Science at Warp Speed: StarTalk Live!

Summary

StarTalk Radio: “Science at Warp Speed: StarTalk Live!”

Host: Neil deGrasse Tyson
Recorded: Live at the Novo Theater, Los Angeles
Date: March 3, 2026
Guests:

• Sasheer Zamata (Comedic co-host and actress)
• Dr. Aaron McDonald (Astrophysicist; Star Trek science advisor)
• Dr. David Saltzberg (Particle physicist; science advisor for The Big Bang Theory, Young Sheldon, and Oppenheimer)
• Pete Holmes (Comedian and actor)

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Episode Overview

This live StarTalk episode brings science, pop culture, and comedy together for an engaging exploration of the “sci” in “sci-fi”. Host Neil deGrasse Tyson, joined by scientists, comedians, and TV/movies’ science consultants, examines how real science intersects with beloved science fiction—especially Star Trek. The conversation ranges from fundamental physics questions (dark matter, antimatter, gravitational waves) to the practicalities and storytelling of futuristic technologies, always with a healthy dose of humor.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introducing the Panel & Their Sci-Fi Credentials

• Tyson opens by heralding the guests’ unique blend of expertise and comedy.
• Aaron McDonald, official science advisor for Star Trek, explains her background in neutron stars, gamma ray bursts, and gravitational wave detection (LIGO).
• David Saltzberg details his role as science advisor for The Big Bang Theory, ensuring set details and scripts reflect accurate physics.
• Pete Holmes jokes he’s the audience’s “representative”: “I’m here to be confused, bewildered, afraid, belligerent” (06:39).

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2. Beyond Vision: Tools to Understand the Universe

Electromagnetic Spectrum & Beyond (08:00–11:00)

• Tyson recounts William Herschel’s discovery of infrared (“light unfit for vision”) (08:30).

• McDonald and Saltzberg describe how telescopes evolved to detect not just visible light, but also other spectra (infrared, microwaves, X-rays, etc.) and even non-light phenomena:

  • Neutrinos (09:17–11:12):

    • Saltzberg: “There’s about 100 trillion per second going through you” (10:45).
    • But only a dozen or so neutrinos interact with a person in their lifetime.

  • Gravitational Waves (11:24–15:40):

    • McDonald: “It is like hearing the universe. It is not hearing the universe. …That’s effectively what gravitational waves are. They give us information in a different sense.” (12:03)
    • Tyson: “Einstein predicts gravitational waves—and 100 years later, we detect them using lasers whose underlying physics he also described!” (15:54)

  • Cosmic Rays (17:02–18:47):

    • Saltzberg: “Because they’re charged, when they go through the magnetic fields of the universe, they bend. So the direction you see them coming is not the direction they came from” (17:13).

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3. Dark Matter and Dark Energy: Explaining the Unknown

The Gravity We Can’t See (18:47–22:22)

• Tyson: “85% of the gravity of the universe has no known origin. We call that dark matter. Dark matter. Say it like you mean it” (19:17).
• Saltzberg: “It should be called invisible matter…it’s just not luminous."
• McDonald notes gravitational wave detectors might shed new light on dark matter’s true identity in the future (20:56).
• Physicists try to detect dark matter with deep underground, cold experiments—“and they wait for something to hit” (21:57).

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4. Bridging Fiction and Fact: Star Trek and the Evolution of Science in Sci-Fi

Star Trek's Science Legacy (24:33–31:09)

• Tyson lauds Star Trek’s care for real science (24:33).
• McDonald points out how Star Trek’s science reflects contemporaneous real discoveries (“Genetics showed up a ton after we mapped the genome… Only recently has Star Trek kind of sprinkled in some dark matter stuff”) (25:05).
• A dark matter nebula on Star Trek: Discovery was named the “Verubin Nebula” after pioneering astrophysicist Vera Rubin (26:41).

Antimatter and Star Trek Warp Drives (27:11–31:09)

• Saltzberg describes antimatter’s prediction and discovery:
  “He found two solutions…we now identify [as] the electron and its antimatter particle, the positron” (28:05).
• Matter-antimatter annihilations convert all mass to energy—“100% efficient” (29:03)—unlike nuclear bombs.
• Star Trek ships use matter-antimatter reactions for warp drives.
  McDonald: “You can’t go faster than light on the surface of spacetime, but nothing says that spacetime itself can’t go faster than light… Star Trek wraps a bubble of spacetime around the ship and pushes it faster than light.” (29:19)
• Dilithium crystals, a Star Trek staple, are “like control rods” to stabilize reactions (30:03).

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5. Hard Science, Hard Problems

Storing Antimatter; Cost and Reality (31:09–36:10)

• Saltzberg explains magnetic “bottles” trap antimatter (“Pennings traps, Paul traps, basically magnetic or electric bottles” (32:17)).
• Antimatter is prohibitively expensive:
  “If you had to make it at an accelerator ... we’re talking a lot, a lot of money...Trillions of dollars per gram. No way more than trillions, [closer to] quadrillions” (35:03, 36:03).
• McDonald: “Your body is making antimatter right now...” (35:03)

Subspace, Wormholes, and FTL: What’s Science, What’s Fiction? (36:31–44:26)

• Subspace: “It’s fictional. The concept is real—but the term is fiction. It’s basically everything outside the trampoline [of spacetime]” (36:39).
• Wormholes and FTL: “Wormholes are massive constructs that allow you to shortcut a distance…the math checks out, but we may lack the energy to create one” (41:49).
• Tachyons: “Just because you name it doesn’t mean it exists” (42:35). If tachyons—hypothetical faster-than-light particles—existed, “you would lose causality” (43:28).
• A favorite illustration: “If I send you a tachyon text after you slipped on a banana peel, you get it before you slip—and still slip anyway” (45:08).

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6. Multiverse, Higher Dimensions, and Science in Storytelling

Multiple Universes & Dimensions (51:55–63:15)

• Tyson introduces extra dimensions: “We live in three spatial dimensions... and a time dimension... if I say 'I’ll meet you at Starbucks,' you need a place and a time” (52:05).
• Saltzberg’s students “looked for extra dimensions at the Large Hadron Collider. The particle is called a radion” (54:19).
  “Just because you name it doesn’t mean it exists. We didn't find it."
• String theory and supersymmetry may require more dimensions (“Started with 26 extra dimensions... now down to 10—if this other symmetry exists that we’ve never found”) (55:13).
• Multiverses: “There’s genuinely infinite…universes where everything is exactly the same except one thing is different” (62:32). Marvel and Star Trek have both played with multiverse plots.

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7. Sci-Fi Storytelling and Representation

Diversity in Science Fiction (63:40–64:43)

• Zamata reflects on growing up watching The Jetsons: “Where are the black people? Or anyone but white people? We didn’t really see brown people in the future, which makes it feel like we don’t belong there” (64:10).
• Tyson highlights that seeing Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Uhura meant seeing a black woman with a meaningful, empowered future role in Star Trek (66:15).

On “Sacrificing” Science for Story (67:25–68:33)

• Saltzberg: “My job was not to be the science police. My job was to be a resource to the people actually telling the story. …It’s what universe any particular story is” (67:25).
• McDonald: “Science fiction is a huge spectrum between science and fiction. ...The quote is perfect: 'First get your facts straight, then distort them at your leisure.' You get the backbone of science and then build the story” (68:03).

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8. Future Tech: From Star Trek to Reality

Real-World Science Inspired by Sci-Fi (76:05–80:57)

• Tyson: Motorola’s first flip phone was inspired by the Star Trek communicator.
• The Tricorder: A touchless diagnostic tool, “hover over and diagnose a patient.” There’s even an X Prize for developing a real one, and someone won! (77:44).
• Automatic doors: When Star Trek first showed them, Tyson says, “I said, ‘nah, that’ll never happen’” (79:31).

What Tech Does the Panel Want? (80:14–81:39)

• McDonald: “I think we’re closest to the replicator—a 3D printer that prints food” (80:14).
• Saltzberg: “I want radios that use dark matter to communicate” (81:08).
• Zamata: “I do want to teleport, but I don’t want to be murdered!” (81:33).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Science Fiction’s Role:
  • “First get your facts straight, then distort them at your leisure.” —Mark Twain, cited by Tyson & McDonald in reference to integrating science with storytelling (67:25, 68:03)
• Tyson on Science’s Boundaries:
  • “Science is the only branch of human inquiry where you can stand flat-footed and say, ‘I don’t know.’” (17:33)
• On Antimatter Energy:
  • “If a positron meets an electron, they collide and produce pure energy. All their mass disappears and goes into energy by E=mc².” —David Saltzberg (29:03)
• On Diversity in Sci-Fi:
  • Sasheer Zamata: “When I watched the Jetsons, I was like, where are the black people? ...We didn’t really see brown people in the future, which makes it feel like we don’t belong there” (64:10).
• On Multiverse Comedy:
  • Pete Holmes: “That means there’s another version of this podcast happening where we’re all hanging like bats from our feet and we all have goatees” (59:09).

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment/Event | |-------------------|----------------------------------------------------| | 01:55–06:32 | Show open, guest introductions | | 08:00–13:08 | Tools beyond visible light; neutrinos & waves | | 14:36–16:14 | Gravitational waves—detecting ripples in spacetime | | 18:47–22:22 | Dark matter and how we search for it | | 24:33–26:41 | Star Trek’s science roots and Vera Rubin Nebula | | 27:11–32:32 | Antimatter, Star Trek propulsion, and reality | | 36:31–44:26 | Subspace, tachyons, and the limits of physics | | 51:55–57:09 | Higher dimensions, “maybe” answers, interdimensionality | | 63:40–66:45 | Sci-fi representation and storytelling ethics | | 76:05–80:57 | Sci-fi tech made real: flip phones, tricorders | | 81:01–81:39 | Panel’s dream future tech | | 82:22–End | Tyson's parting thoughts; show's wrap-up |

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Final Thoughts (Neil deGrasse Tyson, 82:22)

“Does life imitate science fiction? Or does science fiction imitate life? Or maybe… it is the interplay of the two that will shape the future of civilization. A future world that we’d be proud to live in and not embarrassed that we created. And that is a cosmic perspective.”

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Episode’s Language and Tone

• Conversational, witty, and accessible.
• Blend of deep science, pop culture anecdotes, and approachable humor.
• The atmosphere is playful (“I’m here to be confused, bewildered, afraid, belligerent”—Pete Holmes) and encourages exploration without shame for “not knowing”.

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Conclusion

This StarTalk Live! was an exuberant, smart, and welcoming blend of cutting-edge science, sci-fi tradition, and inclusive laughs. Whether you’re a Trekkie, a science buff, or just curious about the universe, the episode invites you to be both awed by our cosmic ignorance and thrilled by our capacity to imagine—and sometimes realize—the impossible.

“Keep looking up!” —Neil deGrasse Tyson

Transcript

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Coming up on StarTalk. We are live from the Novo Theater in Los Angeles. Join me and my co host Sashir Zemeda in conversation with particle physic Salzberg and astrophysicist and Star Trek science advisor Aaron MacDonald. Also joining us is special comedic guest Pete Holmes. Check it out. Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk Live at the Novo Theater, Los Angeles. And we've got a show for you tonight. Thanks for coming out Tonight we're going to find out where the sci is in the sci fi, the science in the science fiction. And we'll also explore some of the most iconic science fiction stories that have ever been told. But I want to first introduce my guests as you may know startalk is a juxtaposition. It is a braid of science, pop culture, and comedy. And right now, I will introduce to you my comedic co host. That is Sasheer Zamada. Sasheer, come on out. Where are you? A comedian, actress, a former cast member of Saturday Night Live. But you. You had more hair back then.

[Sasheer Zamata]

I did have more hair, yeah.

[StarTalk Sponsor Announcer]

I think

[Sasheer Zamata]

people think I'm a different person when I shave my head. I shaved my head for the first time ever in college, and I lost, like, half my friends over the summer.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

They just didn't recognize you.

[Sasheer Zamata]

They truly didn't recognize you. I was like, what?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Now, in addition, we will have two expert guests. Let's bring the first one out. We have astrophysicist Aaron McDonald. Aaron, come on out. Here you go.

[Pete Holmes]

Hello, Erin.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Hello.

[Aaron McDonald]

Thank you.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Where did we find Erin McDonald? She is the official science advisor to the Star Trek franchise.

[Pete Holmes]

Whoa,

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

whoa. I want that job. We all want that job.

[Aaron McDonald]

Everyone wants that job. Everyone wants that job. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You have your PhD in astrophysics from the University of Glasgow.

[Aaron McDonald]

Yep.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Specializing in. Was it neutron stars? Is that correct?

[Aaron McDonald]

Yep. Neutron stars, gamma ray bursts, and gravitational waves. So I'm excited to talk about that, actually.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And you worked a bit with ligo.

[Aaron McDonald]

I did.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And remind us what LIGO stands for.

[Aaron McDonald]

Laser Interferometry Gravitational Wave Gravitational Wave Observatory.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's why we abbreviated LIGO. Okay. In addition to Aaron, we have David Saltzberg, Dr. David Salzberg. Come on out, David. All right, there you go, man. David Salzberg, professor of physics and astronomy at UCLA right here in our backyard. You're an experimental particle physicist, and this is, like, that's a rarefied space.

[David Saltzberg]

There's a lot of people that I have to deal with.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Now. Why is he on this panel? Because he is the science advisor to the Big Bang Theory TV show as well as young Sheldon, and he advised Christopher Nolan in Oppenheimer. Oh, my gosh. So his job wasn't to edit the script. They had other people to do that. He made sure that all the set design did not really mess up for what was supposed to be there at the time and at the place. Mr. Particle Physicist. All right, well, it wouldn't be a complete startalk show unless we round out. We have one empty chair here.

[Aaron McDonald]

Oh, yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So, Sasheer, you brought a guest comedian with you. Who might that be?

[Sasheer Zamata]

Yeah, as you said before, the show is about science, pop culture, comedy, and I didn't want to be the only comedy arm on this panel. So I'm bringing a buddy who is the creator and star of HBO's Crashing and the host of the podcast. You made it Weird. Give it up for Pete Holmes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Pete Holmes. Pete.

[Pete Holmes]

Hi, Neely.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

How you doing, Petey? Okay, there it is.

[Pete Holmes]

We cleared the nicknames before Pete.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Thanks for coming.

[Pete Holmes]

Thanks for having me.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I love your work. I love your portfolio. And we decided you are ideal for this show.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, I'm here to be confused, bewildered, afraid, belligerent.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's bewitched. Bewildered, confused.

[Pete Holmes]

Not this time. I'm just here to represent the common person who doesn't know what dark matter is or antimatter or reality.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

There you go. There you go. So let's bring this around. So, David, you study matter.

[David Saltzberg]

Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And Aaron, you study space time.

[Aaron McDonald]

Correct.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's kind of the whole universe right there.

[Aaron McDonald]

That covers it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That kind of covers it. And you've got the expertise in the Big Bang Theory, one of the most successful shows there ever was. And I have two cameos in that season three and season eight.

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Brag.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That weird flex. If you were a scientist, you might had a cameo, too.

[Pete Holmes]

I know.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Just saying.

[Pete Holmes]

Or a comedian or an actor, damn it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And we have the consulting for Star Trek. So when you think of astrophysics or astronomy in general, you think of telescopes. And telescopes look up and they detect light. And the first telescopes detected visible light, of course, because our eyes see by definition visible light. Then we discovered other kinds of light, first described as unfit for vision by William Herschel. He had the spectrum laid out that Newton told him, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet from a prism. And he put a thermometer. He said, I wonder what temperature each color has. So he put a thermometer in each color and put a control thermometer just outside of the red because there's no color there. That's your control thermometer. In every experiment he did, the control thermometer was hotter than all the other colors. And then he put it somewhere, like in his backyard, and it went to a normal temperature. And he concluded there must be some extra light coming from the sun that you can't see that below the red. He called it light unfit for vision. The boy discovered infrared light in that experiment. Nice to even ask that question. So then the race is on. We go from there's infrared, there's microwaves, there's radio waves, there's ultraviolet, gamma rays, X rays. That's the whole electromagnetic spectrum. And we have telescopes and detectors in each of those bands, but that's not enough. The universe talks to us in more bands. Than that. So you seek out other ways of detecting the universe. Give me another way.

[David Saltzberg]

So, for example, neutrinos travel in straight line just like light, but they're not light. So if we could.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's a particle.

[David Saltzberg]

It's a particle. Instead of. That's not a particle of light.

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Right.

[Pete Holmes]

It's a nutritious particle.

[David Saltzberg]

It's the neutrino. It was named by an Italian who called it the little neutral one.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, a neutrino.

[Aaron McDonald]

It's a neutrino.

[Pete Holmes]

Why do I love my mama so much?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's a particle with no charge. That's right. Okay.

[David Saltzberg]

And maybe the best way to think of them is it's like an electron that lost its charge.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's about as close as emotional about it.

[Aaron McDonald]

You can be in charge back.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, that's right. You can have your Brendan Fraser moment.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Get it back, get all emotional. Okay. And so you try to detect neutrinos.

[David Saltzberg]

That's right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And where do you find them?

[David Saltzberg]

So the experiments that I did were in Antarctica. We used the Antarctic ice as a giant lens or target of the collected them.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So this is like glacial ice.

[David Saltzberg]

Glacial ice that's hundreds of thousands, if not more years old.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[David Saltzberg]

Just waiting for us to. It's incredibly clear to radio waves. So the idea is that neutrinos mostly pass through, but one will hit and it will make particles that emit radio waves that we could then detect from our platform.

[Aaron McDonald]

Awesome.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so how many neutrinos are out there?

[David Saltzberg]

Well, through the sun, Most of them that were coming through us right now are from the sun and through our bodies. Right now, there's about 100 trillion per second going through you.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Neutrinos.

[David Saltzberg]

Yes.

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From the 4th of December.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

But now you feel it.

[Sasheer Zamata]

I didn't know about a trillion, but

[David Saltzberg]

only about one or a dozen will actually interact with you in your lifetime.

[Aaron McDonald]

Define interact. Like interact.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Define interact. Be specific.

[David Saltzberg]

That's a good question, because let's just say it leaves a little energy behind or breaks up your DNA a little bit.

[Aaron McDonald]

Okay, well, that's less good.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That sounds bad. So, Aaron, So not only are these particles, but there's also waves that are not electromagnetic, that are not part of that whole spectrum that I just delineated and so predicted by good old Albert.

[Aaron McDonald]

Indeed.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Give me some of that background there.

[Aaron McDonald]

So one of the things that Albert Einstein did was general relativity, which was sort of describing the fabric of our universe. If you've seen that bowling ball on a trampoline idea, that that's kind of how gravity works. That they figured out. Most of us learn Newtonian gravity. The apple falling from the tree, it's a force, but that only really, it's an approximation for gravity.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It turns out we didn't know at the time.

[Aaron McDonald]

We didn't know. Yeah. And so Einstein was the one who kind of introduced gravity, mass into this fabric that scientists had already been thinking about and saw like that that works. That described the gravity that we were struggling to describe at the time. And one of the things he did was like, well, what if the bowling ball explodes? Right? What if two bowling balls crash into each other? And you can propagate that through the math. And the trampoline will ripple. And so space time ripples when there's a change to it and it travels at the speed of light. But Einstein was like, it's there, but it's so tiny no one will ever detect it. And scientists went, challenge accepted. And 100 years after his prediction, we detected the motion of space time in our universe. And the best analogy I can give you, but really pay attention to what I'm saying. It is like hearing the universe. It is not hearing the universe. Sound doesn't travel in space, but it is like if you just didn't have any light and you're just hearing the universe, that's a different sense. Sense. And that's effectively what gravitational waves are. They give us information in a different sense.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And they ripple away from the. From the incident. Yes. And they move at the speed of light. Correct. And Ligo detected its first wave in 2016, if I remember.

[Aaron McDonald]

15. They announced it in 16.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

They announced it in 16.

[Pete Holmes]

It's a common mistake.

[Aaron McDonald]

I know, I know. What are you going to do in this case?

[Pete Holmes]

It's a little embarrassing. Yeah. 2016.

[David Saltzberg]

Over here.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

May I, May I please, Please go. Y. Fascinating.

[Pete Holmes]

When you say fascinating. Says the guy who didn't know what you were saying. I do love that it's a bowling ball in a trampoline. That this was solved in like some trailer park somewhere.

[Aaron McDonald]

Definitely.

[Pete Holmes]

It's like a thimble in an above ground pool. We're gonna figure this out. When you say it's the sound of the universe, what is the subject of that? Wouldn't it be a more localized source?

[Aaron McDonald]

So everything that's moving in our universe is giving off gravitational waves. So we're rippling space time as I'm waving my hands around. But they are incredibly small and hard to detect. So the only things that LIGO detects are extreme events. Essentially two black holes crashing into each other or A black hole and another compact object like a neutron star or a dead star that crash into each other, and it's this huge ripple. Now, I say it's really big, but what we're detecting is changes in space time. 11000 the size of an atom. So it's tiny. And that's the.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

But LIGO measured that.

[Aaron McDonald]

But they measured it, right? With mirrors made of atoms, which blows my mind. Like, the physics for it is so cool. Yeah. And they saw it, Nailed it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You guys are great.

[Pete Holmes]

I hope you get back to your car safely.

[Aaron McDonald]

That's it.

[Pete Holmes]

Go LA Lakers.

[Aaron McDonald]

Nailed it.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm sorry.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That was okay. No. So my favorite way to think about it.

[Aaron McDonald]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Is Einstein in 1915 or 1615.

[Pete Holmes]

Common mistake.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

He predicts the existence of gravitational waves. Then a few years later, he describes an obscure quantum phenomenon called the stimulated emission of radiation. This is a research paper that was obscure. Stimulated Emission of Radiation. A few decades later, that became the foundation of the invention of the laser. Laser is an acronym for Light Amplification

[David Saltzberg]

by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Wow.

[Pete Holmes]

And, well, we just got your Netflix password.

[Aaron McDonald]

That's solid.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So then LIGO comes around, the first L. The L in LIGO stands for laser laser. So 100 years later, we detect gravitational waves predicted by Einstein using lasers that he laid the foundation for. Wow. So Einstein was badass. That's all I can say.

[Aaron McDonald]

It's irritating how much stuff that guy discovered. Like, it is wild.

[Pete Holmes]

It's irritating that your acronym is made of another acronym.

[Sasheer Zamata]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

COBBLE acronym.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, I never thought about that.

[David Saltzberg]

Right.

[Aaron McDonald]

Yeah.

[Sasheer Zamata]

Yay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Do the whole thing. The whole thing.

[Aaron McDonald]

Oh, God.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Unpack it.

[Pete Holmes]

Spell out laser, and then the rest are hers.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah.

[David Saltzberg]

Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of radiation.

[Aaron McDonald]

Interferometry, Gravitational wave Observer.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, man, I am turned on right now. This is welcome.

[Aaron McDonald]

You're welcome.

[Pete Holmes]

I love it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right, so we've got this window to the universe that can detect things that ordinary telescopes couldn't. We've got this other window to the universe, but there's a third one. There's more, but another one I want to make sure before we move on. Cosmic rays just catch me off somewhere.

[David Saltzberg]

So cosmic rays are also particles that move through the universe, but they would be things like protons or electrons.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So familiar particles.

[David Saltzberg]

Yeah, mostly.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yes.

[David Saltzberg]

And nuclei. All right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[David Saltzberg]

So the problem with them is, because they're charged, when they go through the magnetic fields of the universe, they bend. So the direction you see them coming is not the direction they came from. So it's really hard to do.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, yeah.

[David Saltzberg]

Right. So that you might just see them spread. Even if there's one source out there you'd love to study, it kind of rains down on you from almost all directions.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So these come from what we don't exactly know. Okay. Next thing, by the way, science is like the only branch of human inquiry where you can stand flat footed and say, I don't know. Ask yourself who else can say that? Who else does say that? Everyone's gotta have an answer to something. Everybody. And so in science you're at the frontier, at the precipice. It is.

[David Saltzberg]

We don't know.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Good. Oh, it became a we don't know. He doesn't want to be an I don't know.

[Aaron McDonald]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. But they're high energy, so some high energy phenomenon must be driving them.

[David Saltzberg]

Right. And also probably they have to be contained in some magnetic fields. So they, in order to stay in one place long enough to get accelerated. So we have the idea that it could be the remnants of supernovae, exploding stars. Yeah, it could be active galactic nuclei

[Pete Holmes]

which are supernova exploding stars. Keep going, please, you're boring us.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Neutrinos are going through the nuclei of galaxies. Can be quite.

[David Saltzberg]

It would be powered by a black hole, for example. But there's a lot of candidates and we don't know which one yet is the real winner.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so these are three whole new windows to the universe that tell us what's going on out there that we had no idea before we had these other kinds of telescopes, if you want to think about them that way. Okay, so now we use telescopes and we look out in the universe and we find that 85% of the gravity of the universe has no known origin. And we call that dark matter. Dark matter. Say it like you mean it.

[David Saltzberg]

Well, it's not really the greatest word. So it should be called the invisible matter because if you don't see it, it's just not luminous. And so people called it dark.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

See what I would call it, I would call it dark gravity. That's what it literally is.

[Aaron McDonald]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You okay with that? It doesn't sound like he's okay with that.

[Sasheer Zamata]

He's like, I already gave you my answer.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's invisible.

[David Saltzberg]

Well, I'm a little bit not knowing what you're after because there's dark energy and there's dark matter and I wasn't sure which.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I'm saying dark gravity is something that's got gravity and we don't know what it is. Okay, so here's my question to you. We don't know what it is, but some of your people.

[David Saltzberg]

Wow.

[Aaron McDonald]

Whoa.

[Pete Holmes]

Go on. What do you have to say about the whites? What do you got on the whites, Neil?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We're outnumbered. Okay. So the community of particle physicists, you know, if you hammer, everything looks like a nail to you. The particle physicists are sure that dark matter, what we call dark matter, is some other kind of particle we have yet to detect.

[David Saltzberg]

And that's the original idea. But it could be, for example, black holes left over from the early universe. There's other. It could be a particle, and we have certain places that would fit in really nicely. We need a particle that does this. And by the way, it would also be the dark matter. So that's really great. But no one says that it isn't black holes, for example.

[Aaron McDonald]

But what's cool is because gravitational waves don't rely on light to detect them, we can't see dark matter using that traditional electromagnetic radiation, but we see the gravitational effects of something there. And that could potentially, with gravitational wave detectors in the future. We're not that sensitive to them yet, but that may start giving us clues as to what dark matter is, because

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

we really don't know. So it's not invisible to you, Right? Yeah.

[Aaron McDonald]

Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

But if it might be a particle, how would you detect a particle that doesn't interact with our particles? You're kind of sort of already doing that with neutrinos.

[David Saltzberg]

We have many ways that we're looking for dark matter, dark matter particles.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Because you're a particle physicist and you're a hammer looking for nails.

[David Saltzberg]

I have friends that go, well, we really. It's very small nail, but

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I feel

[Pete Holmes]

like I'm your lawyer. Objection. Objection. Leading the witness with a nail analogy. He's looking for the truth.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yes, I did lead the witness there. Yeah, I liked it.

[David Saltzberg]

But, for example, people go into very deep caves to get away from the cosmic rays, which would be stray noise, and have very, very cold vats of liquid noble gases like liquid xenon and liquid argon. They make it as cold as they can, as low radioactivity as they can, they shield it as much as they can, and they wait for something to hit it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

A dark matter particle space.

[David Saltzberg]

Right? And this one might get it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

They just sit there and just wait

[David Saltzberg]

and wait until they see it.

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

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[David Saltzberg]

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Cricket 5G requires a compatible device and is not available everywhere.

[StarTalk Sponsor Announcer]

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 AistaTalk and see why problem solvers choose Claude as their thinking partner. 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.

[Aaron McDonald]

I'm Joel Cherico, creator of cosmic mugs. Cosmicmugs.com art that lets you taste the universe every day.

[Cricket Wireless Advertiser]

And I support StarTalk on Patreon.

[Aaron McDonald]

This is StarTalk with Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So, Star Trek. I don't want to create fights in the audience, but Star Trek cares about real science.

[Pete Holmes]

Uh oh, take that, seaQuest.

[Aaron McDonald]

Oh, we don't hate on seaquest.

[Pete Holmes]

We don't hate on seaquest. Darwin hungry. Darwin hungry.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I'm just saying I don't want to name names franchises, but Star Trek cares. So how does Star Trek think about dark matter?

[Aaron McDonald]

So what's interesting about Star Trek is because it's been around for 60 years, you can kind of trace where scientists are based on the science terms that come up. You can kind of look at how we started learning more about genetics. Genetics showed up a ton in Enterprise after they had mapped the genome, like all of these things. And so only recently has Star Trek kind of sprinkled in some dark matter stuff and in Star Discovery. So did you want to talk. Do you want to talk about the discovery of dark matter, or should I talk about the discovery of dark matter? Go for it. Okay, so I can tell you from here. Yeah, you got it.

[Sasheer Zamata]

Actually, no, no, you can go.

[Aaron McDonald]

Okay. All right, all right, All Right, yeah,

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

but it's not like you don't have dark matter stories.

[Sasheer Zamata]

So many.

[Aaron McDonald]

So many.

[Sasheer Zamata]

Well, I'll tell you after.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Aaron McDonald]

All right, sounds good. Sounds good.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You queue them up and we'll come back to you. Yeah.

[Aaron McDonald]

So Franz wiecky in the 1930s, was able to look at sort of distant galaxies and see how they were moving and see how the stars in them were moving. And it appeared that there was more stuff there than how the stars were behaving. And so that's kind of the first origin of that. And then Vera Rubin came along, and she was this great woman astrophysicist, and she was able to Some.

[Pete Holmes]

Rubin heads.

[Aaron McDonald]

Yeah, Rubin.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Rubin heads.

[Aaron McDonald]

And map in our own galaxy showing that the movement of the stars, like that there is dark matter in our own galaxy. And. And I love Vera Rubin. Rubin head here. And in Star Discovery, we actually named a dark matter nebula after her because it's called the Verubin Nebula. I was very excited to get that in there. I know. Little shout out.

[Pete Holmes]

Sounds delicious.

[Aaron McDonald]

I know. Shocking. But there's a lot of overlooked women in physics, so any opportunity to shine a light on them. Vera Rubin was awesome.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right, so we have these things that are kind of mysterious and sci fi. Don't ask me to spell that. Sci fi things, you know. And one of them is antimatter. And many people's first encounter with antimatter was Star Trek because you have matter antimatter drives and what goes on there.

[Aaron McDonald]

So, you know, with antimatter, it's one of those things you hear these technical words thrown around and you don't really know what science is and what's science fiction. Antimatter sounds like science fiction, but it is actually a real thing. But it has to do with particles. So I'll let you explain. Antimatter.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Antimatter.

[Aaron McDonald]

I know.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Give it to me.

[David Saltzberg]

So, okay, it was an interesting case where that was predicted before it was found. And we had Paul Dirac, the 1930s, playing around with the equations of.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Wait, that's two names. Paul Dirac.

[David Saltzberg]

Yeah, his first name was Paul. Last name was Dirac.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, you said Paul Dirac.

[Pete Holmes]

His sister was Tesseract.

[David Saltzberg]

He was playing around with the equations of special relativity and quantum mechanics. And he had to take a square root, essentially. And you know, the square root of nine is three, but it's also minus three.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah.

[David Saltzberg]

So he had two answers.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Minus three times minus three is also nine. Right. So it has two answers.

[David Saltzberg]

And that's kind of close to why he found two solutions when he combined these equations and one was a positive charge and one was a negative charge that we now identify as the electron and it's antimatter particle, the positron.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. So as I understand it, he hypothesized that since we are regular matter, there might be a whole other place filled with antimatter.

[David Saltzberg]

And he also had this idea that there could be an entire sea of particles that correspond to the antimatter and

[Pete Holmes]

they're, they're the matter and we're the antimatter man.

[Aaron McDonald]

The weird thing with matter and antimatter though, is if you touch, you annihilate yourselves and you turn into pure energy. So if you met your matter counterpart and you shook hands, you energy.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. So don't do that.

[Aaron McDonald]

So don't do that. Just be careful.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, yeah. So this is 100% efficient in converting matter into energy.

[David Saltzberg]

If a positron meets an electron, they collide and produce pure energy. All their mass disappears and goes into energy by E equals MC squared.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so Star Trek uses matter antimatter for warp drives.

[Aaron McDonald]

Yes, that is correct. So strap in because it's awesome. So sheet of space time, right? You want to go faster than the speed of light. You can't on the surface of spacetime.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Just to be clear, if you went the speed of light, it would take you 100,000 years to cross the galaxy. And that's too much time for a TV show.

[Aaron McDonald]

Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So you got to do that during the TV commercial. So how do they pull it off?

[Aaron McDonald]

There you go. Yeah. The nearest star to us is over four light years away. And if you have a five year mission, it's going to be boring. So to go, there's lots of different ways you can sort of chase.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

But Star Trek was a five year mission. I forgot about that.

[Aaron McDonald]

Yeah, it's a five year mission.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Five year mission.

[Aaron McDonald]

The original series.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

To seek out and explore strange new worlds, to boldly go where no man

[Aaron McDonald]

has gone before we activated it.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm going to loot this alien.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Wait, wait, wait. So it's a five year mission, but the show only lasted three seasons.

[Aaron McDonald]

I know. Well, that's a different conversation. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And why do they have all those clothes for a three hour tour?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Catch us up on the warp drives.

[Aaron McDonald]

Okay, so the idea behind warp drives is you can't go faster than light on the surface of space time, but there's nothing that says that space time itself can't go faster than the speed of light. And so you wrap a bubble of space time around your ship and then that bubble pushes you faster than the speed of light. In order to do that, you need energy because E equals MC squared. If you don't have mass, if you don't have a bowling ball, you can use an equivalent amount of energy. And in Star Trek, they get that energy from matter antimatter collisions. Most people will conflate dilithium crystals, thinking that those are powering the ships. But those are more like control rods for the matter antimatter reactions. They keep it stable, but there's lots of. Like, once we start poking holes in it, we're gonna like, how can you contain antimatter? Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So.

[David Saltzberg]

Right. If you put antimatter in a bottle and not an antibottle, the positrons in the antimatter would see the electrons in the bottle, and they would annihilate and give off a lot of energy.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So how do you carry around antimatter?

[David Saltzberg]

So one way we saw in the movie Angels and Demons.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, yeah, I remember that. The priest who played the priest that, Ewan McGregor, he's walking around with this vial. The Vatican has the only vial of antimatter. And I'm looking at it. It's like Dan Brown did not take any physics in his entire life. The author of this story. First, we make antimatter all the time in labs. The Vatican does not have a particle accelerator in his basement. I assure you of that. Okay. And so they're thinking that this is. But he's walking around with a vial.

[David Saltzberg]

But that part, I think was reasonable. They had magnetic fields made by superconducting magnets. And the idea is that the antimatter just spins in a circle and never touches any walls. It just sits there in a vacuum and it's totally fine.

[Pete Holmes]

How do you hold it in real life?

[David Saltzberg]

We have things. Traps. Penning traps, Paul, traps. They have specific names, but they're basically magnetic or electric bottles.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

A magnetic bottle. Right. Okay. So then it just. It sees the magnetic field, which is not matter, so therefore it will not annihilate.

[David Saltzberg]

Exactly.

[Pete Holmes]

Magnets. Do you get that reference?

[David Saltzberg]

Yeah. Nobody knows how they work.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, that.

[David Saltzberg]

I got the wrong reference.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

For the benefit of the audience, I just want to measure the scale of energy we're talking about here. So in Oppenheimer, they built the first atomic bomb. How efficient was that? Conversion of matter to energy?

[David Saltzberg]

So there's. In the first atomic bomb. I'm sorry, it's kind of sad to talk about, but there's dozens of kilograms of uranium. Only about 1% of that uranium underwent fission, which is how you get the energy out. So 99% didn't even know it was a bomb. And of that 1%, only about 0.1% of the mass of the uranium is converted into energy by E equals MC squared or by the fragments of uranium flying apart from one another.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So as devastating as that bomb was, it's a fraction of the energy that

[David Saltzberg]

it might have had had it been used. Had it used all the uranium, it would have been 100 times more powerful. There's really no way with fission for the reactions that do happen, you just happen to get about 0.1%.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so now next up was fusion, which was alluded to as the next wave of warfare in.

[David Saltzberg]

So fusion is combining deuterium and tritium and smaller. Instead of taking large nuclei and atoms and breaking them apart, you can also get energy out of combining small nuclei. You can do this all the way up to iron in both directions.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So how efficient is that going up from hydrogen?

[David Saltzberg]

So that's a few percent more. One of the things, ways that fusion bomb people don't always realize is that a lot of that's still fission. The fusion is making neutrons and those neutrons are hitting uranium outside and then those are fissioning. And probably about half the half the energy released is still coming from fission.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so whatever these are, these are percentages. Yeah, very small percentages. Whereas matter antimatter is 100%. Right. Okay, so why don't we just have all antimatter energy sources in the world today?

[David Saltzberg]

Well, I did say dozens of kilograms. Right. So you would need.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

What does antimatter cost?

[David Saltzberg]

What was it? How much you got? If we think about it, Is that

[Pete Holmes]

what you're asking on the dark web?

[Aaron McDonald]

Yeah, there you go. There you go, the dark web.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, oh, oh.

[Aaron McDonald]

Pain.

[Pete Holmes]

We're fissioning now, boy.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

He's gonna get antimatter on the dark web. Okay, that was good. All right, so it depends how you get it.

[David Saltzberg]

Because for example, your body is making antimatter right now. There's potassium in your bones and about usually decays to electrons, but about once every few seconds there's potassium in your bones, is producing an a positron or antimatter. So that would be free, you just have to catch it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So one gram of this might cost how much?

[David Saltzberg]

But if you had to make it at an accelerator, and it was 100 million dollar accelerator and you're making nanograms, we're talking a lot, a lot of money, you could say in an astronaut.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You're a physicist, I expect you to Quantify that answer. Not President Bush.

[Pete Holmes]

You know, make with the data.

[David Saltzberg]

We just said 100 million divided by nano, so.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, okay. So that's 10 to the 8th becomes 10 to the 17.

[David Saltzberg]

10 to the 12.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah.

[David Saltzberg]

So we're trillions of dollars.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No way more than trillions.

[Pete Holmes]

You were doing it.

[Aaron McDonald]

No one heard it.

[Pete Holmes]

I loved it.

[Aaron McDonald]

That I was driving.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I heard it. What was it? What did you tell us?

[Pete Holmes]

You are not quadrillions. I don't really quiller.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We're up at quadrillions, I think, of dollars per gram. Okay, so there's not that much money in the world.

[Aaron McDonald]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

And that's in my body right now. That's all I heard. Did you just see me in the parking lot with a Styrofoam cup and a lighter?

[Aaron McDonald]

I'm just.

[Pete Holmes]

How do I get it? Who's the buyer? Where's the drop?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

There it is. So, Aaron, what is. I've heard in Star Trek, they reference subspace.

[Aaron McDonald]

Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

What is that?

[Aaron McDonald]

So subspace is.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's fictional.

[Aaron McDonald]

Yes, subspace is fictional.

[Pete Holmes]

It's a website that helps people get paid to write.

[David Saltzberg]

Relax.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Wait, so subspace is fictional? Dilithium crystals are fictional. Antimatter is real.

[Aaron McDonald]

Subspace is. The concept is real. It's just the fictional term hasn't been a. It's basically the area outside of the trampoline, however you want to think of that. Everywhere outside the trampoline is subspace. And that's how they communicate faster than light in Star Trek. Because again, if you want to communicate, fastest you can go is send a signal at the speed of light. But they create subspace buoys that poke through the trampoline and then talk to each other faster than the speed of light, which is awesome. But, Faye, because you're all clearly impressed by.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No, no.

[Aaron McDonald]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think.

[Pete Holmes]

Are we confused if that's real? Huh? Do we know that's not real?

[Aaron McDonald]

So the idea of the buoys. Additional dimensions would be. Is a real concept. We don't call it subspace. That's what Star Trek calls it. And the physics of the idea of subspace buoys is solid, but it doesn't exist. We don't know how to get out of our own universe into subspace. Yeah. Does that help?

[David Saltzberg]

Yeah.

[Aaron McDonald]

Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So, Sasheer, you had Trekkie parents.

[Aaron McDonald]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Did any of that spill out onto you? Or did you just have weird, geeky parents and you were the artist in the family?

[Sasheer Zamata]

I'm still geeky. Next Generation was my show.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, okay.

[Aaron McDonald]

Yeah.

[Sasheer Zamata]

And. Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And they gave the one black guy on the bridge. He had the full vision.

[Pete Holmes]

There were two black guys on the bridge.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, you're right. Sorry.

[Aaron McDonald]

Sorry.

[Pete Holmes]

Thank you. Thank you.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So Geordi laforge had that visor, they called it, which is acronym time. Who's got the acronym? Wait, please.

[Sasheer Zamata]

Is it the visor?

[David Saltzberg]

Visual.

[Pete Holmes]

Visual Integrative Sensor. Sensor Overload. Resource.

[Aaron McDonald]

Optical.

[Pete Holmes]

Optical.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Pulling that out of your ass?

[Pete Holmes]

I did, but I bet it's resource. I bet it's resource.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

He was half right.

[Aaron McDonald]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Laser lidar. Assumption.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Symmetry.

[David Saltzberg]

Yes. Er.

[Pete Holmes]

George Clooney.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So it's a self driven acronym. So he was able to see the entire electromagnetic spectrum. And so was he one of your favorite people or.

[Sasheer Zamata]

Wooly Goldberg was one of my favorite.

[Rosetta Stone Advertiser]

Whoopi.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, we love Whoopi. Wasn't she the bartender? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Blue Milk.

[Sasheer Zamata]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

What? What is that? What was Blue Milk?

[Aaron McDonald]

Wrong franchise.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Nope.

[Pete Holmes]

They all have it.

[StarTalk Sponsor Announcer]

You're right.

[Aaron McDonald]

I take it back. I take it back.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Sequest.

[Pete Holmes]

Regular milk.

[Aaron McDonald]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Wow.

[Aaron McDonald]

We're having our.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You having to sing. Have, dear. Okay.

[Aaron McDonald]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Blue Milk is.

[David Saltzberg]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Very Star wars.

[Aaron McDonald]

But.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah.

[Sasheer Zamata]

My parents.

[Aaron McDonald]

Really?

[Sasheer Zamata]

Yeah. I feel like Star Trek was very much in our household. And like, you know, my mom would braid my hair while we're watching the show. And my dad, I remember asking him one time. I don't know why I asked him,

[Aaron McDonald]

but I was like, where are you from?

[Sasheer Zamata]

Or like, where'd you grow up? Or something.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And he was like, ask your father this.

[Sasheer Zamata]

Yeah. We didn't know each other that well.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, okay.

[Sasheer Zamata]

You know, just getting to know him.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Sasheer Zamata]

And he said he's a Vulcan and that he speaks Vulcan. I never heard it. But wait, he does. That's what he said. Which, you know, my parents divorced later and my mom was like, we are not, like, great at communicating with each other. And I was like, that makes a lot of sense.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Two consecutive sentences. My father speaks Vulcan.

[David Saltzberg]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

My parents divorced later.

[Sasheer Zamata]

Doesn't that make sense? How does that not track?

[Pete Holmes]

That is the most convoluted I'm going out for a pack of cigarettes I've

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

ever heard and never come back. Right, right, right.

[Pete Holmes]

I speak Vulcan. Goodbye.

[Sasheer Zamata]

Gotta go home. I was actually embarrassed to have a name from Star Trek. So when I was a kid, I would tell people, like, oh, it's a crystal from far away.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Cause it was an actual. The name of a crystal.

[Sasheer Zamata]

It wasn't the name of a character. No. So after Captain Kirk gave a rose to this princess, she Was like, we have something like this on my planet, except it's made out of crystal.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Wait, is this an alien? He had just boned.

[Sasheer Zamata]

He was trying to bone. He was courting.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Courting. Okay, okay, gotcha. So she gives him a.

[Sasheer Zamata]

He gave her a rose.

[Rosetta Stone Advertiser]

A rose.

[Sasheer Zamata]

Like, I guess a plant that looks

[Aaron McDonald]

like an Earth rose.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

An Earth rose, yeah.

[Sasheer Zamata]

And she was like, we have something that looks like this on my planet, but it's made out of crystal, and

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

that's called a sashir. Sashir.

[Aaron McDonald]

Yeah. That's so cool.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's beautiful. That's beautiful.

[Aaron McDonald]

Yeah, that is. It's a little rude.

[Pete Holmes]

Someone's like, look at my flower. He's like, we got this, but it's better.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's kind of. What that's. Ours is crystal?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Sasheer Zamata]

This one dies.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So do we have actual. I mean, other than Star Trek and hyperspace and all this, do we have actual anything on the books that could get us going faster than light?

[Aaron McDonald]

Aaron, it's all theoretical, but the math checks out. So things like wormholes. Wormholes are massive construct. And that would allow you to shortcut a distance.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Love me some wormholes.

[Aaron McDonald]

We do love wormholes.

[David Saltzberg]

Yeah.

[StarTalk Sponsor Announcer]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We can, in principle. Wormholes are makeable if we had negative gravity stuff, which we don't have.

[Aaron McDonald]

Yes. And enough energy to bend it. But they may exist naturally. We just don't know how to find them. We don't know what to look for. But again, the math checks out.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So that doesn't require engines or anything. You're just stepping through.

[Aaron McDonald]

You're just walking through. Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And what else do we have? Tell me about tachyons.

[David Saltzberg]

So there's particles that are called tachyons. If a particle goes faster than the speed of light, we've never seen one. We don't know that such a thing exists.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So you're just making this up and

[David Saltzberg]

that's just a word. So. Not me. I'm experimentalists. Those are theorists.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

But they're talking about a particle. And you're a particle physicist?

[David Saltzberg]

Well, they. Just because they name it doesn't mean it exists.

[Aaron McDonald]

Wow.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Good point.

[Aaron McDonald]

That was some real theoretical physicist Shane that you just threw down.

[Pete Holmes]

I think it's tense up here.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I don't know what.

[David Saltzberg]

There's actually a good reason particles don't go faster than the speed of light, because as long as nothing can go faster than the speed of light, we never violate what's called causality, meaning that if I press a button, a light turns on. And any observer moving around the universe will always see Me pressing the button before the light turns on. We might disagree about how far apart they were. We might disagree about the time difference between them. But if A caused B, no one will see B happening before A. As soon as we start communicating with tachyons, if they existed, that would go out the window. So you would lose causality. So I don't even know how you would live in a universe that you have faster than light communication if you're

[Aaron McDonald]

going to detect them. They'll be detected before you turn the detector on. No, no.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You'll be detected before they were sent.

[Aaron McDonald]

Before they were sent, yes. Which is like, wild. And Star Trek uses tachyons, so you may have heard that word because Star Trek uses tachyons all the time. And that is another thing. That is a physics concept. Theoretical physicist over here. But they. But we don't know how to detect them. But like you said, the causality. Star Trek is pretty consistent with how they use tachyons because anytime they break causality, like through time travel, when they break those rules, tachyons show up. So, like when Janeway came through the wormhole at the end of Star Voyager. Thank you. They detected a surge of tachyons first, and then this wormhole opened. And it was because they were violating causality, because that. That's what Janeway does.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And of course, tachyon has the Greek root tachyos, meaning fast, like a tachometer. These are the same roots to that word. But I just want to clarify here that according to Einstein, you cannot accelerate past the speed of light, but that doesn't stop a particle from being birthed faster than light. So never had to cross the boundary. Okay, so we're okay there? You're okay. Don't look at me like you were

[Pete Holmes]

a practical guy based on that. You are the killer. This season on cbs.

[David Saltzberg]

I don't know. I don't know how you get around the causality problem still.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So here it is. You ready? You're walking down the road, and you slip on a banana peel. And I say, you're my friend. I don't want you to slip on the banana peel. So I invoke tachyon texting. Okay. And I send you. This is after it happened. So I send you a tachyon text. You get it before you slip on the banana peel. And your phone alerts you. You look down at the phone and it says, watch out for the banana peel. And you're not looking at where you're going. And you slip on the banana peel.

[Aaron McDonald]

Oh, man, that is A closed channel.

[Pete Holmes]

What's really gonna bake your noodle is. Woody would have broken it if I hadn't said anything. Exactly right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Thank you, Matrix lady.

[Rosetta Stone Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Another prominent African American science fiction character. I'm very sorry to bother you.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So to me, that's my favorite tachyon example that you actually caused the person to slip on the banana.

[Pete Holmes]

It's like a rival too, right?

[Aaron McDonald]

Yeah, this.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I'm not talking about a rival. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

The movie, she was pretty tachy oni.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. But in her interpretations of. Of the past, present and future.

[Pete Holmes]

But she whispers a thing to a guy that hadn't.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was some of that all right in it.

[Aaron McDonald]

Definitely tachyons involved.

[Pete Holmes]

I got a definite from her.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right, so. And plus there was a. There's a Mexican physicist named Alcubierre.

[Aaron McDonald]

Yep.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Tell me about the Alcubierre drive.

[Aaron McDonald]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So Chris, wasn't he in the United States and they deported him. Is that what happened? Just.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh no.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Just get him. Jeez.

[Pete Holmes]

It's my duty as a comedian to join you in the rift. I must. I can't leave you out there.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

By the way, one third of all Nobel prizes in the sciences that have been earned by Americans were earned by American immigrants.

[Rosetta Stone Advertiser]

A third?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, A third. These are foreign born nationals becoming American citizens earning the Nobel Prize for merka. Merk apostrophe. M U R R R I C A. So he's a Mexican physicist.

[Aaron McDonald]

Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Tell me about this drive.

[Aaron McDonald]

So he. So he kind of motivated by Star Trek was like, well, could we build. Is this a neat idea? Is this possible? And so did the math to try to figure out if it was possible to have a warp drive using the manipulation of space time. And the answer was yes. And that's what we call the Alcuberre drive. And so he published a paper about this. And what was funny about it is.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So this is an authentic physics paper.

[Aaron McDonald]

It is a physics. The physics of warp drive checks out. Like it checks out. And he was sort of the first one to come up with a good concept of how you make physics laws happy when you're doing this. And they did.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

In other words, not to violate known laws of physics.

[Aaron McDonald]

Exactly.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That apply. So you dance around that if you

[Aaron McDonald]

can, conservation laws and all those sort of things. And so the issue with it is, remember I said earlier, like, if you want to bend space time but you don't have the matter, you could use the energy. So the question is, well, how much matter and antimatter are you going to need how much energy is going to be used to build this warp drive. And the first calculation that they did of this, the answer was all of it.

[Pete Holmes]

All of what?

[Aaron McDonald]

Energy. All energy matters ever existed. The number was so high that they were just like, uh, oh, that's not great.

[Pete Holmes]

Nobody needs to go anywhere that Beth.

[Aaron McDonald]

Exactly. And a lot of it was just because of all the manipulation of space time. And so they kind of like go back to the drawing board, as it were, go through the equations and figure out that you can do the same thing without breaking any laws of physics. With about the energy equivalent of a semi truck being torn into like E equals MC squared, the mass is a semi truck. But as we talked about earlier, the amount of matter used for an atomic bomb, like multiply that to the size of a semi truck. And that's why Zephyram Cochrane is hitting the juice. I'm not going to strap myself into that anytime soon. But that's our big limiter to how we don't have warp drive. Now, the math is fine. Theoretically it all checks out, but we just don't have any understanding of how to obtain and hold and manipulate all of that energy in order to do it. Detecting gravitational waves is actually seeing the motion of space time. That's starting to get us there in terms of like, how do we start playing with space time? So this is all just things that lie in front of us and they're just unknowns of how long it's going to take.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

What you're saying is we'll never have warp drives.

[Aaron McDonald]

You just positive. I said 2063 is probably pushing it. But if we make a huge discovery in energy, maybe we do find a way to more efficiently capture antimatter. That's a different conversation.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I'm looking at his facial expressions while you speak.

[Aaron McDonald]

I know experimental physicists think as far away as possible.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, we kept them separate. The theorists and the experimentalist. Yeah.

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So we've also heard things about higher dimensions. I love me some higher dimensions. Love. I love higher dimensions. What? What?

[Pete Holmes]

I just like the way you say it. It's very casual.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right, so we live in three spatial dimensions. Up, down, left, right, forward, back, right. And then there's a time dimension in there. And so these are our four dimensional realities. And if you're not completely comfortable with thinking that we live in four dimensions, I'll convince you right now. Okay. If someone comes up to you and say, I'll meet you tomorrow at Starbucks, what time? That's a place, but it's not a time. You need the space. And if I say, I'll meet you tomorrow at 10 o', clock, where the four dimensions of our space time reality are built into our language and our capacity to encounter one another, even if you didn't know it. And one thing that Zoom did during COVID is it broke that space time continuum.

[Aaron McDonald]

That really checks out.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No, no, no, no, no.

[Pete Holmes]

Here it is. We've all had that meeting.

[Aaron McDonald]

No, no,

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

all you needed. No, think about it. It's called your world line, where you are in space and time, and if you want to meet someone, your world lines have to intersect. You have to be at the same place and the same time. You can cross a street where trucks have been, but you're not killed by the truck. You're in the same place, but at a different time.

[Pete Holmes]

This I'm following.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, we good? So what Zoom did only required that you be at the same time, not in the same place, and you still had the encounter, so that. I was deeply moved by this fact.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay, so this is how they felt about phone sex. You can get it anywhere now.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Anywhere.

[Pete Holmes]

Payphone Cell phone, call, phone, payphone.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Who's doing it at. Okay, so desperate times. Desperate times.

[Pete Holmes]

See, we're bound by the laws of. Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And so what I'm saying is, so the universe, particle physicists tell us, is more than these four dimensions.

[David Saltzberg]

Maybe. So my students and I looked for extra dimensions at the Large Hadron Collider. The particle is called a radion.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Say that again?

[David Saltzberg]

A radion. It was another case of just because you name it doesn't mean it existed. We didn't find it, but found it. We'd found that there'd be one more Nobel Prize in the denominator of your fraction. Okay, yeah, we didn't find it, but we look. And the idea is, remember how we talked about Paul Dirac was combining the equations of special relativity and quantum mechanics. Well, more modern physicists have tried to combine the full equations of general relativity with quantum mechanics. It was a bit harder. And to make that work, they needed to add extra dimensions. Now, obviously there's nothing more than that. We experience an up, down, left, right, et cetera, as you said. So the idea is that they'd be really small, so we missed them. And so they started.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

How convenient.

[Aaron McDonald]

I know, I know particle physicists.

[David Saltzberg]

So they started with the idea there'd be 26 extra dimensions. And then they said, well, that seems like a lot. But then they had this idea called supersymmetry, where every particle has a partner, just like matter and antimatter. Every particle would have a supersymmetric particle. We haven't found that yet. That lowered the number of extra dimensions. Do we only need 10 total dimensions?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So we're down to 10, 10, as

[David Saltzberg]

long as this other symmetry exists that we've never found.

[Pete Holmes]

Or we could just smoke some DMT and be done with it. Have you considered that? You're the particle collider man.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So here's my favorite example of interdimensionality. If I may.

[Pete Holmes]

You may.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Then you'll understand why I say I love some dimensions. Okay.

[Pete Holmes]

I like it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so if we lived just in a flat plane, two dimensions, all right, and all of a sudden someone noticed a dot just appear out of nowhere. And then it grew, became like a circle and then it shrunk back down to another dot and then disappeared completely. We'd be scratching our heads. What is this? You know what that is? That is a sphere moving through a three dimensional sphere moving through the two dimensions of your world. And it manifests as something that's not there. It appears and then disappears. So when your particles pop in and out quantum mechanically. I wonder, is there some higher dimensional existence that's passing through our space time and we just happen to get a glimpse every now and then?

[David Saltzberg]

Maybe.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Maybe that's your best answer. Maybe after my whole poet.

[David Saltzberg]

I loved it.

[Pete Holmes]

I love it. I feel you. Thank you.

[Rosetta Stone Advertiser]

I'm mad.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I thought I'd get more than one word answer from the guy here.

[David Saltzberg]

Well, I think you've got to make. It's science. You have to make a prediction. And the more surprising the prediction, the better. And then we will go look for it. And that's. The idea can sound great, the idea can, but it has to be the way the world works.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Keith and I will work on it and we'll work on it. But wait, if there are these other dimensions that could be other versions of us, are they like other universes? In a way. Because in the Netflix series Stranger Things, heard of it. Entering its fifth season. Now it's. They have it upside down. What is that? Do you know what that. Have you seen the show?

[Sasheer Zamata]

I have seen the show. I don't understand all of it, but they do have upside down. And it's upside down.

[Aaron McDonald]

So.

[Sasheer Zamata]

Shira, I'm gonna say it's underneath. It's like, no, we're up here.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, we're up here.

[Sasheer Zamata]

And then they're.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay, so like, it's like an alternate reality.

[Sasheer Zamata]

Flip it around.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so. So then what? So what's there?

[Aaron McDonald]

I didn't think I would ever see that again. Thank you. Bringing it back.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So what's there in the upside down world?

[Sasheer Zamata]

Monsters, Demogorgons.

[Pete Holmes]

It's like a black, scary, stormy black.

[Sasheer Zamata]

The trees are black.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Black.

[Aaron McDonald]

Very dark.

[Pete Holmes]

Dark, dark, dark.

[Aaron McDonald]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Thank you. Okay.

[Aaron McDonald]

What was. I mean, so strange. Sorry, what?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

How did.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, but they.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

How did they get access to this upside down world?

[Aaron McDonald]

They opened a portal to another dimension,

[Pete Holmes]

and then they communicate through, like, the Christmas lights.

[Aaron McDonald]

But I like the upside down idea because it is like they. You just multiply everything by minus one, which is kind of the original multiverse question, which was like. But what if goatees and evil. Like, that was Star Trek, right? They had the mirror universe, which was just our universe just flipped upside down.

[Pete Holmes]

That means there's.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

If you had a goatee, you were bad.

[Aaron McDonald]

Yeah, exactly.

[Pete Holmes]

There's another version of this podcast happening where we're all hanging like bats from

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

our feet and we all have goatees.

[Pete Holmes]

We have goatees.

[David Saltzberg]

I haven't seen it, but it sounds like they. I heard they opened it with a particle accelerator.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So that Is that right?

[Aaron McDonald]

In Stranger Things. Yeah, in Stranger Things, yeah, I think they did. Yeah, I think.

[Pete Holmes]

But I'll just say, you say black hole, particle, neutrino, you can kind of do whatever you want. Get to the demons, get to Winona Rider. We don't care.

[Aaron McDonald]

We're good, right?

[Pete Holmes]

I mean, you care. That's your job, to care.

[Aaron McDonald]

Little bit, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

We're sort of out here going like, who cares?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

But there's some mixed things here. So we have this upside down world. Is it another dimension or is it in the multiverse? Right. So we've heard a lot about the multiverse, and Marvel has run with it in the multiverse. Right, right.

[Aaron McDonald]

It's the multiverse.

[Pete Holmes]

No missteps.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Has Star Trek picked up the multiverse?

[Aaron McDonald]

Yeah, so they did. In the Next Generation, there was an episode where Worf is going through a quantum fissure, which I would probably push back on the language of that, just because that's quantum doesn't anyway. And then sees all these different versions of like, what would happen where, you know, he's married to Deanna Troi and there's a birthday cake at one point and like, there's all these. There's all these different things. And so we did in more recent seasons in lower decks, season five, which, yeah, like, that show's great. I'm biased, but it's a great show. But we brought that multiverse concept back and they do a cool explanation with it.

[Pete Holmes]

What is lower decks?

[Aaron McDonald]

Star Trek. Lower decks.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, I'm sorry.

[Aaron McDonald]

It's one of the animated shows.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm a fan of Star Trek Upper Decker, but I don't know. Wait, so David, to boldly go,

[Aaron McDonald]

don't

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

you split your infinitives on my stage. Fixed the split infinitives in the later

[Pete Holmes]

to go bold location.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yes.

[Aaron McDonald]

No, it's Star Trek.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I thought they tidied up in the future.

[Pete Holmes]

Split infinitives are a different thing.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So, David, we think of these multiverses as, oh, I have a goatee or not, or somebody's married to someone else. But really, as I understand multiverses, it's quantum forged so that there'd be variations not. Not just in who you marry, but in the actual laws of physics that we'd find in those universes, which would make it really hard to set up life again as you come to know it.

[David Saltzberg]

Well, the last part you said is the key part. As we come to know it, we don't know what else we would call life.

[Sasheer Zamata]

Damn.

[David Saltzberg]

Maybe we don't. Maybe it's not made of atoms. Maybe it's something else. You have lots of other chances in whatever that universe is that you've made in its own rules. Is there going to be some local collection of matter that locally lowers entropy at the expense of expending heat, which

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

is what we do here in our universe.

[David Saltzberg]

You need to have life. So maybe there'd be something that would satisfy our criteria for.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I'll give you that. But is it. You're married to someone different. I'm thinking not. It's other kinds of creatures.

[Aaron McDonald]

Sure.

[Pete Holmes]

We're not atoms, but who are we?

[Aaron McDonald]

I think there, there's.

[Pete Holmes]

Are we horny?

[Aaron McDonald]

There's like different kinds of multiverses. And I think that like different multiverse theories. And one is where the laws of physics would just be different in one universe or the other. And then there's that like genuinely infinite concept of multiverses where however it's structured, there is and you really hard to wrap your brain around the concept of infinite that everything is exactly the same but one. And then.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Because if you have an infinite number of those kind of universes, any variation will exist and you can find the universe for which that is true. Right, There you go. Right, okay.

[David Saltzberg]

But those would have the same laws of physics in that.

[Aaron McDonald]

Exactly in that concept. Yeah. That's why they're kind of different theories. But I love multiverses.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right, well, let's tackle the biggest topic here, which is the storytelling in science fiction. And Sashir, you're. I heard you comment on when you saw some. Was it the Jetsons? What did the Jetsons mean to you when you first saw them?

[Sasheer Zamata]

Was it the Jetsons?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I don't know.

[Pete Holmes]

I was just thinking how funny would it be if you didn't talk about this before?

[Sasheer Zamata]

That's what's happening. What are you talking about?

[StarTalk Sponsor Announcer]

No, no.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So it was. If you look at 100% of future SCI fi stories.

[Sasheer Zamata]

Oh, I know what you're talking about. Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah.

[Sasheer Zamata]

Well, when I watched the Jetsons, I was like, where are the black people? Where are anyone but white people? And that is also like how I felt about a lot of sci fi growing up. We didn't really see brown people in the future, which makes it feel like we don't belong there. And I mean it's definitely changing now, which is so wonderful to see more representation in stories about our future because we belong there.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So. Yeah, I guess I wasn't thinking that. Cause just everybody.

[Sasheer Zamata]

Is that not what you wanted?

[Aaron McDonald]

No, no, no.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm just saying that is hilarious.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No, no, no, I'm just saying you

[Pete Holmes]

gave him exactly what he wanted.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No, no, no, no, that's just when

[Pete Holmes]

I was a kid.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No, I'm just saying when I was a kid, it's just everybody on TV was white, so that was just that universe. Yeah, that's all. So I wasn't. So I thought it was weird that, you know, today we have self driving cars, but they didn't have self driving cars in the Jetsons he had to fly his own car. I thought that was weird.

[Sasheer Zamata]

That is weird.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Even at the time. Right. I thought that was. And why did Rosie the maid have to wear an apron to cover her vagina?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, obviously she's a robot. You're going to love the answer.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So in storytelling in Star Trek, what I've always admired about it is each story was a bit of a morality tale, a little bit of a mirror held up to whatever was going on back here on Earth. And there was, I just sort of value when you can tell that kind of story, otherwise what are you doing? It's just a, it's just fantasy in the future and for me, good literature, you can bring it home in some way and have it mean something to you and have it mean something to your society.

[Aaron McDonald]

Well, I think what's great about Star Trek II is that it is very explicitly humans on Earth in the future, like as opposed to just some other universe or galaxy or whatever thing. It is like this is where Earth is going to go, this is what people will be doing and this is what it looks like. And these are the people who have jobs. And for 1966 it was a really big deal not just to have Nichelle Nichols. And I'm not undermining the importance of that by any means.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right. Plus if you look at her title, her military title as lieutenant means she is in the path of succession to be captain.

[Aaron McDonald]

Yep, yep.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Even though that never happened, the fact is that was a real possibility to even have such a title and not be the, you know, the janitor. So how do any of us feel? And you coming at this from the liberal arts, I'm curious. I'm a big fan of. Mark Twain has a saying, first get your facts straight, then distort them at your leisure. And to me that should be instructions for the artist who has access to science and so do any of us. I'd like to get in opinions here. Do you feel how much science can or should be sacrificed for the sake of a good story that you want to tell? You sounding like you Got it.

[David Saltzberg]

I always felt my job was not to be the science police. My job was to be a resource to the people that were actually telling the story. So I would tell them if something wasn't correct, but I wouldn't. And maybe give some other ideas. But it's the idea. It's what universe any particular story is. If I had consulted on Back to the Future, I might have told them, you know, we really don't know how to do time travel. And it probably wouldn't work. And then it wouldn't be.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And you would have very good fired that afternoon.

[Pete Holmes]

But he's horny for his mother. You're ruining the story. How's he gonna wanna his mother?

[Aaron McDonald]

The way I like to think of it is like science fiction is a huge spectrum between science and fiction. And every story is gonna pick somewhere on that and say, this is where we're gonna land. But I think that quote is perfect and really apt for how you integrate science into. Is that you get the foundation or the backbone of science and then build the story around that. But when you're in those decision rooms and maybe the budget doesn't work, or maybe we have to change something, the story comes first, then the characters, then the science.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I was talking with William Shatner about the transporter, and he said they invented that so that they didn't have to have lower ramps and land and it's too costly. Yeah, just beam them in and get on with the show. So that was a cost provision there.

[David Saltzberg]

Except the problem is it murders the person and recreates them on the planet. Would you get in one?

[Aaron McDonald]

It's not great. It's not great.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Now you're telling me this.

[StarTalk Sponsor Announcer]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

This is awkward. I teleported here,

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

so you don't exist, and then you get reassembled on the other side.

[David Saltzberg]

I think the information, if I understand, goes down. But not you. So.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

But what are you.

[David Saltzberg]

I think they've murdered you in Greek Creek.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

What are you if not the sum of the information that comprises you? Uh.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, you believe in a soul.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Sorry, Sorry.

[Aaron McDonald]

Science guy got.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yes. What? All right, so on one of my. He's busted right there. So on one of my two cameos on the Big Bang Theory, my first of the two, there were. You have the whiteboards throughout the show. Right. And there are equations on those boards. Right. And someone on set told me that you had found equations from my research to put them up there, but they were not my equations. There's someone else named Tyson in modern astrophysics, his name is Tony Tyson. I call him Cousin Tony affectionately, but those were his equations. I thought I'd let you.

[David Saltzberg]

I'm not buying that. I remember finding your PhD thesis and using it.

[Pete Holmes]

Uh oh. Someone doesn't recognize their own thesis. Too long in trailers and show business forgot about the math.

[StarTalk Sponsor Announcer]

Or.

[David Saltzberg]

Or I got Tony Tyson's theme.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Thank you.

[Aaron McDonald]

There it is.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

There's an alternative universe there.

[David Saltzberg]

We'll find out.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, how about this?

[David Saltzberg]

If our team of researchers get on the.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

According to Aaron, there is a universe in which you did it correctly. Let's imagine that that was it. And so, just in terms of storyline in the final episode, I think it was of the final season of the Big Bang Theory. Sheldon, who's like the smart one with multiple degrees, teams up with his wife, Amy Farrah Fowler, who in real life is Mayim Bialik, who is a real life neuroscientist with a PhD. She has a PhD in neuroscience. In real life, plays a neuroscientist on the show. They collaborate with some new kind of physics that I couldn't follow. But did you advise on that?

[David Saltzberg]

Yeah, I did. It was actually one of the rare cases where they gave me a lot of warning. Usually it's like, we're doing a script tomorrow, put some science in it. And this time they told me we're actually.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's funny.

[Aaron McDonald]

That is nice.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's good.

[Pete Holmes]

Classic Chuck.

[David Saltzberg]

Yeah, but this pandemic said they need some Nobel Prize worthy discovery. Go.

[Aaron McDonald]

You're like, look, so. And then I'm like, oh, my God, I could. I have a Nobel Prize?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I wouldn't waste it on your show.

[Pete Holmes]

And I wouldn't retire a year before it was given. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, God.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Really?

[Aaron McDonald]

That was deep. That was deep.

[Pete Holmes]

You have it. Just tell people you have it.

[Cricket Wireless Advertiser]

We'll never look it up.

[Aaron McDonald]

Thank you.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So I remembered something like super.

[David Saltzberg]

Super asymmetry.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Asymmetry instead of super.

[David Saltzberg]

And we've been talking about supersymmetry. That's been a theory since before I was a graduate student. People have been looking for evidence of this theory forever. I looked it up. There's about 10,000 papers with the title containing supersymmetry. And another 10,000 carrying the title super symmetric. But then it came to me. Super asymmetry. And I was like, ah, are there any zero papers with that title? Oh, that was their new theory.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so that gave you. That gave you a space in which to operate. That was new, right?

[David Saltzberg]

Exactly.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[David Saltzberg]

I mean, I can explain what in my mind the theory was, but it's not Nobel Prize, but it was good

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

enough for the show.

[David Saltzberg]

I mean, yeah, the idea is, like, in real physics is where are the supersymmetric particles? Where is this partner of the electron? We know it's antimatter partner. We can't find its supersymmetric. So it's a symmetry that is broken. So people make the symmetry, theoretically, and then it's broken to explain why we don't see it. And the idea of their theory is that you don't have to. It's not symmetric and then broken, but it starts asymmetric.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Just clarify here. Just clarify.

[David Saltzberg]

Please don't ask me more questions.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, Clarify something. No, no, no. What does it mean to break symmetry? So that implies that things are a certain way that you like, and then they're different and you say they're broken. But if nature is that, what does it mean for nature to be broken? If that is nature, maybe it's your understanding that's broken.

[Pete Holmes]

I like, I like, I like.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Well, we have.

[Aaron McDonald]

You got it.

[Sasheer Zamata]

It's fake.

[Pete Holmes]

I know.

[David Saltzberg]

And we have broken symmetries all the time in just ordinary, mundane physics. Like a magnet. The laws of magnetism have no preferred direction. But when you pick up a magnet, it does point a particular direction. It chose a direction, and once it started to form the magnetic field, one way it was reinforced. And that's the direction that the magnet has. So we see that all. We see symmetry breaking all the time in physics. We start with something symmetric, but the actual instances we see are broken.

[Pete Holmes]

Now, drop your mic

[Sasheer Zamata]

before they give it to you.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

My favorite fact about magnets is, you know, there's a north pole and a south pole. Okay, you got that? Okay. Are we together on this?

[Sasheer Zamata]

Okay, I guess.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. And opposite poles attract. Yep.

[Pete Holmes]

I like that you're looking at me.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so if you have two magnets, the north will connect, will point to the south. Okay, so now you take the magnet, suspend it from a string, and the magnet, the north pole of the magnet will point to Earth's north magnetic pole. But it's supposed to repel north to north. So the fact that the north pole of a magnet points to Earth's north pole means Earth's south magnetic pole is in the north, and our north magnetic pole is in the south. Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

I liked it. I didn't get it, but I liked it. I was waiting.

[David Saltzberg]

Every few years, 200,000 years, they flip and were overdue.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, well, that's comforting.

[Pete Holmes]

We don't have enough on our plate right now. I gotta be waiting for the polls to flip.

[David Saltzberg]

Great.

[Pete Holmes]

I'll tell that to my daughter next time I'm reading her a bedtime story. Just so you know, we're overdue.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Good night. All right, so tell me about, like, future tech, because I have on good authority that the first sort of flip phone by Motorola was inspired by the communicator in Star Trek. It was a.

[Aaron McDonald]

Thank you. Teamwork.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You guys, get a room. Okay.

[Pete Holmes]

Not without you, Neil.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So he just thought that was cool? It was an engineer with Motorola, and we had cell phones before that, but they weren't flip phones and they weren't that small. So this is science fiction inspiring design.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, we had clamshells. You don't think a caveman ever went, Imagine.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so do you know the tricorder?

[Aaron McDonald]

Yep.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Tell everyone what the tricorder is.

[Aaron McDonald]

Yeah, it's a. Well, the medical tricorder is what we commonly think of, but that's sort of like the medical device that they hover over and they go like, oh, no, we have a problem. And so it's a touchless diagnostic tool.

[Pete Holmes]

Science Reiki.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, good.

[Aaron McDonald]

And it's a thing that, like, Wheel loves.

[David Saltzberg]

Reiki.

[Aaron McDonald]

We've won it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Reiki energy.

[Aaron McDonald]

Yeah, it so is like. It is.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. But there's an X prize for the first tricorder.

[Aaron McDonald]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So the X prize is money gathered and it's given to. And then people compete for a device that you can hover over a person and it'll diagnose your. Get your vitals.

[Aaron McDonald]

Yeah. So this prize that they offered, it was like, you had to. The numbers are approximate, but you had to pick up, like, five to eight vital signs and be able to diagnose a handful of ailments without touching someone, like, just with scanning it. And someone won it. Like, they. They have that ability.

[Pete Holmes]

Elizabeth Holmes.

[Aaron McDonald]

And it's. No, she didn't. Perfectly clear.

[Pete Holmes]

Sweet Theranos riff, bro. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Aaron McDonald]

But what's neat is that that idea of necessity driving invention. And, you know, we went through a period where you didn't really want to be in close contact with a lot of really sick people. And so that sort of moves that machine. And just because it was invented, it's like that technology exists, but it's the size of a house and is.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You know, so somebody's gotta be motivated who's thinking about the future. And you have creative futurists doing just that and storytellers that can have all of us participate in that. So I'm old enough to be the first. First Trek series Okay. Like Captain Kirk, that one. And I. So I. Warp drives, check. Photon torpedoes, check. That's the future for sure. And I was just going down the list, and then they just walk up to a door and it just automatically opens. And I said, nah, that'll never happen. So don't ever take future parts predictions from me. Right. Because that was the least believable thing. That's how old I am. Doors didn't automatic. You had to physically open the door yourself.

[Pete Holmes]

The first time you rode the subway in New York, you were like,

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No, no, no, I'm not talking about. I'm not talking about doors that do open automatically. I'm talking about doors that know you're approaching the door and then they open. That the subway doesn't know you're there.

[Pete Holmes]

I understand. Grocery store, then.

[Aaron McDonald]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's the first time I had touched sensitive pads.

[Pete Holmes]

They had pads on the Enterprise. They were just the same color as the carpet.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The early one.

[Pete Holmes]

All the whole foods in space.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So I'm just wondering what the future might bring. What do we need out of this?

[Pete Holmes]

We want the molecule thing that makes a hamburger replicator.

[Aaron McDonald]

Yeah. I think that's the one we're closest to that we don't have yet.

[Pete Holmes]

Really?

[Aaron McDonald]

Because 3D printer technology has gotten so good and efficient and smaller and like, we all. I never thought I would own a 3D printer. Now I have three because I'm that type of person.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The three 3D printers.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, the first one printed the other.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No, no, no, you missed it. You missed it. It's one for every dimension.

[Pete Holmes]

Ah, very good.

[Aaron McDonald]

There you go. Yeah, exactly. But also the food science and, like, things like discovering the protein responsible for regular, like, what we're getting there in these advances that maybe one day we can print a burger that will take 25 hours and taste horrible. But, like, it might happen. So anyway.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. That's what you're after.

[Aaron McDonald]

That's what. I'm excited.

[Pete Holmes]

Feel better than Shakies.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I'm just thinking of all the things you're wishing for in the future. You want to print the hamburger.

[Aaron McDonald]

I think that I'm wishing for.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

What do you want?

[David Saltzberg]

The future I want. I want radios that use dark matter to communicate.

[Aaron McDonald]

Nice.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Ooh, see, now that's the thing.

[Sasheer Zamata]

I said.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No.

[Pete Holmes]

You don't want to turn a burner.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No.

[Pete Holmes]

The environmental implications of raising cattle are staggering. This guy wants a walkie talkie that works a different way.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So sheer.

[Pete Holmes]

Drop the mic for me.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So, Shir, what do you want for the future?

[Sasheer Zamata]

I do want to Teleport.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

But I don't.

[Sasheer Zamata]

I don't want to be murdered. But yeah, if I can just get somewhere quickly.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, yeah, I got to land this plane.

[Pete Holmes]

Star talk with Neil Degrassi. Star talk. He's real sassy. Star talk. Three dimensions. Star talk. Check out dimensions.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Are you full of random, random words out of this conversation.

[Pete Holmes]

Dark matter, fission, fusion, all of the F's. Neil is horny. What you think of the jets? Well, I'll never be asked back.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So let me offer some parting thoughts here. I think you're here because you have some appreciation for science. As a minimum, you're science adjacent. Okay? As the saying goes, and you know that civilization pivots on the progress of science and what it can do for our health, our wealth, and our security. I relish in the creativity of those who tell us stories about a future that could be. Because it has me thinking beyond the moment and saying, what do I have the knowledge, the power, the wisdom or the insight to implement so I can create a world like that? And there's this time honored does art imitate life? Does life imitate art? Well, I think we can elevate that to the next level. Does life imitate science fiction? Or does science fiction imitate life? Or maybe we are needlessly turning that into a binary question. And perhaps as we go forward, it is the interplay of the two that will shape the future of civilization. A future world that we'd be proud to live in and not embarrassed that we created. And that is a cosmic perspective. Novo Theater, Los Angeles. Evan McDonald, David Sulzburg. Pete Holmes, Cesar Demeda. This has been StarTalk brought to you live on stage. And as always, keep looking up.

[Pete Holmes]

Neil DeGrasse Tyson, everybody.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

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