StarTalk Radio - Cosmic Queries: Bill Nye Edition

Episode Date: March 29, 2015

The Science Guy takes the mic to answer your questions for him about evolution, technology, the human exploration of space, and even Leonard Nimoy, chosen from Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus by co-host Chuck Nice. 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. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And this is StarTalk. We have a great show. We're going to jump around here from logical scientific topic to logical scientific with one extraordinary diversion. Is that right, Chuck? Yes.

We're going to talk briefly about meat. Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill. We're going to talk briefly about me. Yes, well actually I'm calling this whole thing High or Nigh because we have queries for you and we've taken them from the internet, from Google+, from Startalk.net, from Twitter, Facebook, you name it. The social media. The social media that's out there. The electric internet. Yes. That all the kids are crazy about. That all media that's out there. The electric internet. Yes. That all the kids are crazy about. The kids are crazy for.

So what we've done is we've pulled together questions specifically asked to you, Mr. Nye. Wow. And so every one of the questions here was addressed to you from one of our social media platforms. So I'm calling it High or Not. Let's do it like this. Because people kind of ask you all kinds of crazy questions from all over the world. I mean, not all over the world. I'm sorry.

You don't know that. Actually, you don't know that with the internet. Actually, they could be from all over the world. But they're all in English. But I'm saying on very many subjects. So we have evolution. Evolution. I wrote a book on evolution.

You wrote a book about it. Which was a New York Times bestseller available from St. Martin's Press. You can go to Amazon.com. And so I think we should start with that. And this is about evolution. Of course, you had a very famous debate that our friend Neil deGrasse Tyson refers to as ham on nigh. Yes, like instead of a sandwich. Instead of a sandwich. With rye bread, yes.

So let's go with evolution here. All right? First question from Richard Bolin. I hear this talk about the mechanisms that explain evolution. Everyone says mechanisms. What are these mechanisms, please? Oh, so the first one is, our first one, what makes evolution go is you reproduce. By you, you're a living thing reproduction is what is how changes come to be in the descendant species the next the offspring the kids be it corn plants uh soybean uh spiders sea jellies or even humans right and by making replicas of yourself,

you accidentally, in general, induce changes. And so that is a mechanism. Now, this works whether or not you have sex. When you have sex, like dandelions do, then you can accelerate the process by getting this new mixture of genes so that the offspring are inherently quite a bit or quite a bit somewhat more different than they would be if you didn't

have sex okay so then the question is and this is uh where the coin the term the phrase got coined uh the fittest now fittest in surviving of the fittest survival of the fittest rather does not mean the people that lift the most weights or have the best cardio workout means you fit into the ecosystem the best it's an old it's a british usage of this term from the 19th century so it's not like this guy to fit But that might not be bad because my understanding is certain chicks dig that. Which can help you replicate yourself a little easier. That's a real thing, though. That's a real thing.

Getting the job done. And I mentioned in my book that I have a trainer, a friend of mine, who's also Neil deGrasse Tyson's trainer when he's in Los Angeles, trainer okay when he's in los angeles uh who says no matter what they tell you no matter what they say women like muscles really that's what they said that's what he says well yeah yeah so it could be anyway that aside self-survival of the fittest as in fit in fit in the best you fit in the best. Then there's other mechanisms in evolution where we end up with not only our size, shape, number of fingers that enable us to survive and reproduce the best, but we end up with emotions that enable us to survive. So you know the word, we throw around the word antisocial nowadays? Antisocial. If you're a jerk, you're not going to... You don't make it.

It's less likely you'll have babies. Right. Or if you're a raving dog-dispositioned person. Right. It's very unlikely that you'll be as successful. I got you. And so we have this so-called urge of altruism, this urge to help each other out.

And that is apparently a result of evolution. So these are examples. Because the loner didn't make it. The loner, yeah. Because the loner, I mean, when you fall or you're stuck somewhere, if you're a loner, you're there. You're done. You're done. But if the guy's there to help you up, you don't know, maybe the guy you helped up will help you later.

Right. And we're all in this together. And if you want to knock off a mammoth, it's probably a team sport. Not something you want to do by yourself. How about this one last thing about that question? The mechanisms. We as humans are part of evolution. We are not separate creatures independent of the Earth's ecosystems.

We are a result of the same processes that brought us sea jellies and dandelions and giant squid. We're all here. We're all in this together. We have so much more in common than we have different, and you can see it in our DNA. So there's evidence of that on a cellular level. in common than we have different. And you can see it in our DNA. Okay. So there's evidence of that on a cellular level. Overwhelming. Overwhelming evidence on a cellular level that we're part of a grand, grand scheme with

everything else. Okay. Very cool. Oh, and the energy for reproduction comes from the sun, ultimately. I mean, most of it. It's the green plants, and we eat them and we roll cool and the earth's got primordial spin which is not insignificant but i'm gonna call that afternoon delight there you go all right so uh let's move on with to steph burt steph burt uh do you think that one day technology will become so advanced that it will begin to hinder our own human evolution.

Can we devolve because of technology? But this gets into a tribal question, and I'll put it to you this way. Let's take, for example, a guy who was walking down the street when he was an engineer at Boeing and had appendicitis. Right.

That could be me. I was going to say. Wow, just a second. But because I live in a tribe that has built hospitals, it was routine. Guy took out my appendix. I'm still going. I could have babies and things. But if I lived in a different tribe without that technology, I would probably have died.

Or a different time. That's right. Some people apparently survive appendicitis, but generally it kills you. Yeah. And so because I'm in this tribe, my genes are getting passed on where they might not otherwise have been passed on. Right. are getting passed on where they might not otherwise have been passed on right and so there's an example of technology enabling my genes to go into the future could it get to the point where you can't do anything at all you can't survive at all without technology that is to say

you'd be plugged into some giant matrix machine yeah from the get-go and you'd be there all the time. It's possible, but I think it's quite a ways off. But from a science fiction standpoint, it is a worthy thing to consider. And it's also something to consider when you think about our tribes, our social systems that we have here as humans. We all depend on each other, and that's why there's so many of us. In the bad old days, if you got the flu or whatever, you were just dead.

That was it. But now, all these things enable so many people to not die at nearly the rate they used to, which, as I hope anyone can agree, is both good and bad. When my grandparents were around, were young, there were about one and a half billion people in the world. Now there are about 7.2 going on nine. Yeah.

And so that's going to put quite a burden on the Earth's resources. But it's our ability to understand nature and to create technology based on science that will improve the quality of life of people everywhere. It's a great question. It is a good question. So let me tack on to Steph Burt's question and ask you with what you just said, is there a danger of us losing our humanity due to technology.

What you just talked about was how our dependence upon one another has got us to a point where we can continue to evolve and grow and actually increase our population because we depend upon each other. Is it possible that technology will move us in the opposite direction of that? Yeah, yeah. Here's why. I'll give you an example.

Have you ever read The Stepford Wives? No, I can't say that I have. No, but I just want to tell you guys, they make a remake of it on movies every now and then. But in the original, the pill is capital t capital p and this is an example of technology that enabled women to not have babies right and take control of their uh family planning in a much more practical way than other things that have been suggested,

which is something like don't look at boys. Cross your legs with an aspirin between your knees. Like those are ineffective. Exactly. And so there's an example of technology that enables us to control human reproduction, which then could enable us hypothetically to raise the standard of living of women, hypothetically to raise the standard of living of women which will over the course of a century or two lower the human population by natural means fewer people being born that are dying

and that will provide more of the earth's resources for more people whoa right so there's an example will that technology allow us to lose our humanity? Yes. Or actually make us love each other all the more? So I don't think technology will make us lose our humanity. Okay. As long as there are humans involved, there will be human emotions. Fantastic. And I love that.

Wait, that's an emotion, too. That's crazy. All right. that's an emotion too that's crazy all right let's go to google plus and tariq hussein and tariq wants to know this what effects do you what effects do you think humans will have on our own evolutionary path through our advances in science and technology we have extremely minimized minimize the effects of natural selection in favor of some new mechanism of evolution. So that kind of like what you're talking about with your appendix and so forth. Is that going to – are we going to have four fingers one day?

I mean, well, actually three fingers and a thumb one day is because of – No, I think it's going to go the other way. I think the big – here's your – our perception, science fiction movies and science fiction thinking and stuff, is that your brains will get bigger. Right. More powerful. Yes. Their skulls will swell to the size of rugby balls. The buttheads from Star Trek.

Yes, yes. And that may be, but in the shorter term, your enemy, as a living thing on the earth, is not lions and tigers and bears. Oh, my. Exactly. Which can be very troublesome. Yes. But most people are hardly affected at all by the threat of lions or tigers or bears. Oh, my.

What does get you are germs. Yes. Germs and parasites. Right. So the people that happen to have the most robust immune systems that keep up with or stay just ahead of mutating viruses and bacteria and other parasites are more likely to have their genes passed in the future. And the claim that evolution is not happening is absolutely wrong. Sorry, I love you, man, but no.

There's evidence that people in the industrial world who can tolerate milk are more successful. Their blood sugar is more stable. Their hemoglobin counts are better. So we are perhaps, perhaps, slowly weeding out infants who are not tolerant of modern diets. There's some evidence of that.. There's some evidence of that.

Gotcha. Very compelling evidence of that. And then the other thing is, in order to get your genes passed into the future, you have to have offspring. Right. So let's take, for example, and I'm not really an authority on this, but let's take Kim Kardashian. Okay. People would nominally say that she's very attractive.

Some, yeah. Yeah. So she has a good chance of attracting a mate who could help her genes advance into the future. Well, in her case, several. Yeah. And so on. So, and then you want to attract a mate that is rich. I'm sorry.

Young and good looking. Rich, young and good looking. The triple threat. The triple threat. And what are you and I doing here? And so on. So this is, this process is still going on. You know, there's a saying, there's a lid for every pot.

Yes. Meaning that there's somebody for everyone. And that's probably true because we've all made it this far. Everybody's good enough. Keep that in mind, everyone. Everyone you meet is from an evolutionary standpoint is just like you. We all got here. Right.

Somebody was doing it. I know as troubling as it is. That is a little disturbing. Your parents had sex, but it's nevertheless true. And so we are all in this together. So the forces of evolution are still at work. And the real thing that's going to weed people out is going to be that germs and parasites. That's Bill's prediction.

Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. All right, here's John Marcus. And John comes to us from Twitter, at Thus Spoke John. You think a little much of yourself there, don't you, John? How does it work that traits skip a generation or two, or sometimes three? How often are genes presented but not active?

It's magic. No, wait, it's science. It's magic. No, wait, it's science. When recessive genes are expressed and dominant genes are expressed is one of with repeating genes and repeating sequences and how do they affect things and why are they there and then there's long strands or portions of our genetic code that are unused and so whether things dominate or recess is subtle and wonderful and the guy who discovered this was uh mendel messing around with his uh peas since then we have been pursuing this very actively and there's an old expression genealogy where you study your family tree right and you can for yourself study uh recessive traits and

dominant traits but it is based on probabilities it's another feature of nature where you can make very good predictions but not precise predictions you have to run the tests meaning you have to interact can we say interact on the radio oh yeah can we interact hard and often yeah yes okay that's enough stop Stop, stop, stop. No, but it is. Anyway, this is what people do now making crops, making good soybean and corn and peanuts and- Heirloom tomatoes. And cucumbers.

Studying the recessive and dominant traits of these things. Why do I want a salad now? Because you've been talking about food. It always makes you think about sex wait uh uh this is where uh this is what farmers do all day is mull these deep questions fantastic all right uh very quickly uh this from taylor taylor wants to know can you explain the evolutionary purpose of right and left-handedness? Why are some of us right-handed and some of us left-handed? Well, apparently right-handedness started to dominate in certain tribes, and having everybody same-handed was of great value. You're listening to StarTalk.

Stay tuned for another segment. Welcome back to StarTalk. Here's more of this week's episode. Stacy Pro from, looks like Facebook, says, what kind of technological advances would we have to make dozen people to Mars that would never come home, and we would all watch them suffer starvation and death on international television. But that probably won't happen. Instead, we at the Planetary Society strongly believe that we could send an exploration mission to the vicinity of Mars, let's say landing on Phobos, by 2033, which sounds like a long way off when you're a kid.

But when you're my age, it doesn't sound like that far. And this we could do with the current, what everybody likes to say, funding profiles. There's a graph that shows how much money you spend every year, and it looks kind of like a profile, I guess, and that's where this term came from. But this is a long way to go, and the technological advances that I think we need, we've got to find ways to have people keep their bones while they're in very low gravity for a long, long time.

And we have to be able to breathe and eat and recycle water supplies. I don't want to trouble you, but we have to not throw water away. That just sounds disgusting. We do it here on Earth. I guess you're right. We have a water cycle. We do have a water cycle. That's how we roll.

So these are the kind of problems that have to be solved. And I myself have always been a fan of making a spaceship that spins. So you may not get 1 g worth of gravity like we have here in this room. Right. But you might get 40%. And that would be enough acceleration to keep your bones healthy. Okay. It would be tests worth running. And here's the reason to explore Mars,

is we would make discoveries that would change the course of humankind. We'd have adventures that people would talk about till the end of humans. Sounds good. Let's go to Lance Elliott. Okay, this is what Lance says. There's been speculation that perhaps life could exist on Saturn's moon Titan. Yeah. It was suggested such life would take in hydrogen and acetylene and output methane.

How hard could that be? Right. Taking hydrogen atoms and acetylene, that's the old nomenclature for propane, which is like propane, but it has a triple carbon bond instead of a single one. So, okay, that could be. So that's what he says. Let's go find out.

Let's build a mission, build a spacecraft. And let's get to Titan. With extraordinary instruments and sniff around. Let's go. I don't want to sniff around if it smells like methane.

The instrument would do the sniffing, Chuck. Oh, okay. Okay, good. Since then, we've detected such depletion of hydrogen around if it smells like methane uh the instrument would do the sniffing chart oh okay okay good since then we've detected such depletion of hydrogen and acetylene and don't know the cause we also don't know what's restoring titan's methane my question is thank god we finally got to it lance bill what do you think of the possibility of life on Titan? You know, you could have just said that, Lance. I don't think it's that likely because people

in astrobiology, as it's called, have spent a lot of time with us. And people like methane the way we do. We have swamp gas here on Earth. We have natural gas, which is methane. Same word. Two different words, three different words to describe the same thing. But it looks like water is the best deal for living things. Right. So water is not just H2O.

That's sort of a shorthand. It's HOH is water. It's a molecule that has a polarity. It has a north and a south. It has a plus and a minus quality. And apparently, near as any astrobiologist can tell, this polar quality of water makes it extraordinarily good for the chemistry of life. Now, it could be because you and I are water-based things. We just think in water-based ways, and we're not asking questions, in this case, outside the box or the periodic table edges. But maybe there is something out there,

per this guy's question, but it looks like what you really want is water. So we'll see. We'll see. So there you have it, Lance. Highly unlikely. Highly unlikely. But after we've done Mars and Europa, Lance. Highly unlikely. Highly unlikely.

But after we've done Mars and Europa, I am ready to invest. Let's build a spacecraft out there. All right. All right. Then send it out there. So here is a question from Dejrik Chaya or Kaya. Okay. Could be Kia.

Could be Kia. Doing my best here. Okay. Chaya. Chaya. Chaya. That fabulous sound. Go ahead. Take it. Could be Kia. Doing my best here. Okay? Kia. Kia. Kia. Kia. That fabulous sound. Go ahead.

Take it. Hello, Mr. Nye. How do you feel about NASA announcing a trip to Europa? Do you think a successful human colony will be placed on Europa before we have a successful colony on Mars? Thank you. P.S. To whoever is reading the questions, my name is pronounced Derek Shia.

Oh. There you have it. Answer was in the question there uh derrick derrick shia derrick no we will not have a human colony on europa before we have it on mars europa is an icy world extraordinarily far from the sun influenced greatly by the extremely powerful jian, Jupiter's magnetic field. No, what we want to do is look for life there, because there's all that seawater on Europa that we want to investigate and see if with four and a half billion years of liquid water, maybe there's something living there. So we're not going to build a colony on Europa.

No, it's a good question. No, no, I was just thinking of a very juvenile joke. You said we're not going to build a colony on Europa. And, of course, I was going to say, or Uranus. But I'm sorry. I'm shocked. I'm just shocked. I'm sorry for even considering it.

But now you have a 15 and 9 and a 1-year-old. Yes, I do. They go through phase. There's a phase. Speaking of liquid and solid and gaseous water. Phases. Anyway, we want to look for signs of life on Mars and Europa. That's what is a worthy investment of your tax dollars.

And that's why I took the job as CEO of the Planetary Society. Ah-ha. Fantastic. All right, let's go to Lim Lipka. Coming to us from Google+. Lim wants to know this. The Mars One mission is considered a one-way ticket. What would be the projected lifespan of the astronauts and what would prevent us from retrieving them during that estimated time?

Well, everybody, there was one study done. I'm almost sure it was something associated with the National Research Council, which is associated with the National Academy of Sciences. And they thought people would live less than 70 days before chaos caught up with them. And they wouldn't be alive anymore. So even if you're off by a factor of 10, 700 days is just not enough time to mount a mission to Mars. It's not like you guys. It's not like going to the Alps and getting the guy hanging from the rope.

It's just so far away. It takes. You can only go to Mars successfully economically every 26 months, every two years and a little bit because of the orbits of Earth and Mars. You just can't economically get to mars when it's on the wrong side of the sun it's just that's all there is to it it's just got a lineup that's got a lineup and that's you have to launch before you have to get the spacecraft to catch up with mars and so on so you can't just you can't just do that and this

that people have this perception is kind of cool, but things are just much, much farther away in space than you realize. There's a lot of space in space. In space. So the whole idea of total recall, it's not likely. It's not likely. Oh, damn. Got it. All right.

Let's move on to Casey coming to us from Twitter and says, hey, Bill, with private sector space travel, do you feel it will lead to less moral obligations towards astronauts' lives? In other words, hmm, will there be kind of like, there'll be more astronauts, so we don't care if they die? I actually almost certainly go the other way. No, because astronauts historically have been military pilots. Right. And the civilian space program in the United States, for example,

is still closely tied to the traditions and the hierarchy of military. And if you are a military commander and they tell you to do something, that's your deal. You follow orders. And that's why they indoctrinate you in your boot camp and you rise up through the ranks and you just get the chain of command becomes imbued. Right. And so on the other hand, it doesn't make a difference if you want to go up or not.

And those people have their tickets paid for. That is to say, if you're an astronaut, the governments of the world are paying your salary and your rocket fuel and your tang. But when you are a commercial citizen buying a ticket, people expect the same level of safety as you have in commercial airplanes. Actually, it will go the other way. People will be outraged when there's a crash that kills civilians exactly now wow that is an excellent point because you have to sound so

surprised but yeah you know when you think about it how often do we hear about a helicopter going down, an F-15 going down. We hear about some type of test plane going down. No one is outraged because we did not care for the safety of that pilot. It's just like, that dude knew what he signed up for. Oh, well. That's right. Big deal. That's right. But let an airliner go down.

Oh, man. People are totally freaked. Reasonably so, too. You're paying. You buy a ticket. You're hoping. You're expecting, rather, not to get killed by it. Right.

You're a military pilot who loves flying and realizes this machine you're sitting on is extraordinarily powerful. You know what you're getting into. It doesn't make it great, but it is a very different outlook from the passenger. Excellent. Wow. Passenger's point of view. Hey, great question there, Casey. And there's your answer.

It's actually going to go in the opposite direction. You're better off not being an astronaut and buying a $200,000 ticket. Way to go. There you go. All right, let's... With that said, keep in mind, Virgin Galactic had a crash killing a test pilot. But a test pilot is the same kind of guy. Yeah, same kind of guy.

And it's funny because now that you mention that, the big question that ensued that crash was, is this the end of commercial space flight? No. All over the news the next day. All over the news. No, people redoubled their efforts because this guy was an explorer. Right.

He was out there pushing the envelope. And if you want to know, by the way, everybody, just in airplanes, there's a graph of propulsion and altitudes that when you look, when you draw all the lines to figure out where the best place to operate your airplane is, it kind of looks like the back of an envelope. There's a horizontal line, there's a downsloping line, a downsloping line of the other direction. It kind of looks like the back of an envelope. And so that's where this expression, pushing the envelope, came from. Oh, yeah.

Did you know that? It's based on a graph. Based on the graph. Fantastic. All right, let's switch gears here because you are a man of many talents, and your knowledge spans many subjects. Oh, yes. Just ask me about it.

And here's the great thing is a lot of our listeners know that you are indeed an engineer. Yes. I'm a licensed. I do. You're a licensed engineer. I am. So here's the deal. Let's move into some technology and engineering questions that people want to know specifically from you, Mr. Nye.

Paul Johnson wants to know specifically from you, Mr. Nye. Paul Johnson wants to know this. Is it possible we have reached close to this level of civilization technology here on Earth and just don't know it? Okay. In other words, what he's saying is where we are right now technologically, is it possible that sometime in the past, in unrecorded history, Technologically, is it possible that sometime in the past, in unrecorded history, there's tens if not hundreds of millions of years unaccounted for on our planet where billions of species have lived and died? Could we have experienced some other technological explosion without knowing it and kind of went into a dark ages and started all over.

I don't think so. Okay. Why not? They're done. Because I think you'd have evidence of it. And every time humans do anything, they leave stuff behind, like pyramids. Right. And I say humans, but there's no evidence whatever that the ancient dinosaurs had a space program, for example. Right.

They would have deflected the asteroid and they'd still be running the show. There you go. So it's very, very unlikely. It's great science fiction, and this idea that ancient people knew more about math than we do. Totally not true. It doesn't seem very likely, especially when you look. You know, people, the pyramids are perfectly square.

They're really square, but they're not perfectly square. Yeah, they're really good. They're not perfect. I think it's that those guys had a lot more time on their hands. The other thing they had was energy. And what really impressed me, if you ever go to Pompeii, outside of Naples, Italy, Napoli, you see they had slaves. Yeah. So they could just build all kinds of cool stuff.

Manpower, baby. And now we have fossil fuels and we have built all kinds of new stuff. What we want to do is take humankind to the next level where we don't rely exclusively on fossil fuels for our livelihood, resources, and food so that we can, dare I say it, Chuck, working together, change the world. These are great questions, and they all lead to these big ideas, these big science fiction ideas, which I think are so charming. You're listening to StarTalk Radio. Stay tuned. More up next. Welcome back.

Here's more of StarTalk. We have questions, Chuck. Yep, we're still in our cosmic queries, and we've got questions from all over the Internet. And, you know, all of these questions have been specifically directed at you. A man can dream. There you have it. So let's continue right now with some more technology and engineering, because you're an engineer. I am.

And this is from James Kaltas. And James wants to know this. What do you think of the possibility of biological interstellar ships? Biological interstellar ships. I've got to tell you, I've never even heard of this. Well, this is where you'd make your ship out of space weed. Purchase. You've got to make sure you don't smoke it.

Well, it's like seaweed, sea plants. You'd make it out of space plants. Space plants? Woven together in a space plant ship. Okay. And it would then, you know, the way you do, fly around, you know, in space. And everybody would live inside and breathe space plant-produced oxygen and stuff. Right.

So I'm open-minded, but I don't have a clear vision. I was going to say, something tells me you don't have to leave Earth to fly in this spaceship. However, he does give me a little bit of clarification. He defines it as this. Ships that use advanced biochemical mechanisms and evolve and learn along with the passengers. And I guess this would be along the lines of a biochemical computer, which is something they were talking about a little while ago.

Yeah. So why have a biochemical computer? I don't know why. Cause I know I have one. Oh, you do. Yeah. It's great.

Yes. I'm using it to create these sounds. Yeah, exactly. So, uh, I follow you, but what you'd want is like the Borg,

uh, that would also be your spaceship where you'd have this distributed computing power in the fabric or in the skin or in the superstructure or in the chassis, the bus of your spaceship. It sounds cool. You should write a science fiction story. Yeah. The ship is alive.

Yes. There you go. It turns on you. That's what will happen. Of course it does. Right. The you go. It turns on you. That's what will happen. Of course it does. Right. The ship has to turn on you. It's going to take you the whole freaking movie to either resolve the situation or kill the ship.

Yeah. Or just, yeah. And then your, your, your quandary becomes, if we kill the ship, how do we get home?

God, Chuck, it's written itself. It's written itself. And I just cannot help but hearken to that moment when Hal remarks, I could see your lips move. Hal, the computer in 2001 Space Odyssey, is reading the guy's lips knowing that they're planning to unplug him.

Exactly. So Hal tries to kill them all. Well, there you have it. It's a wonderful idea. You should write the science fiction all. Well, there you have it. Though it's a wonderful idea. You should write the science fiction novel about it. There you have it. Straight from Mr. Nye himself. You might think take it straight to video.

Let's take it straight to video. Lead on. All right, here we go. Thomas Charles Davis II would like to know, well, actually he first says, I am an artist, and I want to be more involved with science and NASA. What should I do? Join the Planetary Society. I knew somehow you were going to say that.

Yeah, so you have to have art in everything you do. This is to say, art is what humans do. Humans create art. And to think of science and exploration as completely separate or unrelated to art i'm always a little troubled by that and so i think many of us agree that when you make a really elegant engineering thing like a brooklyn bridge for example golden gate bridge okay everybody goes wow that looks great so that has an artistic quality. In the same way, when you make a really cool-looking suit, you say, wow, that's quite practical. It keeps you warm or makes you stand up straight or allows you to brush against subway railings without getting your skin burned.

These things converge. So you want to have art and aesthetics in everything you do. There you have it. That's actually a good answer, and it is true. You don't have to sound so surprised, Mr. Nice. You're right. You're right. You're right.

I mean, you don't really think about how important aesthetics are when it comes to aesthetics and technology until you think about an Apple product. That's right. You know? That's right. When you think about an Apple product, you see exactly how important it really is that's right people want their technologies to look good and i mean it's and uh to me it's all they're all connected as the old saying goes you can't fight a dirty ship let me rephrase that if things are not ship shape on your ship it's not as

effective at its job of being a fighting machine. Right. This is to say, you keep things neat and tidy or in an aesthetically pleasing way so that it's more effective, it's more useful. In the same way, you don't want to have pure utilitarian things because it doesn't appeal to people. Exactly. And I understand there is great value in clutter. It has its own patterns and wonder. Yes, yes, yes. Oh, I'm digressing. Imagine Bill Nye digressing.

Weird. Lead on, Mr. Nice. Here we go. All right. Nate owns. Could be. Yes. I'm just going to read what he says and let you handle it.

All right. If the near-Earth asteroid Apophis passes through the keyhole in 2029, will seven years be enough time to prepare to deflect it? Then he says, personally, I think NASA should let it crash into the Pacific so that we can teach Congress space programs are important. So that was his commentary on it. So the question is, will we have time? So Apophis is an asteroid named after the Greek god of worry or anxiety. Oh, dear.

Oh, dear. And the keyhole is a mathematical shape in space that would, in this case, if I understand this question, would mean it's on course to hit the Earth next time it comes around. Right. 2036. Well, it is to be hoped that if it's, as it gets closer, we will be able to determine whether or not it's passing through the keyhole. And so you'll actually have quite a bit more than seven years because its trajectory will be clear into the 2022s and 2025s. And then you would have time, perhaps, to mount a mission to give the thing a nudge. However, with all that said, right now it looks like Apophis is going to miss.

It would be an extraordinarily small chance. I haven't looked at this in quite a while, but less than 1 in 100,000. I'll take those odds. It's not zero. Not zero. But I'll take them. Right now, that's why people are not panicked

about Apophis. But at the Planetary Society, we emphasize to everyone there are about 100,000 enormous asteroids that cross the Earth's orbit, and we don't know where most of them are, let alone whether or not they're going to hit us. Ancient dinosaurs, near as anybody can tell, did not have a space program. And it caught up with them. This is a worthy investment to look for signs,

to look for asteroids, and to learn to build systems that would give one a nudge. Just a little nudge. All right. All right, here we go. Paul Duma. Paul wants to know this. How much material would be needed to make a Dyson sphere?

Would it require more than is in our solar system? A Dyson sphere, if I understand it, depends how big you want it. You want it to go around the sun with the earth inside, and then we'd capture all the sun's energy and do things. I think it's really difficult. I haven't run that number. That sounds like something that would be fun to do, compute the total mass of a Dyson sphere.

It seems to me, unless it's extraordinarily thin, to keep the Earth within it would require, I mean, a sphere, just if you want to run the numbers, its volume goes as four-thirds pi r cubed, four-thirds times pi, the ratio of circumference of the diameter times the radius cubed its surface area goes i guess it'd be the derivative of that right so it would be um i'm kidding but it would be uh before pi r squared these derivative of the volume be the

surface area so it's before pi it's a lot of r When you get 150 million kilometers, 93 million miles, and you square that, and that's an enormous number of kilometers. And I don't think there's enough material on the Earth or the solar system to build that. To even build it. Yeah, that's a good question. There was a little outlouding there. Yeah, a little outlouding. Hey, you know, Chuck.

It's time, my friend. There's four minutes left. It's time for the lightning round. And the lightning round is brought to you by, Chuck. It's time, my friend. There's four minutes left. It's time for the lightning round. And the lightning round is brought to you by Personal Questions. Wow. It's all about that bill. Wow. These are all personal questions for you.

Here's Kalen Manzer. If you and Neil were given the entire U.S. budget for one year, what would you do with it? Fix everything. No, we would address climate change. We would raise the standard of living of women and girls through education. No, we would address climate change. We would raise the standard of living of women and girls through education. And we would improve transportation systems so that we would use less energy.

The key to the future, Chuck, is not to do less, but to do more with less. I'm voting for you guys. Okay, that's a ticket I'm voting for. Here's Ellie St. Sire says, What, in your opinion, was Leonard Nimoy's greatest tribute to science? What is your favorite Star Trek, the original series? Well, my favorite Star Trek, this isn't a hard question, is City on the Edge of Forever. I mean, many such journeys are possible.

Anyway, the importance of Leonard Nimoy is hard to underestimate. The guy gave us the Star Trek writ large, and he was a huge part of it, gave us this optimistic view of the future through magic? No. Through what, Chuck? Science. Yes. He was a science officer. Lead on.

That's right. This is from Louis DeMella. What is your ideal future for this planet and our species? Where we raise the standard of living of women and girls so that the human population naturally decreases, so that there are more resources for each person, so that we have a sustainable energy system, comfortable transportation system, so that people everywhere have a comfortable, happy, have the opportunity to be comfortable and happy forever, until the extent of humankind. A noble, noble cause, no doubt. Tristan McClellan wants to know this.

Hey, since we've got more cosmos, why not more science guy? Your people need you, Bill. I'm working on it. Hey, I'm a host on StarTalk Radio. The longest journey starts with a single step. You're listening to StarTalk Radio, and you should do what I do when I listen to this show, Chuck. What's that? Turn it up loud.

Next question. Nathan Smith wants to know, as a student in STEM, what types of things do you suggest I do now to accelerate science literacy in the United States of America? Well, as always, the single best indicator of whether or not anyone will pursue a career in math and science. It's not science class as such. It's, right now, it's algebra. So whatever you can do to promote human understanding of algebra will, writ large, change the world. Fantastic. And Brittany wants to know this. Bill, have you ever invented something?

If not, what would you like to invent? I have a couple patents, Chuck. Do you? Yes. Alright. The improved ballet toe shoe, a magnifying glass made of water, and then the digital abacus, which helps you learn binary arithmetic.

But what would I like to invent? This other baseball thing I'm working on. So stay tuned to StarTalk in general. This has really been fun, Chuck. Thanks for listening to StarTalk Radio. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Many thanks to our comedian,

our guest, our experts, and I've been your host, Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Until next time, I bid you to keep looking up.