right? You know that famous story, people are trying to figure out gravity forever and how the speed, how light travels through the universe. And then over about a 15 year period, Albert Einstein first devises the special theory relativity, and then the general theory of relativity. And people like, oh, space bends and curves. That's very interesting, Albert, but how are we ever going to figure that out? And a guy named Arthur Eddington says, I know how we can figure this out, and organizes an expedition to see a total solar eclipse and take photographs. And sure enough, he was able to measure with his colleagues that very amount of curvature in space time that Einstein had predicted. And so people had been thinking about gravity ever since Newton's time. And then within that short 10, 15 year period, boom, we figured it out. But then we had to wait another long period of time to the next thing.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And the next thing, just to clarify, the eclipse itself is not what Eddington looked at. He needed the eclipse to darken the sky to see starlight from far away in the universe, its path moving to the side of the Sun. The sun is the most massive thing we have available to us. So if gravity's gonna distort the fabric of space and time, the sun is our best chance at this. So he waits for his cluster.

[Charles Liu]

Perfectly, said Neil.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, and then the starlight comes across very near the edge of the sun. He measures where it is on a very with great accuracy, then waits six months till the sun is on the other side of the sky, goes back to that same area and measures where the stars are on his frame. And they had all moved in the presence of the sun, having their path lengths go by the limb of the sun relative to six months ago. So that whole project took six months to confirm. And there was an eclipse in 1918 that he really wanted to use, but the world was still at war, of course, and so that was a lost opportunity. It was delayed until 2019. Sorry, delayed until 1919. 1919.

[Charles Liu]

Right now you're completely right, Neil, in what you've said. The key there, Gary, to sort of circle back to your point wasn't the eclipse, but it was to use the eclipse as a way to measure the curvature of space and time and thus the motions that are different.

[Gary O'Reilly]

And then going back in six months, you've got a constant because the stars will be the constant and you're working. Yeah, I get. That's fine. Thank you for that explanation.

[Chuck Nice]

So when he looked at the Light from behind the sun. Then the movement was meant that the light had to bend in order for him to see it the way he saw it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Correct.

[Chuck Nice]

Gotcha.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's it.

[Chuck Nice]

And the only thing that could have done that would have been the actual mass of the sun, because the sun is so massive.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And the way to affirm that is wait six months. Now the sun is on the other side of the sun. Go back.

[Chuck Nice]

Well, that is, first of all, Jesus Christ.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Those are smart people. These are smart people.

[Chuck Nice]

I mean, here's what. But it's so simple. But it's so brilliant. I feel so dumb. Why was I born so dumb?

[Charles Liu]

No, Chuck, I feel like that all the time. It really is amazing how smart all of our predecessors have been. Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And we live in a time where people say, I'm just scientists. What does scientists know? I'm gonna look at my YouTube video and I'll figure it out. You know, what do you think we do? That's all we do, is try to figure stuff out.

[Gary O'Reilly]

So, Charles, that information was always there. It didn't just appear because Eddington showed up with some calipers and measuring stuff. So it's looking at things and thinking, what information is here that we are not thinking or seeing or identifying?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Gary, One of the prevailing and persistent definitions of genius is the genius is the person who sees what everyone else sees, but thinks the way no one else has thought.

[Chuck Nice]

Wow.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Yeah.

[Chuck Nice]

Ooh, that's pretty cool.

[Charles Liu]

Eloquent.

[Gary O'Reilly]

It's not just looking, it's seeing.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, I'm not a look see guy. You know, to me, they're the same thing, but that's fine.

[Charles Liu]

Oh, no, you.

[Gary O'Reilly]

You can look at things, but you won't see what is really there.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No, no, but that's like saying, you heard me, but were you listening to me? You know, I mean, I'm not a herd. Listen. See, I'm not that guy.

[Gary O'Reilly]

All right?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Don't come to me for that.

[Gary O'Reilly]

No, I'm not. I'm just, you know, as this discussion opens up, it makes me think, is the information we need there? We just don't quite know how to extract it right now?

[Charles Liu]

In many cases, yes. One of my colleagues right now is doing an amazing kind of theoretical work about quantum information. When you're trying to send information through, say, fiber optics or something like that, you lose information because there's noise in the system. But this guy is like saying, you know what? I can take that noise and learn, find information in there that we thought was lost and thus make my quantum communications that Much better. And it's, it's amazing. It's like thinking about dust in the solar system and the galaxy blocking our view of things we want to see, but then turning around and saying, you know what? That dust itself has information. I wonder what we can learn from that. It's that kind of thing that happens on every scale.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We're not talking about acoustic noise, we're talking about light noise. We have a light signal going through fiber optics. And so noise is in a. Physics is a general term for interference of a signal that would interfere with that. Your target signal. It's not just acoustic, it can be an interference.

[Charles Liu]

Background, statics, all that stuff. Imagine if you could figure out stuff from that. You know, that just changes your whole dynamic of what you're trying to be able to transfer.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The original discovery of the cosmic microwave background using horn in New Jersey. They said, you know, they were working for AT&T, Bell Labs and AT&T said, let's find out what the noise is in the background so that when we send signals through the air, we will be able to understand that noise and possibly correct for it. Okay, so they open up their antennas and they look in every direction and there was this residual noise everywhere they looked. And they said, okay, we're gonna have to report this, but wait a minute, let's look inside the antenna. They looked inside the antenna. There was pigeon dung in the antenna. It's reported as a dielectric substance in the original research paper, which actually can be responsible for a noise level. So they cleaned out the pigeon poop in this antenna.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Good job.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And then they looked back and it dropped the noise level, but it didn't take it to zero. And so they reported excess noise every direction in the universe. And that was the cosmic microwave background. Nobel Prize winning discovery after they removed the pigeon poop.

[Chuck Nice]

Now, first of all, the pigeon should have got the Nobel Prize.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Goodness sake, should have got an assist.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay, an assist

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

brought the pigeon to Stockholm.

[Charles Liu]

Great. Here is the dielectric substance that helped us find the cosmic microwave background.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Foreign.

[Chuck Nice]

5G Home Internet has some big news you should know about. They now have the fastest 5G home Internet according to the experts at Ookla Speed Test. All right, so let's unpack that. It means photo backups happen faster. Streaming a documentary does install halfway through. What's really notable is that the jump in speed doesn't come with added complexity. Setup is simple. Plug it in and you're online in less than 15 minutes. And the value side of the equation holds too. With a plan price that's backed by a five year price guarantee. So if you want the fastest 5G home Internet with a simple setup and savings that stick, get t mobile 5G home Internet. And if you don't want that, wait a minute, why wouldn't you want that? Just visit t-mobile.com homeinternet to check availability today. Price guarantee exclusions like taxes and fees apply. Fastest based on Ookla Speed test intelligence data second half 2025. All rights reserved.

[Gary O'Reilly]

This podcast is brought to you by Hotels.com make your next trip work for you. Hotel.com's new save your Way feature lets you choose between instant savings now or banking rewards for later. It's a flexible rewards program that puts you in control with no confusing math or blackout dates. Book now at hotels.com Save youe Way is available to loyalty members in the US and UK on hotels with member prices. Other terms apply. See site for details. This episode is brought to you by Progressive, where drivers who save by switching save nearly $750 on average. Plus auto customers qualify for an average of 7 discounts. Quote [e-mail] to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates national average 12 month savings of $744 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, let's see if we fit in some more questions here.

[Chuck Nice]

All right, you're up next.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We're very luxurious with our answers. I think we can like.

[Chuck Nice]

This is Carrie MANENBERG. This is Dr. Tyson, Dr. Lu, Chuck, Carrie from Kalamazoo here. With observatories like Webb and Vera Rubin already pushing the limits of what's technologically possible, what scientific and engineering breakthroughs do you think the next generation of telescopes will demand? And what new discoveries might those future inventions unlock?

[Charles Liu]

That's not gonna be a quick answer. Can we just pick like one thing?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Go pick one. I'll pick one and we'll call that Pick one Breakthrough.

[Chuck Nice]

I mean.

[Charles Liu]

All right, yeah, but that's a tremendous question. Wonderful. Okay. The one breakthrough I think is going to be amazing is the ability to fly spaceships in formation. When you fly spacecraft that are basically going in lockstep with one another, not deviating by even a millimeter over thousands or millions of miles of travel, then you can use something called laser interferometry and shine and position the light and the detectors in such a way that we can find gravitational waves from space at a level that's hundreds or thousands of times greater than we can on the ground.

[Chuck Nice]

So you're saying that these spaceships become an array, Is that what you're talking about?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yes.

[Charles Liu]

Okay, that's exactly what I'm talking about. And so that technological development is just the one that I'm going to mention this time around. But that will change the number of detections we have of gravitational wave events colliding black holes, usually by a factor of 100 or even a thousand. And that's going to be able to let us map the universe like a well struck gong. I think it's just amazing. Wow.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Wow, that's good. And I'm looking forward to more telescopes that operate that are sensitive to things other than light because we've got the whole spectrum mapped out. All right, we've got and, and gravitational waves is another version of telescopes that operate outside of light. It's using gravitational waves, but they're. I'm looking for neutrino telescopes. There might be some other particles, dark matter telescopes, things that will see the universe in whole. Not just different windows, but whole other buildings in another windows in another building. For what is otherwise is going up on out there in the universe. And this could be a new frontier. Opens up much the same way when we discover there's more than just visible light coming to us in the universe. Let's build a telescope to see in it. Oh my gosh. All right. Our eyes were so feeble compared to what the universe is trying to tell us. And right now we got the whole light spectrum figured out. It's time for new frontiers in cosmic discovery.

[Charles Liu]

In NASA speak, we call that multi messenger astronomy. Oh. Where the messenger is not just light waves or electromagnetic radiation of any kind.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Didn't know they had a term for that.

[Charles Liu]

Particles and exotic things. Yeah, yeah. Multi messenger astronomy watch.

[Chuck Nice]

Very cool.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, and by the way, Galileo's famous book from 1609 where he reported on his telescope observations of the universe, something no one had done before. The title of that book is Sidereus Nuncius translated from the Latin starry messenger. The stars were the messengers. Okay, all right, go for it.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Next one. Right?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We did that in like four minutes.

[Gary O'Reilly]

I know. Okay, right.

[Charles Liu]

Yogesh Jog.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Hello Dr. Tyson Lu and Lord Nice Yogesh from India. The Handy Quantum Physics Answer Book actually created a lot of questions in my mind than it answered.

[Charles Liu]

Oh, wait, wait, which book now again, which book did this guest ask about?

[Gary O'Reilly]

I'll say it's slower. The Handy Quantum Physics Answer Book. And what's handy about it.

[Charles Liu]

Oh, you mean, you mean this handy quantum physics answer? That one, everybody. I, I'm sorry, that was a pretty self serving. But I'm really proud of the book. It really is a great opportunity.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So are we proud of the book for you.

[Gary O'Reilly]

And we are proud of you.

[Charles Liu]

Oh, so, so kind. Thank you. Here we go. Okay, please continue, please continue.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Does the Scharn Horst effects imply that the universal speed limit is an environmental variable rather than a fundamental constant? If so, could an advanced civilization pump the vacuum to create local bubbles of infinite causality? And would this effectively turn the universe into a lossless energy distribution network? Answer's all yours.

[Charles Liu]

Amazing.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Charles, you take this one.

[Charles Liu]

Charles, you take this. Amazing. I haven't heard about the Scharnhorst effect being asked in a very long time. A scientist named Scharnhorst, I think it was around 1990 or so, hypothesized that if you took two perfectly smooth metal plates and brought them within a millimeter or a millionth of a millimeter within one another, you would create a zones because of the quantum fluctuations of the universe where the index of refraction was less than 1. What it means, practically means, is that in those tiny zones that are only a fraction of an inch across, the speed of light could actually exceed the speed of light in vacuum. This would be a hypothetical. There's been no way to be able to test it. And the effect is tiny. All right, so it would be 1,000,000,000,000 of a trillionth of a trillionth of a percent faster than the speed of light in vacuum across this zone, which was less than a millionth of an inch across. So it's this really neat effect that if we could test, would be neat to find. Unfortunately, we cannot create, at least as far as we know, if the Scharnhorst effect is true. These kinds of pumped spaces that our questioner is asking, because the causality and the speed of light and the stuff like that at those micro levels cannot translate into a macro level thing like being able to draw energy from nothing. Okay, now that said, and I'll just stop with the technical mumbo jumbo in one sentence, the concept of zero point energy, which is what the Scharnhorst effect is talking about, is still highly uncertain. We would love to find out more about it and maybe someday we could in fact tap it to get something cool out of it for our use.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Charles, is this related at all to the Casimir effect where you have two parallel plates with an evacuated space in between? But this has taken it up Another level.

[Charles Liu]

Is that correct? That's exactly.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We have a cosmological phenomenon inside.

[Charles Liu]

That's right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Quantum cosmological phenomenon. Rather than just a sort of a. A laboratory thing. I mean, is that.

[Charles Liu]

Yes, that's right. The Casimir effect is exactly what we're talking about here. Casimir, everyone, in case you don't know. C a S I M I r. That sounds right. The scientist, Dr. Casimiro, hypothesized it exists, and it was in fact measured to exist, that if you bring two plates of metal really, really close together, you actually wind up with energy. That sort of magically, but not magically, scientifically, because of quantum physics, appears when you didn't think there was anything there. Right. And so this is taking it to the next level. The Scharnhorst effect would be like.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And the two plates are attracted to each other by forces that are not gravity or electromagnetic. They're quantum.

[Charles Liu]

That's right.

[Chuck Nice]

Quantum attraction.

[Charles Liu]

Quantum.

[Chuck Nice]

That's insane. I love it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah.

[Charles Liu]

All right, next one.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Let's get one more in here.

[Charles Liu]

Great question.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Chuck or Gary?

[Chuck Nice]

All right, here we go. This is Nirav Shah who says. Hello, astro gentleman Nirav Shah from Arizona. My question is, can you point me towards some resources where I can learn more about the universe, theoretically and practically? As an ardent receiver of Starlight knowledge from StarTalk, I often paint an incoherent picture of the universe. I want to learn more so I can ask better questions. Well, I. I got. I got a book for you, man. It's. It's called the Quantum Hit the handy.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No, it sounds like. Okay, it sounds like he's not in a hurry. So my book, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, that's not for him because he sounds like he's got time on his hands. Charles, how many pages is your book?

[Charles Liu]

Geez, I don't know. Let's see.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It looked pretty fast.

[Charles Liu]

I'm looking at everybody, just so you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like 458 pages.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

[Gary O'Reilly]

That's a commitment.

[Charles Liu]

Yeah, that's a commitment.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. But not really, because you gotta understand. Chuck's book is broken up so that it's almost like a resource. You don't have to read it straight through.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah.

[Chuck Nice]

You know, you can read about the scientists of quantum physics in certain parts. You can read, like, from the beginning, which is very good. The very beginning of the book is great for just like, what is a particle? What is quantum? What? Like, so, you know, even though it's like almost 500 pages don't look at it like it's 500 pages. You know, it's.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's.

[Chuck Nice]

It's broken up in ways that you can digest it in chunks. So it's really.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Resource is a good word for it.

[Chuck Nice]

It's a resource.

[Charles Liu]

Yeah, you're very kind to say that. Yeah. And your description is exactly right, Chuck. I wrote that book specifically to say, hey, you could take it in whatever size pieces you want and whatever level you want to go at it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Chuck was not being kind. He was being factual.

[Charles Liu]

Don't confuse the two now. Thank you.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

If your books suck and he said you wrote a nice book, then he's being kind.

[Charles Liu]

You're very kind. Thank you very much. Now, I would say if you want to go deeper into the mathematics, right, because the handy quantum physics answer book and many of the other books about these topics are usually talking about deep concepts and ideas. But those ideas arose from the mathematical and the scientific depths of really trying to wrestle with the equations that described how the universe works, or the calculations or the measurements that would give us a clue about how the universe works. So if you want, I'll just mention this. There is a group called OpenStax S T A X. And it is free for anyone who wishes. It's basically a set of textbooks. These are textbooks that are legitimately for people who want to learn or to major in something or to do. But it's free on the Internet. And I encourage anybody who wants to look at some of those things to see, like, get a little taste of what an actual textbook looks like and see if you want to go deeper into it. See if you want to drink deeply of that stygian spring or if you would rather just have a little knowledge, which, of course, as Alexander Pope says, is a dangerous thing.

[Chuck Nice]

And always remember, a mind is a terrible thing that it

[Charles Liu]

to waste or otherwise.

[Chuck Nice]

That's right. That's the bad part. Sorry.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, sorry.

[Charles Liu]

Yeah, there's a lot of good stuff now. I encourage everyone to take a look.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I think that's all the time we have. Well, geek in chief, we love you, but our fans love you even more.

[Charles Liu]

I am very, very happy to be with you guys. Always. Gary, Chuck, Neil, thank you. It's so much fun for me and I really, really appreciate it.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Glad you do, Chuck.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Good to have you, man.

[Chuck Nice]

Always a pleasure.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right, Gary.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Thank you, Neil.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And thank you, Charles StarTalk Special Edition Cosmic queries. And it's been a geek in chief grab bag. All right, guys, good to have you. Neil DeGrasse Tyson as always, bidding you to keep looking up.

[Charles Liu]

I need to start off the New year right by getting the most for my money.

[Chuck Nice]

I just opened a Goto bank account and it's paying off out the gate.

[Charles Liu]

I want to save money on filing my taxes. Look no further than GoToBank.

[Chuck Nice]

You'll get 20% off TurboTax when filing your 2025 taxes.

[Charles Liu]

That sounds like a great way to start the year. Open your GoToBank account today and get started. Learn more at GoToBank.com tax Green bank member FDIC

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

There's a fire inside you you can't ignore.

[Charles Liu]

Stand still. Not a chance. You're a lifestyle learner who's come this far. Now we are here to help you keep going further. Capella University what can't you do? Visit capella.edu to learn more.