StarTalk Radio - Conquering the Game, with Tony Gonzalez

Episode Date: January 31, 2020

As we gear up for Super Bowl LIV, Neil deGrasse Tyson sits down with NFL legend Tony Gonzalez to explore his football career, quantum mechanics, veganism, success, and much more. Featuring co-hosts Gary O’Reilly and Chuck Nice. NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons and All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/show/conquering-the-game-with-tony-gonzalez/ Photo Credit: Vayner Talent. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. StarTalk. Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. This is sports edition of StarTalk. Every now and then we throw in one of those. I've got Chuck Nice. That's right, sir.

Chuck in the house. What's up, buddy? Tweeting Chuck Nice comic. Thank you, sir. Yes. Gary O'Reilly, former footballer. Yep. We can do a fist bump, too.

We can. You looked a little awkward there, but... Didn't want to knock the mic over. How about that? There we go. All right. Underneath. Today, we're featuring my interview, unexpurgated, straight on through with Tony Gonzalez, the

football great for the Kansas City Chiefs. One of the greatest tight ends to ever play the game. And he played with the Chiefs. And by that, I don't mean his position. Oh, for heaven's sake. You happy now? Yeah, yeah. You got that off your, okay.

Cut it out early. That's it. Come on. It's such a great... Okay. Got it out early. That's it. Come on. It's such a great old joke. It's so old. He was with the Chiefs from 1997 to 2008. And then he went to the Falcons. And now he's an on-air analyst for Fox NFL Sunday.

Yes. Yeah. But the Chiefs are in the Super Bowl. Chiefs are in the Super Bowl. That's right. Super Bowl 54 against the 49ers. And Gonzalez, I don't believe, ever won a playoff game. Damn.

In all his time at the Chiefs. Poor guy. And he's sitting there. I mean, he is awesome. But he doesn't have that one thing, that ring that sets you above and beyond. Well, that would be the overwhelming majority of NFL players. Yes, I think so. How many would that good?

You're saying to him like he has some unique issue, but you're saying he's so good that he should have. Well, he should have just went to the Patriots and he would have got, that's what everybody did. Still got that Patriots itch. I mean, you can't scratch that.

Listen, I'm just saying. That's what A-Rod did. He was on a losing team twice. That's right. And he was like, don't put my ass on the Yankees. That's what A-Rod did. He was on a losing team twice. That's right. And he was like, screw that. Don't put my ass on the Yankees. That's it. And then he went ahead and won the championship.

So, okay, let's look forward to Super Bowl 54. Chiefs and Niners. What's the deal? Who's your money on? You know, here's the thing. Don't ask me that because I don't bet. The Niners look great. But my money is on my man, my home.

I like the Chiefs. And I also, of course, you know, Andy Reid coached the Philadelphia Eagles for quite some time. And so, you know, being an Eagles fan, you know, I got to root for Andy. What's with the no-throw quarterback? The no-throw quarterback? Jimmy Garoppolo. Yeah, what's going on there? And here's the thing. And everybody says this, like,

Garoppolo doesn't throw the ball because they rush the ball for 200-whatever yards. So what? He won! That's the deal! That's what you want to do! Is it not because he doesn't throw because he throws interceptions too often?

That's what I'm wondering. Coach Shanahan's gone, ah, ah, ah, we're running this thing. Well, no, I think Garoppolo will have a good game. If he has to throw the ball, he'll throw the ball. But you do what you have to do to win. If the 49ers come out and the Chiefs can't stop the run, guess what? That's what they're going to do all day long,

just like they did against the Titans. But surely the strategy must be, can we keep Mahomes off the field? In which case, we dominate, we eat the clock if we're the Niners. Just by run, by run, by run, by run. The problem with trying to keep Mahomes off the field is he only has to be on the field for 22 seconds to score a touchdown. That's the problem with Patrick Mahomes. You know, the guy can score so quickly.

I really don't see the 49ers winning this game. But, you know, I mean, that in my opinion, $4.90 will get you a cup of coffee. He only ever wants Philadelphia to be in the, you know. Yeah, but that's fine. It's understandable. I do have issues. Yes, I do.

Yes. And I'm living vicariously through Kansas City because of Andy Reid. So, you know, I'm pretending it's the East. My romantic heart says Mahomes and the Chiefs. Not a fan of Garoppolo, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Let me ask you as a former pro bowler, what... A former... Yes, soccer player. Footballer. Footballer. Footballer. Yeah.

If you're never on a championship, but you're really good, how does that affect you? It'll break your heart. Iter. Yeah. If you're never on a championship, but you're really good, how does that affect you? It'll break your heart. It will? Yeah. Wow. We're sorry.

Do you want to get traded, or do you want to up the game with the rest of your players? It's never easy like that. It's never as simple as, you know what, I want to get traded, because the moment must be right. The team doesn't want to let you go. There might not be a team you can go to that has a space for you to fill. Or they might be paying you so much. There you go. They bought me. By the way, now you just changed my whole mind about the whole thing.

Now I don't care because you just mentioned how much money they get paid. Go cry on your money. That's what I say. Take your losing ass and cry on your pile of millions of dollars. Well, without any further delay, let's go straight to my exclusive one-on-one interview with Tony Gonzalez. California kid, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Surfing, all that stuff.

Really? Surfing, skateboarding. Oh, man. Went to college in California? Went to Berkeley. Berkeley is Cal, is that Went to college in California? Went to Berkeley. Berkeley. Berkeley is Cal, is that right? Cal.

Cal. Cal Berkeley. Cal Berkeley. Yeah, crazy Berkeley. All right. Naked people, orange hair, pierced nipples, all that stuff. It was eye-opening experience. What color was your hair? I did dye my hair.

You did? I dyed it blonde. I had blonde tips. Oh, wow. Okay. It was the thing. Okay. You were young. I was young. I was finding myself. Finding yourself. What sports in high

school did you do? Football and basketball. And basketball. Yeah, basketball too. I went to Berkeley to play basketball. Really? That was my thing. This guy named Jason Kidd. Yeah, I heard of him. One of the greatest players of all time. Yeah. He was the big guy on campus there. And so I took my trip up there and he was my host. Really? Okay. And they had a pretty good football team. Back when he was an undergraduate.

Yeah, back when he was there. And I was like, I'm coming to Berkeley. And that was probably the biggest reason I went to Berkeley is because of Jason Kidd and the basketball. What are you, six what? Six-five. Six-five. Six-five, something like that.

That works in college. Yeah, it worked. I did good. But I also played football too. Yeah. And I was better at football until there was two of it, so I could have went to any school I wanted to in the country to play football. Right.

But I wanted a school that wanted me to play basketball as well because that was where my heart was. Yeah, okay. I loved them both. But you got to do it. You got to follow the heart. And so basketball and football are so completely different with regard to human contact, body contact. So why does, you can say you're good at football, but are you, you were also good at not getting injured at football.

Yeah. All right. I was looking at some of these numbers. It's like, this is crazy. Were you ever injured? Like, how many games did you not play in your 17 years of football i missed two games you missed two games two games and that was pretty early this is superhero stuff well you know this is what do you what are you made of dude

this is uh i guess my mom my mom would love to take credit for that are you made of adamantium are? Are you made of some superhero material? How do you miss two games in 17 years? I have a high pain tolerance. First of all, football. Wait, what happened for you to miss two games? Well, I can show you here. I don't know if this is on camera,

but I got a bone sticking up out of my shoulder now that I fell on. See, I knew you were constructed in a lab somewhere. If you start showing pieces of you that point in the wrong direction, that means you're not really human. No, I got lucky. I got lucky. And then I also played, I tried to.

Wait, wait. So that's one game. Oh, two games in a row. No, that was one game. I was supposed to miss three weeks, three, four weeks, they said. And then I missed the one week. And then after that, they put like a needle into it every week before the game to

shoot it up. Wait, wait, wait. You're saying you got your shoulder busted out and you missed one game because of this? Yeah, one game. They put a little donut on there and a needle in it. We can rebuild him. You gotta get out there. I wanted to get out there. I mean, they said, hey, do you want to play?

Okay, now the other game was what? I tore my knee up in preseason something in practice. Somebody fell into my knee. Okay. And I missed the one game. I tried to play that game, and I could have, but coach was like, no, you're not playing. The first game of the season. Yeah, it was the first game of the season.

And then after that, I played the rest of the season. Okay, so what's this other thing you had? Bell's palsy? What was that? Yeah, I had Bell's palsy. I've heard of this, but I don't know anything about it. You don't know anything about Bell's palsy? So they don't know where it comes from.

It just happens to people, but it's where like your cranial nerve number eight or something like that gets frozen, or I don't know what it is. It gets numb, paralyzed, I'm sorry. And so your whole right side of your face goes paralyzed and numb, and you have to tape your eyes shut and keep putting Visine in it

to keep it fluid going in there. And you didn't miss a game because of that? No, that was during the off season. Luckily, that was during the off. That's what I'm saying. I got lucky. A lot of this stuff happened. Okay, so that's…

I had to ask my wife to marry me with that Bell's Paws me on my face too. You did? I got down on one knee and I had like half my face melted. And I was Bell's Paws me on my face, too. You did? I got down on one knee, and I had, like, half my face melted, and I was like— Wow, Quasimodo style, right? She, like, laughed at me as she was taking the ring. Wait, did she say yes? She said yes. That's very nice.

I could just say no to that. I don't— You can't say no. Yeah, everything but the hunchback, you know? You got the whole Charles Lawton face going there. Will you please marry me? So, but more than anything I've just mentioned is the number of times you have touched the ball. And of those times, how many you dropped the ball.

Oh, I know. And it was 1,000, I got the number, crack team of researchers here. What's that number? 1,327 touches of the ball. Yeah. And you dropped it how many times? Well, I don't know. Fumbled?

Fumbled? I fumbled, fumbled. I fumbled twice. Twice? Twice. And that was very- And you touched the ball 1,320- Yeah.

Yeah, after my second- What do you have, epoxy on your hands? You know what it is? Oh, there's a secret. Okay. There is a secret. There secret there is a secret i'm listening i'm leaning in on this lean in on this one because this is uh this is uh it happened twice i fail i fumbled the ball my junior year at college against stanford that was our rival and we lost the game because of me it was in the fourth quarter two brainiac schools yeah berkeley and stanford right right okay and they picked the ball up.

You can't lose to Stanford. Come on. And we lost because of me. Because of me. And so after the game, I was crying uncontrollably. It killed me to let my team down like that. Fast forward to my second year in the league. I was in the middle of this.

The league. NFL. NFL. I was in the NFL. My second season. People know this story. I dropped 16 balls, led the NFL and dropped passes that year. And I fumbled twice that year.

And I lost the ball for us. And it was like, there's pictures of me slamming, hitting the ground, the earth, the field, because I'm so frustrated and pissed off at myself. And that's kind of the best thing that ever happened to me. That's where I said to myself, I will never i will never ever ever ever let this happen again uh and like anytime i had the ball it was like you're carrying everybody's hopes and aspirations just the way you're doing that yeah it's like you're not getting this from that ball ain't ever coming out can't let it come

because you need to get a turnover in football that is the worst thing you can do that that's the number one stat in football if you lose the turnover. And it's on the highlight reel. Everybody knows too. And you walk to the

sideline. The blooper reel. The blooper reel. Nobody wants to say anything to you and you go to the sideline and everybody's just

looking at you like don't lose the game for us. And so it hurt me so much that I would fumble the ball that I really made extra special care not to call it.

You know, I think there's not enough written about the value of lessons learned in failure. Because, I mean, think about it. There are people who think that if they fail, that that's the end of something. Whereas it's just a matter of your mindset for it to be the beginning of something. That's where it starts. That's where I tell people, that's where the gold is. That's where the growth is. And I think the harder your failure is, first of all, that means you're putting it out there too. Like if you go for big dreams, when you fail, now it's on a grand scale.

Everybody notices it too, which can hurt even more. But I think that's where you make your bones. That's how you get better. Everybody that I've ever sat down with who's achieved greatness has usually gone through some terrible times, some really tough circumstances. They got stories.

Okay, so then what about, how old are you, do you mind if I ask? I'm 43. 43, okay. Almost old enough to have grown up at a time where kids were not coddled the way they are today. You go on the playground today, there's like sawdust on the thing and rubberized things.

When I went as a kid, you play in the monkey bars, it is cement on the ground. It is cement. It is rough cement. Okay? And so you fell. You never fell again because of the injuries you sustained for having done it the first time. So are there any lessons you can hand forward to parents who don't ever want their kids to fail because that might affect them emotionally and then they'll give up?

I think that's, like I said, I have four kids. What's the age range? We have an 18-year-old. We have an 11 9 and 4 okay and so and one thing

I'm playing I play catch with my 9 year old in the backyard he wants to play on the grass because every time he catches the ball he falls down and I'm like

in football you're not supposed to fall down you're supposed to score a touchdown so now we're going to play on the cement because you can fall down if you want now

go ahead but now you're going to try not to fall down he doesn't fall down at all now. He's not falling down. These are them lessons. Lessons in life. But yeah, I think it's important for kids to,

like I said, I know for me that that's been the biggest opportunity for growth. And so for my children, I try to put them in situations where they can thrive, but at the same time where the, you know, failure is right there with them too. And they will fail because that is where now I can sit them down and give them a nice little lecture,

you know, with looking me in the eyes and I can tell them, okay, this is why this happened and this is how you can make it better and improve. And this is how you're going to improve. In my field, we have a similar saying. It's the day you stop making mistakes is the day you have confirmed you are no longer on the frontier.

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And this is a thing. So what did you major in in college? Psychology. So, Cal, it means you're well-educated there, or at least that's the premise of the school. I tried.

I didn't stay too long. I left school early, though. Oh, I noticed that. A year early. Yeah. Yeah, okay. I was on the five-year plan. You college dropout.

Yeah. Did you ever go back and get the degree? Nah. Nah. Nah. Nah. They're trying to get... I'm too far away.

Here's what you do. Why? Why? Why would I get a degree? No, no, here's how you do it. Just do some great things, and they invite you back and give you an honorary doctorate.

Yeah. Like Shaquille O'Neal. And then you leapfrog any of the other degrees, and you're fine and you're good. Question for you. What is the, when you played,

because you haven't, you know, you're an academic environment. Cal Berkeley, I mean, they're brilliant people. They're Nobel laureates

among the faculty, this sort of thing. Were you ever thinking about your performance analytically, about the physics of it or the math, or were you just doing what felt right? I was just doing what felt right.

Back then, I was Neanderthal. It was just throw me the ball. Let's go score. I didn't really start. Where's the ball? Where's the finish? Where's the goal line? That was it.

And really, I hardly did that. I mean, anyway, studying the playbook, I wasn't that good at it and all this. So it was primal. It was just talent back then for me. Primal. Talent. And as I got older, that's—

But tell me, you did go to the gym. You did do, you know, wind sprints. You did work out. Yeah, but it wasn't that concentrated effort that I approached the game with later in my career. That was kind of forced on me. After I dropped those balls, by the way, that's where my love of reading came. I never bought a book before that year, that devastating year. It was devastating to me, too, to lead the NFL in drop passes my second year in the league

and got benched twice. But it's also what's brought me here. Like, I don't think I'd be sitting here if I didn't start educating myself. So just to be clear, so a drop pass is you should have caught it and you didn't. I should have caught it. And a fumble is you're running in full possession of the ball and it pops out of your arms. It pops out.

They knock it out. They knock it out. Yeah. Which is just embarrassing. It's just embarrassing. And you can get benched for doing both, which I did. I got benched for doing both. You got your ass benched.

Yeah, coach is like, go sit on the bench. You're not good enough right now. And maybe we'll see what happens next week, which is devastating. That's got to hurt. Getting booed by the home crowd, getting written up in the papers. That is devastating. I don't know how much criticism you've had, but getting written up in the papers, it doesn't feel good, especially emotionally. I was 22 at this point. I wasn't ready for that. And I took it to heart, especially, I always tell people the worst thing, I think I was in a bad situation because I was doing everything I could to be great. I mean, I was not drinking. I was not partying. I was in the gym. I was approaching.

I was studying film. I was doing everything great and it still wasn't working for me. That was so frustrating for me. And that really hurt. I mean, I'd go home and I would studying film. I was doing everything great and it still wasn't working for me. That was so frustrating for me and that really hurt. I mean, I'd go home and I would cry about it. Isn't that how champions are made? Yeah. Yeah, I think so.

It's got to be so painful that you've got to rectify it in whatever way you can. Yeah. So let me ask, to be physically fit is not just musculoskeletally but also nutrition so what's this with your relationship to veganism well you know my uh uh real quick story my shoot i think it's about my 10th year in the nfl we do an annual 10 out of 17 10 out of 17

that's a crazy long number yeah if i if i looked if up. Am I right? Oh, that's, it's absurd. That's out of control. There's no reason to play it that long. That's out of control. Okay, go on. So it's my 10th year in the league, and I'm out there in Kansas City, which is where I played for the Chiefs,

and I'm getting my annual physical, and we give blood. And it's the off season, and so I'm driving back to the airport to go back to LA because that's where I stayed during the off season. I just flew in to get the physical. And so on the way to the airport, the phone rings and it's my trainer from, from, uh, from the chiefs. And he's like, uh, Hey,

uh, we got your blood back and we need to, we need to talk to you about it. Cause stuff showed up and I'm like, okay. And I go, so what happened? And he's all, Hey, why we need you to come in? Cause I can't, you know, I'm not going to tell you over the phone. And I'm like, no, you tell me. And he goes, all right, hold on, Tony. I'll have the doctor call you. And the doctor calls me two minutes later. And the doctor says, hey, Tony, we found some stuff in there. I need you to come in and talk to you about it.

And I'm like, screw you. I'm going to the airport. You can tell me over the phone, if anything. And he goes, well, it turns out your white blood cell count is really low, like extremely low. And he gave me the number, turns out your white blood cell count is really low, like extremely low. And he gave me the number, 12 out of whatever it was. And he goes, it looks like leukemia. And my heart just dropped.

And it was like, damn. And my first question was, so what does this mean about football? And he goes, don't worry about football right now, Tony. This is something that's way different. And these tests are usually accurate we're gonna come in we're gonna run some more tests and we're gonna come up with a plan for you don't worry about it hangs up the phone Niagara Falls I start crying I'm like oh shit like my life is is I don't you know it's not what I thought it was gonna be now And so I get back, I go in and I give blood and they're talking to me and I'm down and I'm out. And they go to the lab and it comes back.

They had switched the blood up with somebody else. It was an accident, which I guess happens a lot. They said, they said, it's not that uncommon. And so basically I was healthy and I'm fine. And I felt bad for the guy who got the clean blood, who needs to be told that, Hey, actually you do have this now. But, um, but it was kind of like a light bulb went off. It was, uh, I was reading this book called, uh, um, the China study, uh, written by Dr. Campbell. And it was a plant, uh, plant-based whole foods. Very influential study. Yeah. Great study diets in all the different provinces of China

and compared them, because China gets to obtain that kind of data on their citizens. Uh-huh. That's what enables that. That's why it's not done in the United States. It's a China study. But yeah, go on.

Yeah, so I read that book. I was thinking about maybe, okay, all these different changes in my life. And before that, you name it, I ate it. I was eating chicken wings, you know, chugging beer, pizza, all that stuff all the time. I, you know, eating healthy was not part of my vocabulary. It was like, I just ate what I ate because I didn't know any better. And so, and so then I just said, screw it. I'm going to, this is a sign, you know, something is telling me that I need to make some change in my life.

And so that was my next- A shot across your bow. Yes. And I started devouring books on health and nutrition, started meeting with dieticians, started, because that's usually when I have a passion for something, I'll throw myself into it. I'll read every book I can and I'll start,

and I'll make calls and be like, hey, do you mind meeting? I met Dr. Campbell out of it. Went and met with him and saw what he'd learned. And then from there, I've evolved back. So I went vegan for about two and a half months or whatever it was. I didn't like it, by the way.

It wasn't, especially back then, the meat. Now you have Beyond Meat, which tastes good. But the fake meat products back then were just horrible to me. And so anyways, I incorporated a little bit of meat back into my diet. And so now I eat pretty, 80% of the time is vegan. And 20% of the time is pretty healthy. Well, 15%, and then 80% of the time is vegan. And 20% of the time is pretty healthy.

Well, 15% and then 5% of the time it's time to go have some chicken wings and pound some beers and get after the good life. Probably among all sports out there, the game that needs the most recovery from its participants would be a single game in the NFL. What is your recovery like after a game? It's brutal. I mean, it's tough. Football's tough on your body. Let's make no mistake about it. And people have seen the movies, the Will Smith movies, concussion, the stuff it does to your brain, the stuff it does to your body. It's a gladiator sport.

And a lot of people don't like it. Well, not a lot of people. There are people out there that say- They're naysayers. Yeah, you shouldn't be playing football. And maybe you're right. We shouldn't be doing a lot of stuff. There's dangers. And I knew that getting into it. And if I could do it again, I would do it again. But for me, after a game, your body is, especially if you've had a game where you catch a lot of balls and you're getting tackled a lot, you're just melting. But the trick is that I found over the years, you don't sit with that pain. You actually go to the gym.

You work out. You get a workout. You flush your system, but you're using a lot of ice. And I'm very into the biohacking now. So I'll use infrared sun. I'll do cold showers. I do all this stuff now. Today, there's much more technology brought to bear

on the repair and sustenance of your body relative to the old days 10 years ago. Yeah. Have you tracked this? Have you visited the locker rooms now? I mean, the training rooms to see how any of that's changed? It evolved over the, you know, when I first came in in 97, back in 1997, it was like that.

It was very that old school. I mean, put it on Thursday after practice, which is our hardest practice. Full pads, especially back in the day. Football has changed. They've changed a lot of the rules, so it's not as physical. In my day, it was tough. It's true, though. You sound like everybody back in my day.

It is a different game. I don't know how it is in astrophysics. In the snow. It's a different game nowadays. Uphill both ways. Okay, go on. Just know what you sound like. I know I'm that guy, It's a different game nowadays. Uphill both ways. Okay, so on. Just know what you sound like. I know, I'm that guy, but I will be that guy. You are so that guy. But it was so much fun too back then. It was more funner, to use an incorrect word. I love it.

But you had, on Thursday, you'd come in and they'd have pizzas after practice for us that you'd grab, everybody would grab their own pizza and they'd give you a six pack of beer. And this is after your hardest practice on Thursday. Even after the games, they'd give you their two beers on each seat and all that stuff. This is old school. You know, guys,

they had cigarette dispensers in our lockers. That guys back, you couldn't smoke with 97, but you know, back in the 80s, guys would smoke at their locker room at halftime and stuff like that. Fast forward to now, or back when I was getting out of the game, which has just been five years ago. Now they got like whirlpools.

They got massage therapists. They have dieticians. They have nutrient timing. They have hydration techniques. They have these little lasers and infrared saunas and all these different things to help you get the best out of you. They have chips that monitor you on the practice field? Yeah, they have the chips for you to monitor your heart rate. They have concussion protocol where you do this little program

at the beginning of the season to see where your baseline is. So if you do take a shot to the head, you have to go take this test on the sideline. What? So that's how they get people out of there. On the spot? Yeah, right now, on the spot, on the spot. That's why some guys will leave and they'll be like,

I'm fine, I'm fine. And they are fine. They feel normal. But then when they take the test on the sideline or whatever, they go back in the locker room and they see their baseline compared to their baseline. They're like, no, you're done. And give me your helmet. So they're making the game a lot safer, which they're trying to.

You'll never make it ultimately the safest thing. But that's not football then. In StarTalk, there aren't many astrophysicists in the world. In fact, you can do the math. it's actually literally about one in a million so i'd like to give my guests a chance to ask me one question that they may have harbored their whole life uh they never had the chance to ask now you i was delighted to have appeared on your on your podcast so you asked me a thousand million questions on that. Yeah.

For anyone who wants to see those, go to his podcast. But right now, is there some other question about anything that you've been harboring? Well, I asked you on my show a little bit about it. And I'm obsessed with quantum physics and like the double slit experiment, how you'll look at certain molecules or neurons or whatever you want to call it, or protons, right? And you look away and they'll be in a different place. And where do you think that quark or whatever,

where does it go? When I look away and it's now in a different place, where did it go? You're asking very rational, sensible questions. you're asking very rational, sensible questions. So nothing wrong with where you're coming from. The problem is the quantum, all right? Quantum physics are rules of the universe that manifest most visibly at the atomic level

and the nuclear level. And at that level, you have no life experience seeing it, thinking about it, knowing about it. What is our life experience? Macroscopic objects. We didn't evolve to understand the quantum because it is not accessible to our senses. What is accessible? If a lion is chasing you yeah you're going to run the other direction you there are fundamental things about your survival that we're good at but thinking creatively about the quantum is not among them and so we have come to learn that the experiment is the reality not not your perception of reality, the experiment. And the experiment says the particle does this, that's what the particle does, period.

But how did it get there? You could ask that, but all that matters is the results of that experiment. And you know something? We know how particles behave under the influence of the quantum theory. And that is what has enabled the creation, storage,

and retrieval of information in the modern IT era. There is no computing without an understanding and exploitation of the quantum. Do we understand why a particle jumps from one place to another, materializes out? No, but we can predict it.

We know exactly what's going on in that experiment, but you want to ask why. And I don't want to fault you for that, but I'm going to tell you that it's not clear if the why is even the right question to begin with. Just because you can ask a question doesn't mean it's legitimate in the exploration of the universe. Some things, it just is. Now, with looking at something and have it being in another state, that's not as weird as it sounds.

I'll explain. We're in a studio, you're illuminated by these lights. You're a strapping, full-grown adult. These lights are hitting you and bouncing off of you, enabling us to take pictures. There you are. You're still there, whether I turn on the lights or not. Let's make you smaller. In fact, let's make you the size of a particle. Well, how do I know that the particle is there? I got to turn on the lights. I turn on the lights, the photon hits the particle,

knocks it over there. My very act of trying to observe the particle changes the state of the particle. I cannot photograph it unless I shine light on it and the act of shining light on it changes what it is I had intended to photograph. That is a fundamental reality in quantum physics,

and it's why so much weirdness manifests at the quantum small level that doesn't manifest at the big level. You're not going to pop into existence in another room because I turn on the lights, because the energy of that light isn't high enough to do anything with you at all but it is when it hits a particle so when people say oh how is it that if you see something it does

one thing but if you don't see it it does something else did your consciousness affect it it's got jack shit to do with your consciousness it just has to do with your ability to detect it with shining some light on it. If there's no light on it, you cannot know what it's doing. That's what's interesting about this. It limits your access to information. So how does it move then? It feels the energy and it kicks it into another place.

The energy of the photon. Oh, just kicks it into another place. Hold steady. It's not there anymore. Uh-huh. Yeah,. The energy of the photon. Oh, just kicks it into another place. Hold steady. Bing! It's not there anymore. Uh-huh. Yeah, because the energy of the light is commensurate with the energy of what can move the particle. Uh-huh.

Okay. So in the double slit experiment. That'd be like saying, that'd be like saying, all right, I've got a 6'7 linebacker, okay, 300 pounds, and in order to photograph you, I have to shine him onto you, so he says, okay, I'm ready to photograph you, the linebacker comes, knocks you out into the next room, and I say, where is he, all right, he's not here anymore, because some energy came into the picture, commensurate with what can knock you out of your chair okay that's but we don't experience that in everyday life i don't need the six foot seven person to tackle you to photograph

you i can do it with light and light is not going to knock you into another state but it will do it for a particle that's an important feature of quantum physics and we try to exploit there are others like this particle is sometimes a wave, sometimes a particle. Well, which is it? You're only asking that because your senses can, and our brains are not wired to be comfortable with that ambiguity. In fact, whole commercial advertising campaigns are based on this. Is it light or less filling?

Maybe it's both. Can you live with that? Apparently not. We have to be one or the other. All right. So the particles are sometimes waves, sometimes particles. When it's a wave, where is it? It's wherever the wave is. How big is the wave? It's everywhere. Wait a minute. You're over there and you have a wave. Our waves see. Are we in the same place? No, but our waves overlap. Let's make the waves resonate with each other.

We are now entangled. Now we move together. Now if I get observed and become a particle, we become disentangled and you immediately drop and become a particle as well. That's quantum entanglement. It's weird stuff. But it's been said at the dawn of quantum physics, no one ever actually understands quantum physics. You only ever grow accustomed to what it is.

So don't lose sleep over it. All right. Can I ask you one more question? All right, real quick. Real quick. And does the universe keep expanding, which is a yes or no? Does that?

The universe is expanding, and as far as we can tell, it'll never stop. It'll never stop. In that realm of possibility, how many Earths are in this expanding universe? So,

expanding doesn't mean... Like the same situation as Earth. We're expanding, but that doesn't mean we're adding more material to it. Like a city expands, well, people are moving in and they're moving in. So the border expands.

That's not what's going on here. The universe is stretching so that space is increasing between the galaxies. And so the fact that we're expanding doesn't add more Earths. It's the same number of Earths. We're just farther apart from each other.

So we've got experiments to look for Earth-like planets orbiting sun-like stars on the possibility that maybe there's something like Earth-like life thriving in such places. So, yeah, we've done the experiments. And in our small region, if our galaxy is this big, we've looked in a region about this size, there are thousands of planets. The catalogs now have 4,000 planets in them. Uh-huh.

And so we'll catalog those. If we ever get to go interstellar travel, we might rank which ones we visit first. I don't see that happening anytime soon. Uh-huh. We're kind of stuck here on Earth. We need warp drive. We need that.

I'm waiting for it. So is there any possibility of Earths out there? Oh, yeah, sure. Oh, most, we would say to ourselves, why not? We got one here. Why not have another one somewhere else? And maybe it doesn't require Earth. Maybe other kinds of life forms

thrive in a different kind of planet. So the search for Earths, you might miss other planets that have other kinds of life thriving, watching you and say, hey, we're over here. No, I'm looking for like oceans and clouds and this. So part of what it is to explore is to not be too constrained for what it is you're looking for. Because you might miss the thing that you're not looking for and then therein is probably most discoveries ever made it's what shows up when you didn't even order it well that was my interview exclusive with tony gonzalez fun guy i love him you gotta gotta love him he's a yeah yeah yeah who knew he was such a great guy?

Who knew? And when we come back, we're gonna explore all that came out in that interview with our deep analysis. The trinity here. Nice.

Of our commentary. Okay. When StarTalk returns. We're back. StarTalk. Chuck Nice. That's right. Gary Riley. Yes.

We just featured my interview with Tony Gonzalez, the football great. Yes. Spent the bulk of his career with the Kansas City Chiefs. He'll definitely be a Hall of Famer. Maybe he already is. He is. He already is.

There's a guy with 17 years career and 14 Pro Bowls. Okay. Yeah. There it is. That says it all. Yeah. First of all, 17 years in the NFL. And that's amazing.

I have a technical question. Yeah. If you're good enough to be in the Pro Bowl, but you don't play in the Pro Bowl because your team went to the Super Bowl, do you still count as a Pro Bowler? Yes. Because the selection was already made. Even if you didn't play.

Even if you didn't play, you're still a pro bowler. Okay. Have a good job of taking that away from people. Because in baseball, if you don't play in that game, you don't count as an all-star. Wow. If you got injured, if you voted in, but you happen to get injured,

or you don't want to play, but you pretend you're injured, it doesn't count. Last I knew, the rules, it doesn't count. Last I knew, the rules, it doesn't count. Wow. Tough house. That's tough, yeah.

So who knew, who knew someone like Tony Gonzalez would be so obsessed with quantum physics? Oh, he, he. Tell me about it. I think more people than you know

have a soft geek underbelly. But this is more, I mean, he's become like the poster boy for where geeks and jocks collide. That's what I'm saying. All in one person. I'm loving it. I mean, he's become like the poster boy for where geeks and jocks collide. That's what I'm saying. All in one person.

I'm loving it. I'm loving it. We need more of that. Yeah. What we want to do is normalize what it is to be a geek. And that way,

geeks can hide among us without you knowing. Oh, sweet. Like vampires. There's vampires? Well, in astrophysics, we only come out at night. So there you go. Well, what I found really interesting was,

he says, yeah, I was just a Neanderthal talent. You just give me the ball, I get me a TD. I never thought about it. I never had to do this. I did the gym. I did this. He said, but I never overanalyzed. And all of a sudden, the failure of certain things

made him sit back and take account of himself. That I found the growth through pain, the growth through failure. Right. And we mentioned that. The point is, are the people who succeed, did they always succeed? Or did they overcome failure? And are the greatest of anything in this world of express talent is what fed that talent.

The fact that at some one or more times in their lives, they had failed. Yeah. And they regrouped. They took stock. It reminds me of my sister, okay? My sister left college. Right. She wasn't feeling it, okay?

Then she went and hung out got a job but hung out was at the bar with her friends and she looked around and said is this my future these people are losers what the wtf no you can't tell her that right right she had to like figure that out and then it becomes completely internal to you and so to to hear his epiphany. I can't even imagine your sister that way. That's what I'm saying. She's so business. She's so like on point. On point.

On point. All in. Wow. Yeah, she's an executive with the Ford Motor Company. Well, now, yes, she is. Yeah. And now I'm taking her drinking. Oh, man.

But yeah. So it reaffirmed what I already knew, but it's good to hear someone who can speak firsthand about how great he became from how low he once was. Yeah. See, comedians, it doesn't work that way. We're too arrogant to know that we failed. Oh.

Seriously. Comedians go up and bomb, right? And they won't admit that. And when they come off stage and you look at them like, all right, because you never want to say good set because you know it wasn't, right? So you just go, all right, you know, and they look at you and they go, yeah, that went well.

Yeah. And they're serious. Like, dude, what was happening to you while you were up there? You suck. Denial. They're serious. Like, dude, what was happening to you while you were up there? You suck. Denial. So what I found also interesting, when you asked him about what it was like then to what it was like now,

and he started to reel off, you know, the hydropools, we have laser therapy, we have an infrared sauna. He's not all that old. No, he's not that long retired, but I'm thinking, what's an infrared sauna? I don't know, but I want one. Now he's said it, I want one, yeah. And so how far has it gone now in terms of what is used for recovery? I don't know what an infrared sauna is,

but I can imagine that you can target heat. As long as it's beams of light, you can target exactly where you need it to go. Otherwise, you're sitting, your whole body is subjected to it. Right. When, in fact, football players or most athletes, when there's pain, it's usually in one place. Like you see the pitcher after the game with the giant ice pack on the elbow. Yeah.

So if it's a whole body sauna, it may feel good, but that's not really the most efficient way to target the issue. Because he was talking about doing ice baths. And, I mean, there's research now to say ice baths aren't as effective as people once thought they were. But you get to tell someone, yeah, I just sat in a pile of ice. And it's that point where you look at a 17 year career that Tony Gonzalez had and you say well how many games

did you miss and he just says two that's insane something's not right there there are backup quarterbacks who don't last that long yeah

that's insane but then you talk and they just carry a clipboard like what did you why'd you retire I got a splinter okay

repetitive strain injury carrying a clipboard. Carpal tunnel. Exactly. On a keyboard. And then you look at him and you think, well, you're a guy that hit and got hit. That's basically your job on the way to a touchdown.

And you must have had to go through some serious recovery, but you only missed two games? That's outrageous. I mean, is he the pro-double? Is he 6'6", something like that, 250 pounds, speed, strength? Is he like the prototype for what you would look at being a tight end? No, seriously, he was. Because, I mean, when you look at Tony Gonzalez in his career,

tight ends were always big. But he was the guy that, I mean mean after he overcame the you know a period where he wasn't catching the ball he was the guy that was the big huge tight end that could catch the ball so he's part of your office tight ends for the most part were blocked were just a guy that blocked you know and now they're in many offices you're saying his excellence in that role helped reshape the expectation of that post. Oh, without a doubt. Oh, very nice.

There's no way you would have a Zach Ertz or what's the guy in Dallas? I forget his name. It's because I'm going senile, who is also one of the greatest tight ends of all time. I hate to say that. But, you know, these guys that, who's on 49ers? What is his name? Kittle? Yeah, George Kittle.

I mean, you've got Travis Kelsey. Travis Kelsey of the Chiefs. These guys are all in the vein of Tony Gonzalez. All of them. Okay. You know? So he created a mold. Yeah, without a doubt.

Oh, okay. Oh, without a doubt, this guy created a mold. So going through the failure to find himself and his ability to catch a ball, then set the template for all of the greats to follow him in that position or you would imagine that you know i think there's no greater compliment you can get as an athlete yeah to to set a new standard and a new expectation for everyone else who follows yeah well without a doubt i mean because you have guys that do follow and they do

it better so you look at gronkowski like he's definitely one of the greatest tight ends of all time didn't help he had Brady behind him then. Well, I was going to say, but he did it with a guy that, you know, oh God, I hate that dude. Say it, say it. But yeah, he did it with the greatest quarterback

ever throwing him the ball. It's weird to get that kind of comparison. You know, but still, they're still in the mold of Tony Gonzalez, which is cool. You know, I had, while sitting down with him, a little bit of me just reflected on the movie Unbreakable. Oh, yeah? You know, where if there are superheroes among us, there might just be another person sitting there.

If there are superheroes among us, there might just be another person sitting there. Because in the movie Unbreakable, the Unbreakable character played by Bruce Willis. Right. Bruce Willis was in a train wreck. People died. He walks off without a scratch. Of course.

Okay? Nice. And so it's like, why? Who are you? Who are you? Who are you? What's, and these are the people who are unbreakable. Are you saying that? You won't find those.

That's his superpower, he's unbreakable Tony Gonzalez? Do you know what he said? What did I say? If you only miss two games and you're, that's my point. Yeah. That you don't know if you're unbreakable until you're in a total disaster and you walk away scot-free. Do you know what?

I'm thinking about the interview now. That's why the Samuel L. Jackson character wanted to find the unbreakable person. So he set up all these disasters. Plane crashes. So that the one person who walks away, that's... That's the person? That's a bit extreme. This is an awful movie.

No, it is. These people are crazy. What a psychopath. I'm going to bring down a plane to see who survives. Who survives? No one? Must have been the wrong plane. But what did Gonzales say?

I felt a little bit of that during the interview. I got you. What Gonzales said, that dog whistle that makes your ears prick up, I have a high pain threshold. Now that's a size, speed, strength, focusing your mind. And you don't feel pain. And you know what?

You can hit me and it don't hurt that much. Well, that's the guy that's going to be a tight end. I think most athletes will say that though. Oh no, not all of them. So I've seen like, you know, you do the Tom Brady impersonation. Guys, guys, they're hitting me, guys. That's my Tom Brady. Guys, guys, what's going on, guys. That's my Tom Brady.

Guys, guys, what's going on, guys? Well, plus soccer is notorious for anybody getting clipped by an inch. Don't look at me in a bad way. And they fall over and hold their ankle when nobody touched their ankle. Y'all are the worst. I don't even want to hear from you. Okay. I get treatment.

You should have flopped right there when he touched you. You should have just flopped out like... You know, if you touch me, you get a twisted sock, you need treatment. Broken eyelash. That's at least three games out. Broken eyelash.

Yeah. So, yeah. Then when you look at the guy and you say, well, if your body makeup is, you've got this threshold for pain, it's like, whoa. That's outrageous. All right. I mean, you're going to be looking you're going to be the samuel l jackson i want to be

looking for the guys who can suffer pain a lot because they're the guys i want on my team because i haven't got to worry about them not being ready for the next game yeah but was there is there ever really a professional football player say coach i hurt i'm hurt right i don't want to play i don't think that's what i think they have too much... That's not a pain thing. That's heart. That is their own self. Okay.

And I'm not going to put a name to anyone. I'll just put... All I know is I look at guys like Tony Gonzalez and Gronkowski and all of these huge men that are playing this game. And I thank God for football because without this sport, they would be criminals. Unstoppable criminals. Unstoppable super criminals. Okay.

In a lawless land. These were the guys that were riding around on horses pillaging villages. They would own the countryside. This was the guys. So I'm just happy that these dudes have... Are we going to end this program on that note? Yes! Football players, thank God for football.

Don't ever ban this sport because we're all safer with them on the field. They, I think, are just... It's one point of view. They're just modern-day gladiators. That's what they are. Yeah, absolutely. Give us a final thought.

Total respect for Tony Gonzalez to have a career that long and be a pro bowler so many times. And I'm so envious of his ability to have no pain. Plus he had a podcast and I was invited to be on his podcast. Did you do it?

Yeah, it was great. Yeah, totally. Here's what I say about this guy. He's good looking. He's got personality. He's a super talented athlete. He seems, you know, above average, authentic. Yeah, I don't like him.

And you know what else? During his podcast that I was in, his mama was sitting in the corner. He brought his mother to the interview. Oh, that's so cute. Oh. Oh. Now you really hate me. That's StarTalk Sports Edition.

I want to thank Tony Gonzalez for giving us that interview. Chuck, Gary, we're good. All right. Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, bidding you to keep looking up.