StarTalk Radio - Cosmic Queries – Before the Big Bang

Episode Date: March 11, 2025

What does it really mean for us to be made of stardust? Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-host Paul Mecurio answer fan questions about particle colliders, time travel, and what existed before the Big Bang. NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons can listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://startalkmedia.com/show/cosmic-queries-before-the-big-bang/Thanks to our Patrons John 73, BrianSmiley, Brian Johnson, TIm, Klaus Wagner, Cynthia A Stevens, Valentijn van tongeren, Jmcarman23, J Gonzales, Kaden Brown, Sam Spencer, BSM1989, Caleb, Cristian Gonzalez, Stephen Davis, Stefan Jones, Walt Krutzfeldt, Hazel, Lukáš Mašek, Andrew, Craig Haagenson, Jessi, Taj Orndorff, Jacob Hernandez, Keith Thienpondt, Dusty Salyer-Elliott, Ignacio Karacsonyi, Bradley Foster, Melissa Forlini, Seth Lotstein, Hamid Pourkasraei, Linda, Ali Mojabi, and Mahmoud Hassan for supporting us this week. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of StarTalk Radio ad-free and a whole week early.Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.

So Paul, it's not every day I get to think about infinities. Somebody asked about that. That was fun. It's a little spooky. It's a little spooky and it sort of keeps you thinking and then you ultimately get to the point where you don't think that there's a definitive answer to the question about infinity.

Or you give up on life. That's exactly right. And we had a little bit of a celebration of the centennial of quantum physics. Yes. This is the 1920s. And I hear there's a big pool party at your house to celebrate that. So everybody's invited.

Coming up, Star Talk. Welcome to Star Talk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. Star Talk begins right now. This is Star Talk begins right now. This is Star Talk. Billy Grass Tyson here, your personal astrophysicist. Today we're doing Cosmic Queries Grab Bag Edition.

And I've got co-host here, Paul McCurio. Paul, welcome back. Great to see you. Oh, I love your work, man. Thank you. Yeah, I see you on the Late Show. Yeah. The occasions when I'm on, I see you warming to see you. Oh, I love your work, man. Thank you. Yeah, I see you on the Late Show.

Yeah. The occasions when I'm on, I see you warming up the crowd, but occasionally gives you a slot. Oh yeah, I've been on a bunch of times and I'm gonna be going on again very soon. Okay, no, cool, we'll look for you. Yeah, it's gonna be, it's always great. And you got, there's like a Broadway show

or a stage show, permission to speak, and we all know your podcast. Inside Out with Paul Mercurio. Inside Out with Paul Mercurio. And you're on it. I think I've been on that a couple times. Yeah, absolutely. I still owe you money for that.

So there's no categories here. There's no categories, this is loose, but I gotta tell you, I went through them all. And you got pages and pages, dude. We got tons of, and they're all good, and they're varied, and they're from people all over the country and all over the world, and different age ranges, which you'll see in a minute,

so it's really cool. So this is Manchano. Chano, from the US of A, had the SSC in Texas gone through, where would we be today? Do canceled projects like this set us back as a species? Also, what other major scientific breakthroughs have been made or halted?

Ooh, made or halted. I like that. Sounds like he's digging. Yeah, so the SSC, the Superconducting Super Collider, which was, had I been in charge of naming it, I would call it the Super Duper Collider. I was going to say. I think of these more adjectives. That's what I know.

The gargantuan super. They ran out of adjectives there. Oh my God, honey, look at the size of this collider. Yeah, so they missed out on that one, I thought. If you take certain metals and you reduce their temperature, there comes a point where they become superconducting, where electricity can pass through them and there's no resistance and they don't get hot

and it just moves. We call that superconductivity. In the 1970s and 80s, there was research into can we make superconducting materials at a higher temperature? In other words, as you lower the temperature of the material, can it become superconducting at a much higher temperature. In other words, as you lower the temperature of the material, can it become superconducting at a much higher temperature than previously enabled?

Why is that important to seek it at a higher temperature? Because if you can find a room temperature superconductor, ooh, that would transform everything. Yeah, but then every average person's gonna have it, and then we're gonna have all these people with superconductors people with superconduct. What superpowers? And then all of a sudden,

people are gonna be turned into little ants, like Ant Man. What are you, people, crazy? Is that how he became an ant? You guys can't put power like that in a hit. Okay, that's a very good point. You wanna meet my brother-in-law? You don't want that guy having.

It should have some guard rails, right. So it came of age when higher temperature superconducting materials were becoming available. And why does that matter? For any collider, you're accelerating particles. The particles have electric charge. And if you move an electric charge through a magnetic field, you can accelerate it.

And you adjust the magnetic field, make it just right, it can get very, very fast. The particles can go very fast, hitting 99% the speed of light. And what is the manifestation of that very fast moving particles look like? Is that the electric, is that the? It's just a beam of particles, like typically protons,

and you slam it into a target. Okay. And that creates a field of energy out of which brand new particles can form. And we harness that energy for what? No, no, it's not for energy, it's for what new particles exist in this universe that we didn't know about before we turned on the switch.

We have enough particles, why do we need new particles? Because you always want more particles, come on. What are you doing with a new particle? We need more, because a new particle might explain something we didn't understand. Oh, okay, so you're constantly in search of. Yeah, yeah. It's like what we were talking about on another show.

So you never rest. Probing the universe, yeah, you never rest. So it came of age at that time. And by the way, it's still the Cold War, early 90s. So under Reagan, we say, yes, let's start this project, superconducting supercollider. They dig the hole. By the way, it would be the largest

and most powerful supercollider in the world. They dig the hole. By the way, it would be the largest and most powerful supercollider in the world. You dig a hole somewhere out there. Yeah, it's like I forgot the diameter, a couple hundred miles, I mean huge. Yeah, it's the meadowland. That's what I did. Some states are not large enough to contain this collider, such as Rhode Island, all right?

Which is where I'm from. You're from Rhode Island. That's my home state. You can't. Can the world stop making any small reference and compare it to Rhode Island? Can we all move on from that? If I hear blankety blank, twice the size of Rhode Island,

I'm going to create my own super collider and zap you. I didn't know it was that sensitive. Rhode Islanders carry issues. We have size issues. You have issues, okay. So Texas clearly big enough. So it's in Waxahachie, Texas. They acquired the land, started digging the hole,

and the years go by, and around 1989, 1990, the government takes another look at the contracting, The years go by and around 1989, 1990, the government takes another look at the contracting, the budgets, and they judge that there are cost overruns that we cannot afford. And they zero the project. That's different from canceling it, but it's the same thing. From what I read, the project was fairly far along.

Yes, it was. Yes, it was. The research, the engineering, and then they zeroed the project. And once that happened, the Center of Mass of Particle Physics would no longer be in the United States. But just because you don't do it

doesn't mean some other folks can't or won't. And the European Center for Nuclear Research, CERN, which is located in Switzerland, but it's a European consortium, an international consortium I should say, they said, all right, you're not gonna do it, we're gonna do it. So then they built as part of their facility

the Large Hadron Collider. You might have heard of it, the LHC. That became the detector that found the mythical Higgs boson, the God particle. The particle whose field grants mass to other particles. That's badass. If you're gonna be a particle, that's the particle you wanna be.

That's what you wanna be. There's a book called The God Particle written about the Higgs boson that was written decades ago because we knew it should be there. We don't have an accelerator that can detect the energies where we would find it. So. And that's the particle that kills its brother,

the other particle who thinks he's cheating. He's Fredo. He kills his brother Fredo. Oh, I'm sorry, I got this mixed up with the Godfather. Go ahead, continue. I'm a little. In all seriousness, why couldn't the scientific community in America convince the federal government

and the people funding this that this was a mistake? Because they didn't call it a super duper collider. That's my answer. Those idiots would have understood the significance. Okay, so watch. There is a report that talks about the budget that we can't afford it. I have a different view.

No time in the 20th century, when we had the power to make particle accelerators, did anyone complain if there were cost overruns? You don't even know if there were cost overruns. Maybe there were no cost overruns. You don't even know if there were cost overruns. Maybe there were no cost overruns. I didn't check the budget on every single particle accelerator in the country in the 20th century. There's Brookhaven, there's Stanford Linear Accelerator,

there's outside of Chicago, Fermilabs, okay? All over the country. And they're all under the auspices of the Department of Energy, by the way. So a budget serves this. All right, this gets canceled. Wait a minute. What else happened in 1989?

Peace broke out in Europe! Yeah. Peace broke out in Europe. Peace broke out. The Berlin Wall came down. And within three years, four years, the Soviet Union was dissolved. Oh, there was cost overruns we can't afford. If you're threatened with your life and your way of living, there are no cost overruns.

That's not. And how can, and how. Ah! That's exactly right. Okay, I don't mean to be blunt about it, okay. So. Here's a blank check, keep me alive. Keep me alive, yes, yes.

Keep me alive. And by the way, very clever to put it under the auspices of the Department of Energy instead of the DOD so that it can look like it's. It looks like just a science project that we don't care for. We're gonna better our energy out there. Correct, correct.

But 20th century was the century of the physicist from beginning to end all the way through. And no Cold War? Oh, by the way, President Clinton comes in in the 1990s and it's the first time that anybody remembers the budget is balanced for the United States. And so they want to take credit for balancing the budget, except there's no Cold War anymore.

Okay, so he takes off, there's no Cold War. So let's be real about budgets, all right? Let's understand this. And I write about this, it's speculative. There's no document that says this. The document says, cost overruns, we're zeroing the budget. We have other priorities.

There's others that said that when the space station was coming online, the space station would be primarily served through NASA's Houston, NASA Houston, okay? The Johnson Space Center. NASA's Houston, NASA Houston, okay? The Johnson Space Center. Others declared that the politics of it were you can't have two major projects in the same state that would get that much attention from the government. Yeah, but you can move one to another state.

No, you can't move the hole in the ground, the accelerator. You can move the other. No, no, Johnson Space Center, you can't move that. What does Florida do to Florida? No, Florida already has a space center, but that's not where the other. No, no, Johnson Space Center, you can't move that. But it's due to Florida. Florida already has a space center. But that's not where the astronauts- See, it's this kind of negative thinking

that kept the super duper collider from existing. If Florida's space center, they don't train the astronauts there. The astronauts are trained in Houston. NASA has 10 centers strategically put, all right? Listen, my friend, you just said it a minute ago. If we were on the verge of a brink of war, they'd find a way to have both of those.

There are no cost overruns. Both of those programs to exist. So I wrote about this in my book from a few years ago, when was it, 2017. Accessory to war, the unspoken alliance between astrophysics and the military. And I talk about this two-way street between the frontier of modern astrophysics and the military. And I talk about this two-way street between the frontier of modern astrophysics,

particle physics in there as well, because particles we learn about the Big Bang and the needs of the military. So that became the most obvious accounting for that to occur. We lose the center of mass, it goes to Europe. Europe eventually discovers the Higgs boson. Nobel prizes all around.

Our accelerator was, depending on the beam, three to six times more powerful than the most powerful settings of the LHC. So we would have discovered the Higgs boson decades ago. And perhaps either at that time or in the resulting decades, other things. Oh, thank you, other things, perhaps other things. Once you get there, now you ask the next question.

It's a new place to stand. And you have a proscenium looking beyond. What else is out there? Exactly. It's never about the question you even know to ask. It's the question you haven't thought of yet because it's a place you will soon stand that will give you a view that you didn't even know

was possible. And based on that perspective, the setback is almost exponential in a way, right? Because we don't know what we don't know and that's a shame. You don't know what you don't know, correct. And that's deep and important and real. They're trying to boost the energies of the LHC

to go to the next level there. So that was getting back to the specifics of the question. The discovery of the Higgs boson was delayed decades because of that decision. But science is science. It's not about the creativity of an individual. If Beethoven did not compose the Ninth Symphony, if Van Gogh did not paint The Starry Night,

no one who will ever be born in the future will compose or paint that. Whereas in science, you can be very creative and be ahead of everybody, but eventually, everybody catches up and we move beyond it. Because what decides what is true is not the public's voting on, oh, we like your artwork. It's nature, which is the ultimate judge,

jury, and executioner of your idea. And if you want to do it in the United States, another country does it. By the way, it's international, so we had Americans who were part of that collaboration, but we didn't lead it, that's all. And I'm American. I'm a 20th century American, but we led everything.

And now I'm gonna, what you got over there, guy? Can I look over the fence? I had that. We almost had that. It's like you're looking over the fence and your neighbor's got an inground pool and you've got an above ground. America's a country when it comes to that with the above-ground pool.

Well, that was a great question, and a tremendous answer. I think it was a long answer, but it was okay. No, it was great. Okay. I'm Kais from Bangladesh, and I support Star Talk I'm Kais from Bangladesh and I support Star Talk on Patreon. This is Star Talk with Neil deGrasse Tyson. This, I love this person. This is Rupesh.

Hi, my name is Kriti. I am 11 years old. I'm in the sixth grade. I live in Cary, North Carolina. In my school, we are doing a passion project and my topic is astrophysics as I find this topic very interesting. I have also recently been reading-

This person's 11 years old. I know, right? Been reading- No, no, you're lying. So person's 11 years old. I know, right? Been reading your- No, no, you lying. So it's not 22 or- No. Okay, fine. I know how to read.

I've also been reading your book, Astrophysics for Young People in a Hurry. By the way, could you come up with a longer title? Jesus. I have a question for you, and I'd love if you could answer it for me, as that question would be added into my project plus your answer So speaking of truth this kids asking you to help her cheat is the question very basic what existed before the Big Bang?

No, I can answer that You can yeah. Yes. Okay. Go ahead. We had no idea This is why people find scientists annoying Generalize we want everybody else just Okay, next question. This is why people find scientists annoying. We want some definitive answers in our lives. We want some definitive answers in our lives. Just because in this moment you find me annoying. I got two things that existed before the Big Bang. Ready?

Lint. Maybe. And a single sock. It started all with a single sock. Is that the sock that is missing from the laundry? That single sock. It started all with a single sock floating around. Is that the sock that is missing from the laundry? That single sock. It's lost in space. It's floating around in space.

And in time. In time. We don't know for sure, and we wouldn't even know how to experimentally verify our ideas, but there are some ideas. And when you run the equations back through time of general relativity, Einstein, and quantum physics, by the way, we are in the centennial decade

of the discovery of most of the important tenets in quantum physics. So I feel it gives me goosebumps, actually. And not only that, that's the decade where Edwin Hubble, Hubble was a person before it was a telescope. Before a telescope that didn't work. Right. It works now. Was he as defective as a person as he was as a telescope. Before a telescope that didn't work. It works now.

Was he as defective as a person as he was as a telescope? Mammadin. So in the mid-1920s, he discovers that the spiral fuzzy things in the night sky, spiral nebulae, were whole other galaxies, like the Milky Way. This is freaky. Was there speculation as to what it was before he?

Just spiral clouds. There were other fuzzy clouds that weren't spiral. So they were like. But there were telescopes that existed before his. No, but you have to know the distance to things. You can't just pace it out by walking it. All right, if you find the distance to a spiral nebula and it's 100 times farther away than other nebulae,

then it's sitting outside of your galaxy, all right? And so, he discovered that in mid-decade, and then by the end of the decade, he discovers the expanding universe. That decade, 1920s, it's the roaring 20s, right before the market crashed in October 1929. And then, you know, people weren't so focused on science, unfortunately.

It's like the science of eating, and having food on your plate. When you run the equations back, you generate this entity that pumps out universes, possibly an infinite number of universes, it just pumps them out. And we call that the out universes, possibly an infinite number of universes, it just pumps them out. And we call that the multiverse, a term that's just been uptook by Marvel comics.

And not only Marvel, but of course Rick and Morty. With all of these brilliant minds out there over the years, why haven't, what is your theory as to what's keeping us from knowing what existed before the Big Bang? We've been figuring out other things, like the origin of the Earth and the origin of the moon and the origin of stars and the origin of, and now we're on the origin of galaxies.

So the origin of the, give us a chance here. We have top people working on it. Yeah, but you're avoiding the question. Like I'm having an argument with my wife. You're avoiding the question. Like I'm having an argument with my wife. You're avoiding the question. Stop. What I'm saying is, science is more about knowing what question to ask

than to have an answer for every question posed. Isaac Newton, my man, hit my little finger puppet over here next to my voodoo thing. I don't even know what that, that showed up in my office one day. I don't know where it came from. That is a little creepy. Yeah, I don't even know what that, that showed up in my office one day. I don't know where it came from. That is a little creepy. Yeah, I don't, I have no,

this was just in my, I don't even know where it came from. Things gotta put some weight on. A little malnourished. Sit him there. Isaac Newton, in his book Optics, published 1704, wrote it in English, so that like regular people could read it, not in the academic language Latin

for scholars. At the end of his book, he has a section called Queries. By the way, that's the way I get the word Cosmic Queries. Not called Cosmic Questions, which would also kind of work. You get the alliteration, but Cosmic Queries. He has a section in the back called Queries. This is just stuff that spilled off his dinner plate. One of them is, I wonder if the stars of the night sky

are just like the sun, except much, much farther away. Wow. Yeah! Wow. Okay? Yeah, and that's like a scrap off the dinner plate. And this is the guy who utters this line, I'll mangle it only a little, he says,

sometimes I feel like a child sitting on a shoreline picking up one pebble for being shinier than another when an ocean of undiscovered truths lay before me. Wow. So. It's Newton saying that. Is it? My man.

So anyhow, so the multiverse is there for what might have been around before the Big Bang, but that just moves the question back. Where'd the multiverse come from? Yeah, it just keeps going. So that plagues origins questions. Right. And by the way, it somehow doesn't plague religious people.

Well, I was just gonna say, we're not even talking about the theory that God created everything. It's not science. Well, it's not a theory, it's faith that says that. So what intrigues me is when I say, well, I don't know what was around before the beginning, something had to be there, something.

I said, well, we got top people working on it. We're working, it was a chance. It had to be God. Then I said, maybe the universe always was. No, it had to have a beginning. And so it's okay, well, so what do you say? Well, it was God. And so then I say, well, who created God?

Oh, God always was, God was always there. So they allow that within themselves to say God always was, but won't allow the scientists to say maybe the universe always was. Apparently that's not allowed. But it's allowed when you're religious and you say that about God. So all I'm saying is the origins questions

will always be able to push it forward unless somehow it creates itself. And then you have a loop. But we're not there yet. It's a frontier. Give me some more. Grab me some more. Yeah, this is Umar Chima, Umar from Seattle.

Long time Star Talk listener, I finally decided to get off my cheap ass and become a patron. Ah ha ha! I love that. Yeah. Thank you Umar for getting off your cheap ass. Okay, save your money,

because T-shirts are coming, Patreon Saints. Patreon Saints. Here's my first question. We know that we can slow down our time relative to others by traveling at a super high speed or getting very close to a massive object in space, but is there a way to accelerate our time instead of slowing it down?

Can we accelerate our time and essentially visit the past or does it just mean we just get old super fast? And if anybody knows about getting old, pew. See, I'm proud of my age. I'd like to believe that I have wisdom to show for it. You do. That's all.

Bitch, I don't want to get old, I don't want to get old. Yeah, because they're not learning new things. Exactly. They're stuck in some previous time in their lives. They wish they were still on the football team, or on the cheerleading squad. Speaking of which, that's why I don't want to go back to the past, because I'm not going to ever win

that 50 yard dash and then embarrass myself. I couldn't get Mary Ferguson go to the prom with me. Don't get me started. You didn't have issues, you're bringing to the show. You got to leave those in therapy. I can't, this is why I'm here, I need you. It is. So can we accelerate our time and visit the past?

I think you have to look at it differently. The guy's a paying customer, he can look at it any way he wants. It's true, customer's always right. You're right, whatever you're thinking, you're right. Just keep sending the money, people, come on, send the money. You shouldn't look at it that way. You should look at it as your speed, people. Come on, send the money. You shouldn't look at it that way.

You should look at it as your speed as seen by others. By the way, you don't feel this at all. It's only as measured by others. So if you go fast and time slows down for you, you're still ticking. To you, it's one second per second. To everybody else, it's one second per 10 minutes, one second per hour.

I'm not following, I explained. How is it observable by others, my speed? If I see you, oh, so I'm here, and I see you whiz-by at some speed. Okay, so you walk down the hall. Well, I was thinking of a rocket ship, but sure. Okay, all right, a rocket ship. Okay, walk down the hall at half the speed of light.

Okay. Which I can do. All right, I have an equation, a formula that tells me the rate at which your time is ticking relative to me. And I plug it in, and I forgot the number, it might be ticking a third or fourth. My time is different than yours because you're stationary and this thing is moving, no?

That's almost the right way to say it. Your time is different from me because we are moving relative to each other. As far as you're concerned, you are stationary and I'm moving past you at half the speed of light. We don't know. So you will look at me and say, oh, he's moving slow. And I look at you and say, oh, you're moving slow.

Both of us will measure the same thing about each other if we are passing each other in the night at half the speed of light. One going one direction, one going the other direction. Correct. And so. Why is half the speed of light a critical? It's not.

It just could be whatever. I could say 10%, but it's not linear, so the faster you go relative to the speed of light, the greater and greater the effects are. All right, so half the speed of light is not half the effects. It's a small fraction and it grows rapidly. It goes at like the square of your velocity as you get closer.

How do I make your time go slower if you're going half the speed of light? I make you go faster. Now you go three quarters the speed of light. 90% the speed of light. And I can watch you slow down relative to me. How do I speed you up? Go slower. Go one fourth the speed of light, and I can watch you slow down relative to me. And I speed you up, go slower. Go 1 fourth the speed of light, 1 tenth the speed of light.

How slow can I get your time to go? Stop right in front of me. And that is the slowest we can make your time go. Which is the same time. And that happens to match my time, correct. But this is. They want to go backwards. We don't know how to do that.

Because I have to repeat my time poem. Please. If I may. Please. We are prisoners of the present, forever transitioning between our inaccessible past and our unknowable future. That's exactly what I say to my wife

when she asked if I bought pickles and I forgot. You know, you're bringing your issues into. Well, you make it very relatable to my life. Okay. And I have a lot of issues and you know, I love you, man, I love you. So the answer is. It's not your fault, it's not your fault.

But there's this obsession in pop culture with this time travel. You want to go backwards in time. And do you think, do you just think, and I know, I love, you never say absolutes, but like, why, it's dangerous because you start flirting with the past and you alter the future, whatever. Well, you can flirt with your own future.

So if you went in the past, what would you change? You have to watch out for that, because you don't know the full set of contingencies that would follow. Okay, who cares about anybody else? No, they don't, because if you go in the past and there's Hitler as a child, will you kill Hitler as a child? Would you do that?

What you don't know is there's someone else that would rise up that would have been worse than him for the stability of the world in the 1930s and 40s. You don't know that. I'm keeping the past the way it is, not knowing whether, having altered it, by the way, this was explored in an episode of Star Trek. They went back in time to the 1930s or late 30s,

I forgot the exact year, and Bones, I think it was Bones, the surgeon, falls in love with a woman, you're not supposed to do that, because they're this. You're messing with the time continuum. The space-time continuum. But as usual, men led by their forever. That's a scientific fact.

That is a scientific fact. Go ahead. No, on that subject, by the way, the first interracial kiss between a black person and white person was on Star Trek. And it was William Shatner. Oh, I remember that. It was kissing Lieutenant Uhura.

They got all kinds of hate mail from the South on that. There's 1967 somewhere around there. Meanwhile, Captain Kirk can visit all these galaxies. There's a green woman, a blue woman. He's got a tumor over here, a horn over here. He can kiss them. Clearly female aliens. He's kissing all up in them,

but another human who has skin. He's kissing a woman that looks like a crelour. That's fine, but not that black woman, damn it. We have standards. Bones falls in love with this woman, and she's a peace, she's into peace. She doesn't want war. She sees nations building up and she tries to prevent

the start of the Second World War. This is her motive and her mission. Meanwhile, she gets hit by a bus or a truck and dies and Bones is distraught. He wants to go back in time again. To prevent. To prevent that, to save He wants to go back in time again. To prevent. To prevent that, to save her. They go back in time again.

That's when Spock does his research. He realizes she has to die. Because if she lives, she will successfully delay the entry of the United States into the Second World War, giving Germany, Nazi Germany, the leg up in creating the atom bomb, and they create the atom bomb first and take over the world. And this is communicated to Bones, and the scene where she's going out into the street and the truck is coming, he wants to save her,

and Kirk and they hold him back. They just watch her die. Because that's a different world that they don't want to have happen. So, stay in the present. Get your ass out of the past. Okay, that sounds good. By the way, Hawking has a time travel conjecture

where he says he thinks that as we get closer to traveling through time, there'll be some new law of physics that we will discover that will prevent it. On the subject of Star Trek, can you explain to me why when they transport Kirk, his shirt never fits properly, can't make it so it's a little bigger.

It's like he went to the baby Star Trek store. Because it fits tightly? Because he was a buff body back then. I understand, but. Not by today's standards, but back then, he was, plus, of all the captains, he's the captain I'd want to be. Why? The pointy sideburns?

I did give myself pointy sideburns in my day, but he took on all his own fights. That's music. Yes, yes, yes. So the point is, if you're a crew member and your captain is fighting the bad guy, you're gonna fight the bad guy. Right.

You're not gonna be like Jean-Luc Picard and say, go fight them. It's not, get your own ass out there. No, but no. And fight them. No, but there's another side to that. I don't want the guy leading to get in a fight and die. Like, I would.

He's croaking, he's got phasers. Don't worry about it. I'd be like, hey, I gotta fight and die like I would he's got phasers I'd be like hey guy you I gotta stay back here No, he's got phasers we good Yeah But he's got all the change to put in the meter when he's parking this chip in the middle of the thing You don't know what you're talking about. I Think he does have a good body. I'll give you that in the day. That was a good body Okay, you think the transporter should have had a tailor? What the?

Yes. He shows up looking down at you. Exactly. Yeah, with a jaunty hat, a cane, come on. That's a different transporter. That's a more expensive transporter. The one that's also your tailor, okay. Emily Koneko Reynolds. Hello Neil, this is Emily in Kyoto.

Nice. Yeah. Is there a stardust in the air we breathe or is the stuff in the air that air is made of just an evolution of stardust? I get the impression that everything is an evolution of stardust, which makes me wonder what does future evolution hold?

And I can tell you, future evolution, there will be a time when humans don't have to bend over to put their shoes on. It's called Skechers future. Is this where we are now that we have shoes, that people can't bend over to put their shoes on? Is Skechers a sponsor? I am so annoyed by this.

Is this where we are now? Well, okay, we invented automobiles. I can't go all the way down there. And flight and supersonic transport, and we went to the moon, and this generation makes. Right, I don't have to bend over three feet, and I can put more weight on. I think the baby boomers are getting older, but they've always been inventive,

because we went to the moon under the baby boomers watch. So we're making our lives easier, making it seem like it's better for everyone, but it's really just for ourselves. Okay? All right, because we can't bend over. Exactly, all right, so I get the impression that everything is an evolution to start us,

which makes me wonder, what does future evolution hold? Now this is evolution could be in the context of astrophysics or biological evolution. All right, so allow me to clarify a couple of things. I speak glibly that we are not only poetically but literally stardust. We are made of ingredients that were forged in the hearts of stars.

Not all stars, this kind of stars that, in the end of their lives, explode and become supernovae, scattering their enriched guts across the galaxy, I was gonna say contaminating, enriching other gas clouds with the ingredients of life itself. Carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, go all down the periodic table right to iron. These are particles that are smaller

than the diameter of hair. They're atoms, they're atoms, okay? So I've loosely called it dust, because these atoms gather and they make larger molecules. Dust has a specific definition in space. We speak of dust in space. So dust are agglomerations of molecules that are stuck together but are not chemically connected.

You could pull apart the dust to get raw molecules. You pull apart the molecules to get atoms. I'm saying the foundations of this are elements on the periodic table. And I loosely call all of that dust. So if you inhale dust from your shelf, with the, no, the whiffer poofer, what do you call that thing?

The Swiffered Pooper? The Pooper Scooper? They're gonna wanna mix those two up. The Whiffered Pooper, that's the Yale choir. Oh, the Whiffered Poofs, or the Yale Glee Club. Yeah, okay, the Swiffer. If you hire the Yale Glee Club to dust your house, and dust is generated, go ahead.

The swiffin' poofers. The swiffin' poofers. So if there's dust and you inhale it, that's like household dust, which commonly is like pet dander and other things. Yes, if you get to the bottom of that, ultimately those ingredients came from stars and from the origin of the universe.

So it's not an evolution of dust so much as dust taking on other shapes. So when I say we're made of stardust, the actual dust from stars has been processed here on Earth. But it's still the same ingredients, the nitrogen, oxygen, carbon. And so if I were to be more sort of chemically accurate in my discussion of dust, that changes the whole conversation.

Hannah Holmes wrote The Secret Life of Dust, from the Cosmos to the Kitchen Table, great title, a former science editor with the, I think the LA Times. But anyhow, so dust is everywhere, you know. But rather than look at dust and say, oh, this is cat dander and this is from sawdust, I, as a cosmologist, cosmetologist, as an astrophysicist,

it's all stardust to me. And so- And in that famous song, was it by Kansas? All we are are dust in the wind. And he says, all we are is that, that's what we are. But this human being that I am is stardust. I, the, you are traceable to stars. Okay. And to me, that's a stardust memory that I carry. You are traceable to stars.

And to me, that's a Stardust memory that I carry. So if we get back to the question from Emily, I get the impression that everything is an evolution of Stardust, which makes me wonder. Which is fair, that's very fair. So now the question is what does future evolution hold based on this foundation of Stardust that we just talked about? It is the richness of the chemistry

that the periodic table of elements grants us. Got it. And it, far as I can tell, it knows no bounds. That's the beauty of science. If you, the water molecule H2O, you break it apart, the hydrogen joins something else. The oxygen joins somebody else. And there the universe progresses,

unless it finds itself in a nuclear furnace, and then it can become another element. But absent that, you're breathing oxygen atoms that were exported by a star five billion years ago. Feel it. Feel that connectivity. Feel the it. Feel that connectivity. Feel the burn. Feel the burn!

I think that's all the time we have. Yeah, I think so. Unless you have a really fast one. It's a really fast one, and I'll give it a sound bite answer. Okay. Really fast. While a staple, this is Sparkman,

while it's a staple, it's Sparkman? Sparkman. That's all I got. While it's a staple of mathematics such as calculus, are there any instances of infinity in the observable universe? Ooh, I, well, the universe itself might be. Yes, I have it. Neil explaining anything.

That's as long as it takes to. That's the ultimate definition of infinity. Goodnight everybody. I'll be here all week. I don't get no respect. That was a great question though, seriously. So the universe itself might be infinite. If there's a multiverse,

it's pumping out an infinite number of universes. Which each of which could be infinite of its own. In its own dimensionality. So for example, I can have a sheet of paper that goes to infinity in every direction, but they can have another sheet of paper floating above it that also goes to infinity and they don't intersect. Because they can go like this.

Yeah, because they coexist but in a higher dimension than either of them. Each sheet of paper is only in two dimensions. But aren't magnetic forces pulling them together in some way? It could be, or even gravitational forces. And if you have two universes that collide... Oh, you're talking about on Earth, the two actual sheets of paper.

I'm talking about two universes that are infinite, but not colliding with each other. If you embed them in a higher dimension, you can get away with that as you would with two sheets of paper. That's all I'm saying. There are people, top people, wondering if there's a parallel universe, might we feel something of them, of their gravity? Is there some leakage out of their space time

that we might feel? That could be the future of detections of parallel universes, of the infinite universes. But my favorite example of infinity is Zeno's paradox, where you want to exit the door, you gotta go halfway. Then you gotta go another halfway. And then another halfway. You just keep doing that.

But wait, when I walk through the door, I walk through the door. No, you're going halfway first. And then you're going halfway again. Here's the door, here's me. How am I going halfway? I walk through the door and I don't stop. Okay, you're being too rational here.

You gotta stay with the math, okay? You wanna exit the front door. Before you get to the door, you have to cross the halfway point, don't you? Halfway point of what? Between where you happen to be standing and where the door is. Yes.

Well, you agree. Okay. Okay, now you gotta cross the halfway point between there and the door. There and a half, okay, I gotcha. And then the half and the half and the half. But it's so random to pick half. You could say I gotta pass the third,

the point at one third. I could have, that's correct. Okay. All right, but, so there's an infinite number of halfway points. Yes, I get it. And Zeno saw this and said by that reasoning you'll never get to the door.

This is an infinite, but of course you do get to the door. So what's going on? And what he didn't realize is that you are covering more and more halfway points in less and less time. And the infinity actually converges to a finite amount of time. Because you're cutting down the distance to that. Correct.

And infinity can be cut into something that's finite. So yeah, but other than math, no. I mean, the universe is finite. Okay. To our observable edge. Right, so there's no such thing as to infinity and beyond. I think that's. You just dissed a book that I co-wrote with my producer.

No, that I. Do you know the title of that book? Yes. To infinity and beyond. Yes. Yes. Why you dissing the book? No, I didn No, that I. Do you know the title of that book? Yes. To Infinity and Beyond. Yes. Yes. Why you dissing the book? No, I didn't remember that actually.

I'm referencing a Disney movie. Do I look that smart? Paul, we gotta go. Yeah, this has been great. You've been fantastic. Thanks for coming back. Yeah man, it's great to see you. Love you.

Keep us smiling, keep us laughing. Absolutely. All right, and we'll find you on the road. Permission to speak, my Broadway show director by Frank Oz, paulmacurio.com for tickets. We're gonna be in Dr. Phillips Center. Macurio. Macurio, M-E-C-U-R-I-O.

Like the S-A-T word, macurial. There you go. This has been Star Talks Grab Bag Cosmic Queries from my office here at the American Museum of Natural History. Paul, thanks for coming in. Thanks for having me. All right.

As always, I bid you keep looking up.