Things You Thought You Knew – Quantum Cat

Summary

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StarTalk Radio – “Things You Thought You Knew – Quantum Cat”

Host: Neil deGrasse Tyson
Co-Host: Chuck Nice
Release Date: October 7, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode of StarTalk Radio, hosted by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-hosted by comedian Chuck Nice, dives into classic fan-favorite science concepts: “Death by Black Hole,” Schrödinger’s Cat, and quantum tunneling. Tyson and Nice fuse physics lessons with tangible analogies and comedy, making mind-bending physical phenomena digestible and entertaining. The discussion shines a light on black hole physics, the infamous quantum cat paradox, quantum measurement, and the strange but essential phenomenon of quantum tunneling—with plenty of nerdy humor and memorable moments along the way.

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1. Death by Black Hole & The Science of Tidal Forces

Segment Starts: 00:44

Key Discussion Points

• Tidal Forces on Earth:

  • Tyson explains how gravity varies slightly between your feet and head (on Earth) and how this relates to the concept of tidal forces.
  • Analogy: The effect is negligible for humans due to our small height compared to Earth’s radius, but profoundly more significant near a black hole.

• Extreme Tidal Forces Near Black Holes:

  • As objects approach a black hole, the difference in gravitational pull across an object (e.g., a person) becomes so great that it tears objects apart—a process known as "spaghettification."
  • Tyson describes how your body would be elongated and then ripped into pieces as you fall feet-first into a black hole.

• Comedic Medieval Torture Comparison:

  • Tyson and Nice engage in a vivid, darkly funny consideration of medieval torture devices, likening them to the black hole experience.
  • Quote:
    • Tyson: “Don’t make me get medieval on your ass.” (08:14)
    • Nice: “We must perforate him now. Wait for the perforation.” (09:23)

• Progression of Spaghettification:

  • Your body would first snap at the lower spine, then split progressively into pieces, until you’re a stream of atoms falling toward the singularity.
  • Ultimately, space and time themselves “extrude” you like toothpaste through a tube.

• Poetic Summary:

  • Tyson reads a poem he wrote to sum up the horror humorously:

    “In your feet first dive to this cosmic abyss.
    You will not survive because you will not miss.
    The tidal forces of gravity will create quite a calamity.
    When you’re stretched head to toe.
    Are you sure you want to go?
    Your body’s atoms, you’ll see them
    will enter one by one.
    The singularity will eat him
    and you won’t be having fun.” (15:44)

• Memorable Moment:

  • Nice: “That is the scariest Dr. Seuss book I have never heard. Good night, Timmy.” (16:14)

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2. Schrödinger’s Cat & The Quantum Measurement Effect

Segment Starts: 19:34

Key Discussion Points

• Schrödinger’s Cat in Pop Culture:

  • Nice notes the ubiquity of Schrödinger’s cat in jokes and references—often misunderstood in its physics context.
  • Tyson: “It’s entered pop culture.” (19:59)

• The Observer (Measurement) Effect:

  • Tyson clarifies misconceptions, noting it’s not about consciousness affecting the outcome but about measurement—energy imparted by photons changes what’s being measured.
  • Quote:
    • Tyson: “It’s not so much an observer effect, it’s a measurement effect.” (26:00)
    • Nice: “So am I there? Am I not there? ...Well, we’ll never really know because you’re hitting me with something that makes me not there once you’re exposing me to it.” (25:00)

• Analogy to Human Perception:

  • Tyson explains why this effect doesn’t impact humans in daily life: We’re too large for photons to dislodge or measurably alter us. Not so for subatomic particles.

• Schrödinger’s Cat Paradox Explained:

  • The paradox: A cat in a sealed box, linked to a quantum event, is in a superposition of being both alive and dead until observed.
  • Quote:
    • Tyson: “The cat’s existence is a superposition of being dead and being alive.” (27:30)

• Superposition & Quantum Computing:

  • Tyson relates this quantum ambiguity to “qubits” in quantum computing, which can be both 0 and 1 simultaneously (in ratios).
  • Quote:
    • Tyson: “A quantum bit ... can be either a 0 or a 1 or anything in between. ... So the qubit has more computational versatility than a regular bit.” (30:45)

• Humorous Morbid Analogy:

  • Nice draws a (very dark) parallel to the movie “Se7en”—“Brad Pitt’s wife’s head in a box”—as a form of Schrödinger’s thought experiment.
  • Tyson: “That is the most morbid analogy to this example I have ever heard.” (30:02)

• Coin Toss Analogy:

  • Tyson suggests a simpler analogy: “Schrödinger’s Coin—Is it heads or tails?” (32:41)

• Quantum Tunneling Teaser:

  • Extending the discussion: The wave function of the quantum cat/particle extends “outside the box,” allowing for quantum tunneling.

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3. Quantum Tunneling: The Particle That Goes Through Walls

Segment Starts: 39:42

Key Discussion Points

• Classical vs. Quantum Barriers:

  • Tyson uses the analogy of climbing over a hill versus tunneling through it. In classical physics, you need enough energy to overcome the barrier; in quantum physics, the wave function allows a particle to “show up” on the other side without enough energy to get over.

• Quantum Tunneling Explained:

  • “Quantum mechanical tunneling” is when a particle has a nonzero probability of appearing on the other side of an energy barrier, even if it seemingly lacks the energy to cross it.
  • Quote:
    • Tyson: “Because it exists as a wave function, there will always be a probability that it can show up where it was not invited.” (42:08)
    • Nice: “Quantum wedding crashing.” (43:12)

• Application – Creation of Elements in Stars:

  • Tyson explains how quantum tunneling is critical for fusion in stars.
  • Classically, protons shouldn’t be able to get close enough (due to electrostatic repulsion) to fuse (need ~1 billion degrees), but actual star cores are only ~10-15 million degrees.
  • Quantum tunneling allows fusion at these lower temperatures, enabling energy generation in stars and element synthesis.

• Memorable Quotes and Moments:

  • Tyson: “So you're glad it's not converting every encounter into energy. The sun would just blow up smithereens.” (48:29)
  • Nice: “Quantum quantum tunneling, baby.” (51:57)

• Spooky-Action Connection:

  • Tyson touches on how tunneling happens instantly—distance is “immaterial.”
  • Quote:
    • Tyson: “No matter the size of that potential barrier… It tunnels and appears on the other side instantly.” (50:00)
    • Nice: “It was always there to begin with. That is so freaky.” (50:39)

• Tease for Another Episode:

  • They close by promising to revisit more “freaky, wacky quantum phenomena,” specifically mentioning the Bose-Einstein condensate.

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4. Notable Quotes & Comedic Highlights

• On Black Hole Death:

  • Tyson: “Your brain is still working. You can, in principle, see this... And by the way, they did these experiments from what I’ve read in the French Revolution, with the guillotine.” (12:22)

• On Physics vs. Chemistry Teachers:

  • Tyson: “So it’s not his fault. He’s a chemistry teacher… He thinks—and we know how stupid they are.” (44:31) (Delivered tongue-in-cheek, poking fun at physicist/chemist rivalry)

• On Quantum Physics' Weirdness:

  • Tyson: “All of quantum physics is. That’s only part of the freaky stuff. That’s like the 12th freakiest thing I could tell you because you can’t handle the other 11.” (50:43)

• On Calculators:

  • Tyson: “I had a friend who had the very first Texas Instruments scientific calculator… It predated model numbers.” (36:12)
  • Nice: “Do cosine. Do the cosine again.” (36:41)

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5. Timeline Segment Reference

| Timestamp | Topic/Segment | |-----------|-------------------------------------------------------| | 00:44 | Death by Black Hole & Spaghettification | | 15:44 | Tyson's poem about black hole death | | 19:34 | Enter Schrödinger’s Cat & Quantum Measurement Effect | | 26:00 | Measurement effect explained (not observer's mind!) | | 27:30 | Superposition (alive/dead cat) explained | | 30:45 | Quantum computing and qubits | | 39:42 | Quantum Tunneling Introduced | | 44:29 | Stellar fusion and quantum tunneling | | 50:00 | Tunneling happens instantly; "the freaky stuff" | | 51:03 | Teaser: Bose-Einstein condensate for another episode |

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6. Episode Tone and Style

• Explanations cater to both science enthusiasts and novices, with humor and accessible analogies.
• Chuck Nice frequently interrupts with jokes, keeping the tone light during dense scientific explanations.
• Tyson grounds the science, but frequently joins in the comedic asides.

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For Listeners in a Rush

• The episode demystifies three iconic science concepts—tidal stretching near black holes, the genuine meaning of Schrödinger’s cat, and why quantum tunneling is essential for the universe’s existence—all with accessible metaphors and “dad joke” energy.
• Key takeaways: Black holes rip you apart (spaghettification); quantum measurement is about physical energy transfer, not “mind over matter;” and without quantum tunneling, stars (and life) couldn’t exist.
• For curious listeners, Tyson teases even weirder topics for future episodes.

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End of Summary

Transcript

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Coming up on StarTalk. It's another things you thought you knew episode. This time, we bring to you a few fan favorites. Death by black Hole, Schrodinger's Cat, and Quantum tunneling. Don't want to miss it. Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. I want to describe what it's like to die as you fall into a black hole.

[Chuck Nice]

Now, are we recounting a personal experience here? Perhaps that could be the reason for the delay in discussing this.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Are you sure you're ready for this?

[Chuck Nice]

After this? After this. Harrowing.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

One of the highest compliments I ever got was I was giving a tour of the newly built Hayden Planetarium, newly renovated to Seinfeld. Okay, who lived across the street? So he was a neighbor.

[Chuck Nice]

What's the deal with delights?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So I described the Big Bang to him in the first few moments and in exquisite detail, and he says, it sounds like you were there. I thought, man, that's a high compliment. I'd never forget that.

[Chuck Nice]

That's pretty funny.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I'm about to describe death by black hole. And no, I will alert you in advance, I was not there. Okay, but we know the physics of it, and that's just as good. Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

All right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So a black hole. So you're standing here on Earth.

[Chuck Nice]

All right? I am, by the way, sitting.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You're sitting on Earth, and your feet are closer to the center of the Earth than the top of your head is.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Do we agree?

[Chuck Nice]

I will agree. I'm not that short.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So, yeah, you have to be really short for that not to be.

[Chuck Nice]

Gotta be kinda like a Mr. Potato Head. Have your feet right at the bottom of your head, right up under Your right up under your neck.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I guess Mr. Potato Head didn't have a torso.

[Chuck Nice]

No.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, my gosh.

[Chuck Nice]

That's right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, that is. That is sad.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah, it is.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

How come I never noticed that?

[Chuck Nice]

That's right. Mr. Potato Head was all head.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It was all head and feet, arms and feet.

[Chuck Nice]

That was it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Arms coming out of the side of his head.

[Chuck Nice]

That's right. Arms. Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right. So you can calculate the strength of Earth's gravity at your feet and the strength of Earth's gravity at the top of your head. And you'll get a different number.

[Chuck Nice]

Wow.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Because your feet are closer to the center of the Earth.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And the closer you are to an object with gravity, the higher is the gravitational force operating on you. Okay, so if I do that for you, you're five, nine, something like that. How tall are you? And so you're 5 10.

[Chuck Nice]

I want that extra inch. You're a big guy, so you don't care. You're like six three. So you don't give a damn.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No, I'm six two.

[Chuck Nice]

See, that's what I'm saying. You know, I gave you an inch.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I was 62 in high school. I probably, you know, got the old man shrinkage from that. So. All right, so I can write down the difference between those two forces, and it's not gonna be very much. So you don't think about it. You don't care about it. It's not much because your height is small compared with the radius of the Earth. Correct radius here is 4,000 miles. And here you are, you know, just under six feet. So that's. So we don't think about this difference in the gravitational force. We don't have occasion to think about it. But that difference in force has a word. It's called the tidal force.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. Now, the tidal force of the moon operating on the Earth, the side of the Earth facing the Moon, feels a stronger gravitational force of the Moon than the side of the Earth that's on the. Than the other side of the Earth that's farther away from the Moon. You can calculate this, okay? And so the entire Earth is stretched in the direction of the Moon because of this tidal force.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The solid Earth is stretched, but that's less noticeable because we're walking around on the solid Earth. But what's most noticeable is the oceans are stretched, and it's called a tidal bulge. All right? And so wherever you're gonna find the moon, you're gonna find a tidal bulge elongated, pointing to the Moon. It actually doesn't it points ahead of the Moon. Cause we're dragging it as Earth rotates. But that's a whole other explainer that we'll get into. For now, just consider it. We're aligned with the Moon. Okay? So now watch. That's because Earth is big compared to the distance between the Moon and the Earth, okay? So that's why Earth is bigger compared to that distance than you are compared to Earth's radius.

[Chuck Nice]

Right?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So now watch what happens. Let's turn Earth into a black hole. Let's just do that.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You know how you do that? You just shrink it.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay? Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

As you shrink it, the gravity on the surface goes up. Why? You're getting closer to the center of the Earth, and it still has all the mass. In this model that I'm describing, two things tell you how much you weigh, how far away you are, and how much mass is tugging on you as that happens. Your size, which is still 5ft 10, right. Relative to the size that the Earth is becoming, is actually more and more significant.

[Chuck Nice]

Right. Because the Earth is no longer 4,000 miles in radius. It's. That radius is shrinking and shrinking and shrinking. So it's becoming much closer to my size as it's.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Correct. Correct. And when you do the math, the difference in the force between your feet and the top of the head gets greater and greater and greater.

[Chuck Nice]

Ooh.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so now let's fall into a black hole and describe what happens. Okay?

[Chuck Nice]

Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So here you are falling into a black. Towards a black hole. There's no air, so no one's hearing you.

[Chuck Nice]

Damn it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, you're just catching flies with your open mouth there. That's all. All right, so meteor particles. So you're falling feet first. Let's give you a feet first dive. And the tidal force is slowly getting greater and greater. And initially it feels kind of good. Who doesn't love a good stretch, right?

[Chuck Nice]

Best spa ever.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I know. And then you realize, wait a minute. That stretch is not only not abating, it's getting worse.

[Chuck Nice]

Uh oh, we're getting medieval.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, exactly.

[Chuck Nice]

We're getting medieval. This ain't cool.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Don't make me get medieval on your ass. I had not thought about how medieval this is. Because you look at the machines they had, it's like, what were they thinking?

[Chuck Nice]

Let me tell you something, man. Somebody was staying up at night thinking this stuff up. Ways to torture and kill people, because.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That is effed up.

[Chuck Nice]

They excelled beyond imagination.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I heard there's another one where they disembowel you. And so that hurts enough and then they take your intestines out and put it on the fire so that you're not only in pain from being cut open, your organs are in pain. And after they've removed it, because it's still. You know, your intestines are all stringy, right? So they're still connected to you. And then you know what being drawn and quartered is? You know what that is?

[Chuck Nice]

Is that the one where they put you on the horse or the four horses?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, four horses, Right? So a horse to each limb. And then they'll score you, right? They'll just. So that you cut more easily.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, man. We must perforate him now. Wait for the perforation.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So you do that. And when the four horses run away, you are in four different pieces. That is disgusting. No matter what, you are in four different pieces by the time that's done.

[Chuck Nice]

Well, really five. Cause there's a torso laying on the ground.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No, no, no, no, no. That's not how it works.

[Chuck Nice]

No, I thought you. I thought you. So each limb.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so if. If. So if three limbs are pulled off, the fourth limb is still attached to the rest of your body.

[Chuck Nice]

No, I thought it was four. Like four horses, one for each limb.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And I know what I'm saying is your body doesn't rip apart simultaneously. Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, God.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so one horse rips off one arm. Oh, no. And then one other leg, and then another leg. And. And one arm has slightly more muscle tissue there. Holds onto the rest of the torso.

[Chuck Nice]

I did not know this is how this thing worked. This is. I mean, you just made it ten times worse.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I'm saying that what you described. The limbs would have to be equally attached with a force tissue.

[Chuck Nice]

Exactly.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And simultaneously pulled in exactly the right angles.

[Chuck Nice]

Exactly.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

For them to pull off all at the same instant. And this is not how that works.

[Chuck Nice]

That's my point. You ruined my fantasy is what I'm talking.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, Sorry. That you just drop down in the middle as your four limbs.

[Chuck Nice]

I just drop in the middle and I'm sitting there like an oblong, you know?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Then you're not being quartered. You're being dismembered. That's different.

[Chuck Nice]

You're right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so this is all nice preamble for what's about to happen to you.

[Chuck Nice]

Uh. Oh.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. So your feet first, falling towards the black hole.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The stretch feels good, but then it becomes unrelenting because your height is now a bigger and bigger fraction of the distance you are to the center of the black hole. All right, so now you Start sliding in. And what happens? Oh, my gosh. The tidal force exceed. There will be a point where the tidal force exceeds the molecular forces that keep your body attached as one piece.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, no. My molecular bond.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Your molecular bond. So you will snap into two parts.

[Chuck Nice]

That's nasty.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And since all the forces are operating uniformly across your body, it's not like a horse yanking on one thing or another. I did a calculation. I probably have to speak with some physiologist about this, but I think you'll initially snap at your lower spine. Okay, so those are the two bits. Now, those two parts of you continue to feel the tidal force.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So they stretch. Okay. And so your bottom half snaps into two pieces.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Your upper torso snaps into two pieces. And as best as I can judge, that would be at the base of your neck. Okay. Now, your brain is still working. You can, in principle, see this. Okay. This happens pretty fast. And by the way, they did these experiments from what I've read in the French Revolution, with the guillotine. Right. If you're gonna be guillotine, you might as well help out science. Right? So with your head on the ground, before your brain really knows that it can't get oxygen from blood, do your eyes still work? Okay, and so I think they did experiments where they hold up one finger, two finger, and you blink if you saw two fingers or one finger just for that. Cause your eyes go straight to your brain. They don't need your torso for none of that. Okay, so people were messed up in the past. Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

That's all I could say.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right, so now you're in four pieces, and they continue to feel the tidal force. And then you go from 2 to 4 to 8 to 16 to 32 to 64. And this continues until you are a stream of atoms, like a train of atoms pouring down to the singularity. And that's not the worst of it.

[Chuck Nice]

Go ahead.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. The fabric of space and time funnels. Funnels and gets narrower and narrower because it ends up at a singularity.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, no.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So whatever horizontal volume you occupied, you become extruded through the fabric of space like toothpaste through a tube. This form of death has a name, and it's called spaghettification.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay, Well, I mean, I can't believe something that horrific could have such a delicious name. How did this happen?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So I, many years ago, wrote a book called Death by Black Hole. And I thought the book would do well. And the publisher looked kind of askance at me, like, no, we don't think this is gonna do? Well, I said, dude, look at the title. Come on now. And so they didn't print enough copies when it was first released and it sold out in a day.

[Chuck Nice]

Wow.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And then this is before we had like Amazon and everything. So when you sell off the shelves, there's nothing there to buy. But in that week, it hit the bestseller list. But it became a minimum bestseller. Right? It hit number 15 for one week. That's a minimum bestseller. But I would have stayed there if there was more books available, more copies. Yeah. So I lorded that over the publisher ever since. But anyhow, Death by black Hole. And I describe this, but also I want to share with you a poem that I composed about death by black hole. May I?

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah, please do.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I'm not a poet, so dare I call it a poem? I'll call it a rhyme. Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

Alrighty.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Here it is.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

In your feet first dive to this cosmic abyss. You will not survive because you will not miss. The tidal forces of gravity will create quite a calamity. When you're stretched head to toe. Are you sure you want to go? Your body's atoms, you'll see them will enter one by one. The singularity will eat him and you won't be having fun.

[Chuck Nice]

That, I have to say, is the scariest Dr. Seuss book I have never heard. Good night, Timmy.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Behave tomorrow.

[Chuck Nice]

Exactly.

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This is StarTalk with Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

[Chuck Nice]

This is something you hear all the time, especially in jokes, believe it or not.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Really?

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. Schrodinger's cat.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Wait a minute. You have a quantum division of the joke department?

[Chuck Nice]

Well, I don't think that the comedians know what Schrodinger's cat is, but it's such a. It's such a ubiquitous reference that they make reference to it a lot of times.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's interculture. It's entered pop culture.

[Chuck Nice]

It has interculture. I don't know why they don't call it Schrodinger's Dog.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, all right, so, all right, so it dates back to Irwin Schrodinger. Ewin. Yes. And he was a physicist. They're all won Nobel prizes, all these people who contributed to our understanding of the quantum. And quantum mechanics is what it's officially called, but I like just calling it quantum physics because it's an entire branch of physics that deals with the small things in the universe, all that is small.

[Chuck Nice]

So you do sweat the small stuff.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yes, you do. I see. Precisely, precisely. And the Schrodinger's cat relates a little bit to what people have called the observer effect, okay. Where if you observe something, you change it. So I can respond to both of those in the same pop, if you allow me.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So let's do the observer effect for the moment. So it's unfortunate that somebody called it the observer effect, because then New Age folk and other people who were basically scientifically illiterate were thinking it's your consciousness that affects what you're observing. And oh, my gosh, there's a consciousness field and they go running off in a, you know, off the cliff.

[Chuck Nice]

See, what you don't understand is that, like, particles are totally alive, okay? And the reason why there is a collective consciousness in the universe is because, like all of these particles that are spinning, what they're actually doing is conducting thought and consciousness.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

They're thinking.

[Chuck Nice]

They're thinking, man, rocks think.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Trees think more than rocks, right? So let me cut through all of that and simply say that you're sitting there and I can see you because, in fact, you're illuminated by, if not sunlight through an open window, an uncurtained window, but artificial light within the room. All right? That light hits your face, bounces off your face, goes through the computing system, and I see you, okay? That light carries energy. Every photon of light that strikes your face carries energy. And most of them reflect. Others get absorbed. Actually, it depends on how dark your skin is. Skin is very dark. It'll absorb most of them if you have very.

[Chuck Nice]

Because, you know, photons, they want to be a part of this baby. Let me get some. There goes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Let me get some.

[Chuck Nice]

I see where we're landing. Oh, we got some good chocolate over here.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yes. Just to be more precise about Chuck's excursion there, darker skinned people absorb more sunlight than lighter skinned people. And it's your albedo, it's the percentage of incident energy that you absorb relative to what you reflect. Very important calculation for the Earth, because what Earth absorbs drives our climate, whereas what Earth reflects back to space just goes back to space from the sun. And so glaciers reflect light, cloud tops reflect light, oceans reflect light, that sort of thing.

[Chuck Nice]

So for climate change to Solve it. We just need to get a bunch of white people in one place.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Just reflect the light to reduce the.

[Chuck Nice]

Do us a favor, guys. Sunbathe. Everybody just sunbathe right here.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Reflect out the sun.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay. All right. I'm sorry. I had to do it, man. All right. Don't write, don't write, don't write.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

But that was good. That was funny. That was a good one. Yeah. I mean, if the Earth is getting hot you just increase its albedo to increase the reflectance of it, right? Yeah. So instead of Chuck's solution, everyone could just wear white clothing and that would be even better.

[Chuck Nice]

That's more inclusive. I'll give you. That's more inclusive.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The DEI authorities will take you. That's how you do that on the campus. So here's the thing. If I made you tinier and tinier and tinier so you're no longer a macroscopic human. You're a microscopic particle. There's a particle size below which, when you open the curtains and shine light on you that light will hit you and pop you into another location.

[Chuck Nice]

So I'm smaller than the photon than what?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The. Your capacity to move to a different state of existence. That the energy that is required to make that happen. Correct.

[Chuck Nice]

Got it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The same as the energy of the light that's hitting you.

[Chuck Nice]

Gotcha. So you hit me with a ray.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Beam in order to see you.

[Chuck Nice]

Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And then you pop somewhere else and I say, where'd you go?

[Chuck Nice]

Right. What are you doing? So am I there? Am I not there? Well, we'll never really know because you're hitting me with something that makes me not there once you're exposing me to it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Correct. And since it happens on the moment you're exposed, not the moment I see you, I will never know what you were doing.

[Chuck Nice]

Exactly.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. If you're small enough for that light energy to affect you in that way. So that's why we don't think about this in everyday life. Because we're too big for light to pop us into other states of existence.

[Chuck Nice]

Exactly.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

But particles, electrons, atoms, all of this, it happens all the time. And this was a very disturbing discovery in the 1920s. We're in the centennial decade of the discovery of quantum physics in the 1920s. Because you discover this. I wanna see what you're doing. Oh, my gosh. You're not gonna let me see what you're doing. Because the light I shine on you in order to see it is. So it's really. It's not so much an observer effect, it's A measurement effect.

[Chuck Nice]

Exactly.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. Get the human brain out. It's just a device to measure you. You can't know it. Okay, Right. So let's get on to. So it has nothing to do with consciousness. So let's get on to Schrodinger's cat. By the way, it's from an era where people spoke lightly of doing bad things to cats. Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, no.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

PETA. So, you know. Yeah. PETA wasn't around. So I'm a little disturbed that they picked cats. Right. They could have picked dogs. They could have picked worms. But cats are lovable, and they'll fit in a box. Right. And so. Because house cats don't come as large as house dogs do. Just think that through.

[Chuck Nice]

Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Can you imagine?

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. A box for a dog is called your living room.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right. So here's what happens. You say to yourself, you put a cat in a box. And if the cat is a quantum cat with two states, states of existence, it's either dead or alive. While it's in the box, you have no idea which it is. And so the way we describe this in quantum physics, if you do the experiments, okay, so some percentage of the time you open the box, the cat will be alive. Others, the cat will be dead. And so what we say is that the cat's existence is a superposition of being dead and being alive.

[Chuck Nice]

I gotcha.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's a superposition of those two states.

[Chuck Nice]

Because it's in the box.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's in the box, and you're not looking at it.

[Chuck Nice]

And you're not looking at it. And that's why the superposition exists.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Correct. And it's a quantum cat, not a macroscopic.

[Chuck Nice]

It's not Maru, the Internet cat that people love to see jump out of a box.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. All right.

[Chuck Nice]

Right. It's a hypothetical quantum cat.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

By the way, do you know Cats on the Internet took a steep rise the same year that Cats on Broadway closed the Musical? Really? Yes. Check your data on that.

[Chuck Nice]

That is a weird little fact.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So we need somebody to investigate that. Cause where did those cats go is what. So it was like 1990, you know, early Internet, you know, and Cats closes on Broadway. And so I think people needed their catfix and it landed on the Internet. But anyhow, so here we go. Now, the superposition, the details of that experiment are more intricate than what I'm describing to you. Because what they wanted was to have, like, something that's radioactive that would decay. And then that would then trigger a gate that would open the box. You know, it's A little more Rube Goldbergian than what I'm describing. But just to be clear, if you don't look in the box, you do not know if the cat is alive or dead. So the Schrodinger's cat is. You're talking about something that you don't know about until you actually investigate it. And then you'll know about it.

[Chuck Nice]

And it's the end of the movie 7.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I didn't see that.

[Chuck Nice]

That was a movie that came out many years ago with Morgan Freeman and the beautiful man. I forget his name. Oh, God. He did 12 Monkeys. He's done Thelma and Louise. What's his name? Brad Pitt.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Thank you. Oh, Brad Pitt. Of course.

[Chuck Nice]

Brad P. So Brad Pitt is stalking a serial killer who is looking. Who is using the seven deadly sins to kill people. Long story short, the last murder, he puts the head of someone in the box, and Brad Pitt wants to know what's in the box. And Morgan Freeman says, don't look in the box. There's no reason for you to look in this box. And Brad Pitt goes, what's in the box? Cause he knows that it's his wife's head.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That is completely morbid.

[Chuck Nice]

Like what? I know, but it's perfect. It should be called Schrodinger's cat. It should be called Brad Piff's White's wife's head.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Chuck, that is the most morbid analogy to this example I have ever heard.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh. Oh. Cause a dead cat is perfectly fine. Oh, no.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so. So this actually, in a way, applies to quantum computing, which you might have heard snippets about, or at least bits of headlines that are making the news. So if we think of regular computing is like a zeros and ones bits, right? And all calculations are done in this way. Well, quantum computing a bit. A quantum bit, otherwise known as a qubit, can be either a 0 or a 1 or anything in between.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It could be 80% 1, 20% 0, 50. 50. 80% 0, 20% 1, or anything on that continuum. And so the qubit has more computational versatility than a regular bit that can only be either a 0 or. Or a 1. And when I say you can be anywhere between a zero or one, statistically, you can have that bit represent 80% ones, 20% zeros. It can be any combination of those two in the service of the programming that you're introducing to the computer. Holy crap. So all of that, Schrodinger's cat, your dead wife's head in a box from this morbid movie that Now I'm never gonna see.

[Chuck Nice]

So what do you think about?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You were so excited about it too.

[Chuck Nice]

Because it's so much better than Stranger's cat.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

It actually represents something that is consequential that. You know, I mean, nevermind. It doesn't really make a difference. It's. I mean, it doesn't make any difference. Once you're on the quantum, it doesn't make a difference, but it's just a much cooler reference.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right? Right. Because it's not a quantum head.

[Chuck Nice]

It's not a quantum head, so it doesn't make a difference. You know, once you're in the quantum. It's not a. It's not a ca. It's a quantum cat. And it's not a head, it's a quantum head.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So, you know, I see what you're saying. It was never really a cat to begin with.

[Chuck Nice]

Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It was a fictional quantum cat in the same way it's a quantum head.

[Chuck Nice]

Exactly. Exactly.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The world according to Chuck.

[Chuck Nice]

So funny. You're like Chuck, go have another bowl and get back to me.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So Chuck, there it is. That's like, you know, Schrodinger's cat 101. He could have. Should call it Schrodinger's Coin. Is it heads or tails?

[Chuck Nice]

Right, Right. Exactly.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's just. Is the quantum state only have two possibilities in that description. And so once you open the box and thereby gain access to information that is otherwise hidden from any observer or any device that would make the measurement.

[Chuck Nice]

Coin is actually the best representation. Since if it's a superposition like we said or like you said, like I said.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right. Please look at me taking.

[Chuck Nice]

Look at me taking credit for quantum discoveries. However, that means it's always a probability.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So probability. Correct.

[Chuck Nice]

It's always a probability. So that means quantum coin is actually. You came up with the best one. Why you gotta do that? Why you gotta best me? I come up with a head in the box and then you still gotta outdo me. Really?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We can't leave our fans with a head in a box version of this. I'm sorry. And just to be clear, the quantum state doesn't have to be one or the other.

[Chuck Nice]

Right?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It depends on the atom and the circumstances. But it can be any number of different states that each have a probability of being true.

[Chuck Nice]

Exactly.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

In fact, the wave function of the particle extends outside of the box. Oh. So the probability drops rapidly across the border of the box. But it still exists in a little bit outside the box. So what's inside the box has a Probability of spontaneously disappearing from inside the box and appearing outside the box. That's called tunneling. And it does that instantaneously, like, faster than the speed of light. Another spooky, freaky thing in quantum physics. And that relates in part to quantum entanglement, because you can have two different particles whose wave functions interact on a way that where you do something, that one particle, the other one knows about it instantly because their wave functions communicate. This is quantum 101. It's like fun parts of quantum.

[Chuck Nice]

That is a lot of fun.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's crazy. We should do a lot of these about quantum physics. This was like an overview. I can spend a whole explainer on each one of these things, because this is the decade. In the 1920s was a watershed decade in physics where Hubble discovers that we. That the Milky Way is not the only galaxy. There are other island universes. They were called. Andromeda is another galaxy containing 400 billion stars. And three years later, in 1929, he discovered that the universe is expanding. And we apply Einstein's relativity to show that we've got possibly a big bang, which would later make 50 years. Before we had the supporting data and most of what we now know, understand, and love about quantum physics was discovered in the 1920s. And we knew all of that before the neutron was discovered and before Texas.

[Chuck Nice]

Instrument actually made a calculator.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Uh, yeah. And why is that?

[Chuck Nice]

Because that means these guys had to work that math off their own.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. Before anybody made a calculator.

[Chuck Nice]

Right?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, right. Exactly, exactly. By the way, I had a friend who had the very first Texas Instruments scientific calculator. And he knew it was the first because it didn't even have a model number on it.

[Chuck Nice]

Wow.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It predated model. It would ultimately become the TI35. But we. I remember we all crowded around it staring at it. It was this one of those moments that you never forget.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay. I just love the visual of a bunch of nerds crowded around. And then, you know, you think they're looking at a magazine or something. And then you part the ways, and they're all around a calculator.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Like, whoa, look at that.

[Chuck Nice]

Can you put. Believe this thing?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Welcome to the geek. The geekiverse there. Do cosine.

[Chuck Nice]

Do the cosine again. No.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I'm a tangent man myself.

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So if you're standing on one side of a hill, okay, and you've got to get to the other side of the hill, you're going to climb over the top of the hill and come down the other side.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. Or, I mean, that's why I had children. They're going to pull me up over the hill.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Let them call you, let them do the work.

[Chuck Nice]

I'm going to sit right here in this little cart. Y' all get moving.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So another way to do it is to bore a hole through the mountain, through the hill and come out the other side.

[Chuck Nice]

So true.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

By doing so, you've made a tunnel.

[Chuck Nice]

Correct.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. So you've made it easier to get from one side of the hill to the other because you don't have to go up and then come back down.

[Chuck Nice]

As a person who lives in Jersey, I appreciate that.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The tunneling. The tunneling from out of Manhattan.

[Chuck Nice]

That's right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Correct. Okay, so here's something interesting. In quantum physics, we can think of the hill as an energy barrier to you. Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay, that makes sense.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right, so you need energy to ascend the hill, otherwise you'll just stay where you are. So now we check. How much energy do you have? Oh, I can get halfway up the hill, but not any further. Three quarters of the way, but not any further. Okay, so in quantum physics, if there's a hill, we call them potential barriers because, all right, they're actual barriers, but they're called potential barriers. So there it is. And you have a particle on one side of that barrier and you give the particle energy. That can't make it. I can't make it.

[Chuck Nice]

This hill is too much. Why you gotta. Let's just stay here. Why don't we just live here?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Now you wiping the sweat off your brow, like electron sweat.

[Chuck Nice]

You have no idea how hot that nucleus.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So the particle, however, is not only a particle, it's also a wave.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And when you're a wave, there's something called a wave function. And a wave function is the probability of finding it anywhere in a volume spanned by that wave function. So you're more likely to find it where the wave peaks and where the wave drops off. You're less and less likely to find it there. And there's a point where don't ever wait around because it won't show up for trillions of years. All right? But there's an actual likelihood it can show up anywhere in the wave function, even in the low probability places. All right, so that wave doesn't know about and doesn't care about the mountain. Okay, so you can ask, does some of that wave show up on the other side of the mountain? If it does, then there is a probability that the particle that's stuck on one side will just simply appear on the other side of the mountain, having never had to ascend it in the first place because it didn't have enough energy to do it. But because it exists as a wave function, there will always be a probability that it can show up where it was not invited.

[Chuck Nice]

Ooh.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's called quantum mechanical tunneling.

[Chuck Nice]

Quantum wedding. Crashing.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's it. We built this wall. You're supposed to stay out.

[Chuck Nice]

Did you see that potential barrier?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Did you see that wall?

[Chuck Nice]

Does the potential barriers mean anything to you?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

This would be good for Trump. They built the wall to keep you out, but they're still tunneling in. They must be quantum mechanical entities.

[Chuck Nice]

This is the thing. Why aren't these. Why aren't these Kwatu from Norway? I'm sorry, I can't. Why can't we get the ones from Norway? They wouldn't have to tunnel.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so that's just quantum tunneling. So I'll show you how that manifests. Very interesting little history here, and then we'll call it quits, because this is just an explainer. In the early days, 100 some years ago, we didn't know where you got all the elements in the universe. Okay, okay. By the way, I remember asking my high school school chemistry teacher, where do the elements come from? Oh, they're in the Earth. And I would later learn, no, we made these suckers and stars, dude. All right. Won't you look up every now and then?

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, that is so funny.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so it's not his fault. He's a chemistry teacher. He. He thinks.

[Chuck Nice]

And we know how stupid they are. Come on. Let's be honest. He's a chemistry teacher. He's no physicist. Come on. What do you want, Jack?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

What do you want? So in the early days, the question was, where do we get these elements from? You could build them from smaller elements if you merge them. They did the calculation of what it would take to merge two hydrogen atoms. Now, what's in the nucleus of a hydrogen atom? A proton. You have a proton here and a proton there. And I want to merge them to make a nucleus that has two protons to two protons in it, which would be helium. That's a way to build elements from Scratch.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. So a proton is what charge?

[Chuck Nice]

Wait, the proton is positive.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Positive. And the charge on the other proton, it's also positive. It's also positive.

[Chuck Nice]

Like charges. Oh. They don't really like each other.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

They repel. Okay. So you have to get them close enough so that a strong nuclear force kicks in and holds them together. Okay. That's the basic task you have to accomplish here.

[Chuck Nice]

Sounds like Thanksgiving dinner at my crib.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Force it in.

[Chuck Nice]

Right. Get in there.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Get in there.

[Chuck Nice]

Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So it turns out the electromagnetic repulsion, the two positive charges, you can sort of get them closer and closer. If you speed them up by increasing the temperature of the plasma, they'll speed up. They'll get closer and closer and closer to each other as you increase the temperature. So you ask, at what temperature will they be close enough for the strong nuclear force to kick in and grab them? Okay, that's the question.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay, that's the question.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. That temperature is like a billion degrees.

[Chuck Nice]

Well, there you have it. A billion.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And we look and we do the calculation for the centers of stars. It's not a billion degrees.

[Chuck Nice]

So I'm taking it that the building of the elements doesn't work by getting a billion degrees.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No, it would if you could.

[Chuck Nice]

If you could. But I'm saying that.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, right, right. So the question was. So I think it was Eddington, a famous physicist of the day, astrophysicist. He was asked. He said, well, then where are we going to get the elements? I don't know where, but if it's going to happen anywhere, it's going to be in the center of stars. Okay. So even though we couldn't give him a billion degrees, he still said, I don't see any place else in the universe that will satisfy the needs of this requirement except the centers of stars. Okay. So there it just sat for decades. Okay, not many decades, but sat there as an unsolved problem until quantum physics came along. And then they said, okay, here's a proton coming close to another proton. So there's a barrier there that it can't cross. But wait a minute. The particles are also waves, and part of that wave exists within the grasp of the strong nuclear force.

[Chuck Nice]

Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And so there's a probability that some of these particles will merge and make helium.

[Chuck Nice]

Wow.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So then you say, what is that probability? So they said, well, what is the temperature of the center of the star? They said, 10 million degrees. It's not a billion. It's like 10, 15 million. So you do the math on the quantum physics, and you Say, what percentage of collisions will tunnel through this barrier and end up making helium? You come up with that percentage and bada bing, you recreate the total energy output of the sun.

[Chuck Nice]

Look at that.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So you're glad it's not converting every encounter into energy.

[Chuck Nice]

Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The sun would just blow up smithereens.

[Chuck Nice]

Well, yeah. Yes. Just like, why is everything. God damn, it's hot.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Says the hurt. Says the person who by then is just a puff of smoke.

[Chuck Nice]

Exactly.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You don't have time to utter those words.

[Chuck Nice]

Right. Wow. Okay, that.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right, so. Fascinating, Fascinating. So the thermonuclear fusion in stars that generates the energy at the temperatures. It does can only happen because of quantum mechanical tunneling.

[Chuck Nice]

That's boom. That is amazing.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And so just think about the challenges we astrophysicists have. We have an idea, by the way. So Eddington was right. It does happen in the centers of stars.

[Chuck Nice]

Of course.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right. Because nowhere else was rational. Right. But we didn't know enough physics at the time it was proposed. To answer that question, new physics had to be invented. And this is why we are always so excited when new physics comes along. People say, oh, someone has a new physics idea, but everyone else is rejecting it because they don't want to lose their highly invested lives in this. They're thinking that we don't like new ideas.

[Chuck Nice]

They got to you, Neil.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We love new ideas because they give a whole new understanding on the frontier of stuff that we didn't previously understand.

[Chuck Nice]

Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And so, yeah, that's quantum mechanical tunneling. Oh, oh, one other thing. It no matter the size of that potential barrier, Right. It tunnels and appears on the other side instantly.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh. So, okay, so the wave function just.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Collapses and it's there.

[Chuck Nice]

Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It doesn't travel there. It was always there probabilistically. Okay? So when your wave becomes the particle, boom, it is there.

[Chuck Nice]

So then distance makes no, it's immaterial.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's immaterial. It's instantaneous. So we think that it moved, but it really didn't. It was always there to begin with.

[Chuck Nice]

It was always there to begin with. That is so freaky.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's freaky.

[Chuck Nice]

That is so freaky.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All of quantum physics is. That's only part of the freaky stuff. That's like the 12th freakiest thing I could tell you because you can't handle the other 11.

[Chuck Nice]

I can't handle this.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You can't handle the two. Oh, there's another one. Let's save it for another one. To talk about a Bose Einstein condensate.

[Chuck Nice]

The Bose Einstein condensate.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, let's save that for another explainer.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. Okay, cool.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's a good one. Yeah, that's a totally good one.

[Chuck Nice]

That sounds delicious. Like something like that, you know, Right. Tonight's special is a farm raised Bose Einstein condensate with an arugula compote that we have designed, distilled down into a deconstructed quantum.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

My boy's been to some restaurants lately, get that fancy restaurant vocabulary going.

[Chuck Nice]

That's pretty wild. The Bose. We'll get that condensate.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We'll do that later in a little bit. A little bit relates to not really, but it's another freaky wacky quantum phenomenon that we'll save for another time. We got it. All right, Chuck. Another explainer.

[Chuck Nice]

Great. Quantum quantum tunneling, baby.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Be there. All right, Neil Degrasse Tyson here with Chuck. Nice four star talk. Keep looking at.

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

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