StarTalk Radio - Cosmic Queries – In a Zeptosecond

Episode Date: September 3, 2024

Can nuclear fusion become the ultimate renewable energy source? Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-host Chuck Nice answer fan questions about transporters, the smallest unit of time, expansion, and other ideas that push the boundaries of our understanding of the universe.NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons can listen to this entire episode commercial-free.Thanks to our Patrons Day53, May Jo Williams, Tisha Bernal, Jeff Holcombe, Lorenzo & Elisabetta, C Hahn, Charles Maluf, Paul Levine, Crystal Barnes, and Peter Brush for supporting us this week. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

So Chuck, we had a banterous... Lot of fun. Is that a word? Banterous? Banterous. Banter filled. Filled with banter. Banter filled show. I think we answered one and a half questions. You got to watch this show because guess what?

Half of it is not going to make it. Half the show is not going to make it. Yeah, we went too long. No, but some fun questions. A lot of fun questions. Yeah, we had questions from. I don't care. No, there's some fun questions. A lot of fun questions. Yeah, we had questions from Texas, from Berlin,

from the Netherlands. From the Netherlands. It was all over the place. It was great. And very good questions, too. And people learned why we call you Lord Nice. Yes, we learned that.

And we also learned why transporters will not be necessary. Star Trek got it wrong. Well, it's the future. I can't say they got it wrong in past tense, but I can suggest that maybe we might have a better idea than what they came up with there.

Take that, Gene Roddenberry. All right, coming up, StarTalk. Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk. Neil deGrasse Tyson here, your personal astrophysicist.

Co-host, Chuck Nice. Hey, what's up, Neil? Chuck, baby, all right. You got your sunglasses on your shirt. Oh, I didn't even realize that. Was that just a thing? You know what? That was because when I came in the building, I was wearing sunglasses.

And when I walked in, I was like, these security people are going to think you're a douche. Take these sunglasses off right now. Like, do not walk through security with these sunglasses. And they're mirrored sunglasses on top of that. That's very 1985. Yeah. I walk in just like, what we have here. Failure. To communicate.

All right. We got a grab bag Cosmic Queries today. All right. And you've been preloaded. Yes. Yes. Again, I've never seen any of these questions. Neither have I.

And they come from our fan base. Yeah. Specifically. Patreon. The highest echel come from our fan base. Yeah. Specifically. Patreon. The highest echelon of our fan base. Patreon. Those who give us money. Yes.

All right. So what's the category? Oh, no, it's just no category. No category. All right. This is what we used to call Galactic Gumbo. Gumbo. Okay.

Which is so cool. And once again, we're here in my office at the Hayden Planetarium. Yes. The Museum of Natural History. Absolutely. Oh, yeah. This is my office at the Hayden Planetarium. Yes. The Museum of Natural History. Absolutely. Oh, yeah. This is all real. Everything you see in here, well, you only see this side, but there's like other views here.

It looks like the smartest hoarder in the world lives here. That's honestly what it looks like. Like some kind of genius hoarder just moved in and has a love affair with the cosmos. It's crazy. It's crazy. It's like all kinds of stuff. Mostly, a lot of great books, though. Like, you know what I mean? It's all around.

All right. And then, of course, you know, your icons. We see your boy Newton. I got a bust of Isaac Newton behind the view of the camera right now. Yes, you can't see it. There's a big, creepy Newton head. It's not creepy. That is a creepy looking Newton head.

My boy's got his locks. He's a beautiful head of hair. Yeah. Okay, but why are his eyes closed? He's just like. Oh, they look like death mask eyes. Yes, he's like, I hope they don't find out I'm gay. No, stop.

Realize he had no girlfriends his entire life. But he also had no boyfriends. Oh, wow. As far as people could tell. Okay. He's claimed by the gay community in some books that I've read. Right. But he never procreated.

He never. It's easier to think. Today, we might just call him asexual. Asexual. I think that's just as simple. Man, that's probably what he was. Yeah. All right, go.

This is John A. He says, hello from Texas. Texas. I was wondering hello from Texas. Texas. I was wondering if particle fusion. Why are you giving it? You don't know if he has an accent. He said, hello from Texas. Okay.

Particle fusion could be used as a renewable energy source, as seen in Spider-Man 2. And if so, can it be done effectively? Love the show, you guys. Oh, thank you. So let me say this two ways. You can extract energy from the nucleus of an atom in two ways.

Take a big atom, split it. And the mass of the two products is less than what you started with. Where did the mass go? It became energy. E equals MC squared. Nice. The E and the M, they're on opposite sides of an equation.

If you get rid of the M, you get E on the other side. And that is fission? Fission. That's fission. Fission. Big atom. Big atom. Into little atoms.

Now you come from the other side. Okay. You take little atoms and you bring them together and make bigger atoms. Okay. Okay. Then the atom you ended up with has less mass than the two atoms you started with. Same in reverse. Okay.

So now we got some mass that becomes energy. That's very cool. That's fusion. That's cool. Fusion. Okay. Okay. So we know how to begin and sustain and contain fission.

Right. Okay. A lot of research went into that to make the bomb. Right. Okay. That would be uncontrolled fission. Right. Okay? A lot of research went into that to make the bomb. Right. Okay? That would be uncontrolled fission. Uncontrolled fission. Okay?

If you're not controlling it, it explodes. Right. And that's where you get the bomb, the Oppenheimer and the A-bomb and all of this. And there are two kinds of A-bombs. One used plutonium,

the other used uranium. Wow. Those are huge atoms. All right. You come from the other side, you start with hydrogen, the lightest atom. You fuse it, you make helium.

That's what the sun is doing every moment of every second of every day, 24-7. Okay. So that takes very high temperatures, and the temperatures are so high, like, what are you going to put it in? Right. Okay. I'm going to go with millions of degrees. Pyrex. It's millions of degrees.

Millions of degrees. Everything you put it in will vaporize before you even has a chance to do it. Okay. This is one of the challenges of this exercise.

And so maybe you can contain it in a magnetic bottle. Ooh. Yeah. Yo, that's super cool because now you're using the magnetic force to contain it. That's Yo, that's super cool because now you're using the magnetic

force to contain it. That's brilliant. Brilliant. It's brilliant. I'm on board. Let's do this. Why didn't we think of that before? What are we waiting for? What are we waiting for? So there are different styles of this

exercise. The tokamak, it's a machine that creates a toroidal volume where you would then have your plasma very high temperature gas ionized gas and in there you'd get the fusion so the problem is wow that's no no by the way we've made fusion bombs right so we have uncontrolled nuclear fusion right they're called Yes. The sun is in full control of its nuclear fusion because at the center of the star and the pressure surrounding it from all the rest of the star keeps it in check. Right. Okay?

Otherwise, the whole star would go kablooey. Yeah. Official term. Kablooey. Kablooey. I love it. There's no uncertainty about the meaning of that word. You can't mess that up. Kablooey. Kablooey. I love it. There's no uncertainty about the meaning of that word. You can't mess that up.

Kablooey. So some of the challenges are, how do we control it once you get it started? Okay. And we've not been able to do that effectively, really. But recently, months ago, in the United States, and I think it was at Lawrence Livermore Labs, they managed to get more energy out. Than they put in.

Than they put in to make this whole thing happen. Well, that sounds to me like the nascent stages of fusion reactors. Yes, it is. But all the information about this wasn't fully reported on. Uh-oh. No, no. information about this wasn't fully reported on oh no no i mean it's just the experiment the energy that goes in the experiment versus came out it was net positive okay however what it took to set up the experiments right okay right the whole kit and the caboodle to get to that volume in which you had the fusion is itself a whole expenditure of energy and technology.

And so it's a first step to show you that it's possible. And what you have to do is make everything else efficient that's around it on the hope and expectation that one day this can- Like the electric car. Like the electric car, once you have it and you're driving it, yeah, it's doing great in terms of if you take renewable fuel and use that to put the electricity in the car, what you're doing is you're net zero. Net zero. But the fact is, if you made more pollution making the car.

Making the car that makes no pollution. That makes no pollution. So it was an important test of concept. We made headlines, by the way. Right, right. And I was interviewed heavily about it, if I remember, on CNN and this sort of thing. So I was very happy about that because there's no shortage of hydrogen in the universe. It's the number one atom.

Yeah, right. All right? Yeah. Did I tell you I was listening to a radio play one time? There were aliens that were coming to Earth to suck up our water supply. Right. Because they thrive on hydrogen. Right. And they knew that water is H2O. Right. our water supply. Right. Because they thrive on hydrogen. Right.

And they knew that water is H2O. Right. H2O. Right. Right. And I'm listening to this. They came across the galaxy to consume our water supply. Right.

To get hydrogen. Only the most plentiful thing in the entire. 98% of all atoms in the universe are hydrogen. Hydrogen. These are some stupid aliens. Right. And so I was very disappointed yeah that story and you get the good hydrogen on earth come to earth the best hydrogen there is

yeah no so anyhow so there's no shortage of hydrogen right and so if we could perfect this process then it's unlimited energy for practically zero cost for the rest of the world and all of civilization. Wow. And it's not dependent on if the sun is shining or if the wind is blowing or if the tide is moving or what oil well you dug. Right. Or it's not dependent on any of that. Any of that. Yeah.

Wow, sounds like a wonderful dream. Well, listen, sounds like we're on our way. That's right. But people still have a spook factor about nuclear power. Yeah. People still have a spook factor about nuclear power. Yeah. If you told them how many people died mining coal.

Oh, my God. To supply their energy that we've been using for the past century and a half. Right. Yeah, it's hundreds of thousands of people. Oh, without a doubt. Right. Not to mention how messed up their skin is just because of it. It's terrible. Or their lungs.

Or their lungs. God. I had a geeky childhood. Okay. So I always wanted to know what was the longest word in the biggest dictionary. Okay.

And at the time, my access to dictionaries included the Random House unabridged dictionary. It's the best. Okay. I didn't know about the OED, the Oxford English Dictionary,

but the Random House was nice and big. Yes. Found the biggest word. Yeah. Okay. It's pneumonorultramicroscopicsilicovacanoconiosis. God bless you.

Sorry. So sorry. I'm so sorry that happened to you. It's sensibly abbreviated to black lung. Wow. Is that what that is? That's what that is. Black lung.

So pneumonorultramicroscopicsilicovacanoconiosis. Uh-huh. black lung. Wow, is that what that is? That's what that is. Black lung. So, pneumono. Right. Ultra-microscopic. Okay. Silicover. Uh-huh. So that's like the silicates. Tiny little silicates. Right. Inside the pneumono lungs. Yeah. Canneosis. So, it's you know, the medical folks stapled together all the syllables. Right.

So, that's coal and it's coal dust and people died from this. So, I'm not here to say fewer will die with this. That's not the right way to approach this. Just demonstrate the safety of these nuclear plants, and maybe people will come around. Numano stuff. Better known as...

Just cough it up. I don't know if it's still the biggest word in that dictionary. Plus, I don't know what the biggest word is in the Oxford English Dictionary. That's a whole other thing. A whole nother, but anyhow, why do we even go, oh, because the safety factor is going to matter to people if they want to sort of vote this through. But we first have to make it efficient and scalable so that you can then have one in every city or wherever. Yeah.

So, John, it's not happening anytime soon. And by the way, it has no byproducts such as what you get with fission. Fission has all these unstable- Yeah, that's called nuclear waste is what we call it. Nuclear waste. Nuclear waste. We got to put it someplace and it sticks around for 150, 200 years. Or more.

Or more. Or more. Right. Right. I'm Jasmine Wilson and I support StarTalk on Patreon. This is StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson. All right, this is Charlie Cervone who says, Hello, Dr. Tyson, Lord Nice, Charlie from Hudson, Ohio here. This may be elementary, my dear doctor, but I've heard it said when discussing the accelerated expansion of the universe and the Hubble constant, that the further away objects are in the universe, the more red

shifted they are and therefore receding away from us faster. Wouldn't it stand to reason then that objects closer to us in time and space are receding more slowly and that the expansion is slowing over time. Can you please help me understand how this works? Thank you for expanding all of our horizons. Oh, I see what he did there. Yeah. Did you see that?

Very good. Yeah, that was nice. Very good. Very good, Charlie. We're on to you, Charlie. Very classy. So the first half was correct. Right.

All right. As an object is farther away, the way the expansion profile of the universe works is that those objects that are farther are receding faster from us. Okay. Okay? Those objects that are nearby are receding more slowly. Mm-hmm. Okay. As the universe expands, these things will all go faster. And so to think or suggest that it's nearby objects

are receding more slowly, so therefore aren't we what did he imply? So what he's saying is that we understand the reason that the objects closer to us in time and space are receding more slowly and that the expansion is slowing. Oh. Okay, so over time

Over time. Over time because you've got to throw a time factor in there. If you waited a billion years, those objects would be farther away from us and moving faster. Exactly. So, no, nothing's slowing down. Nothing. Right. Yeah.

Right. At all. As a matter of fact, it's speeding up, right? Speeding up. Speeding up. That's the real problem. That's the real problem. That's the real problem.

Right. It's actually. You know, I want to value judge nature. I'm not going to call it a problem. Okay. I'm just going to call it an problem. Okay. I'm just going to call it an observation. All right. Okay.

Okay. The universe is expanding without limit such that the universe will end not with a bang, but with a whimper. Oh, that's terrible. And not in fire, but in ice. And you call that not a problem. What the heck is a problem then? That that not a problem. What the heck is a problem then?

That's not a problem. That's just, all right. No. All right, so there you have it. I hope that satisfies you, Charlie.

But thanks for the good question and the great little wordplay. So this is Danny K. He says, hello, Commander Tyson and Sergeant Nice. No,

don't do that, Danny. Uh-uh. It's Dr. Tyson and Lord Nice. Don't be giving us- Maybe he doesn't know why they call you Lord. Is that true? So he's just-

He's thinking of people just giving you titles. He's just giving you titles. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah, no. So maybe he's a new subscriber to the series.

All right. He doesn't have the backstory. He doesn't have the backstory of Lord Nice. All right, let me give it to you, Danny, real quick. Okay. Don't do that. That's not the back story. Is that not the back story?

No, I'm joking, Danny. I'm joking. What happened? Who was she? She was a four-star general or a three-star general. A major general. She's a three-star general. We had a major general on interviewing her about, was it climate change or something?

Yeah, it was climate change. Something? All right. And we had Charles Liu. Charles Liu. Who was on. Charles did some wordplay with Gilbert and Sullivan. Right. Okay.

And you said, you are the very model of a modern major general. Major general. She's a major general. We were doing Q&A, and people said Dr. Tyson and Chuck. Right. And you said, you got all pissy about it. That's what happened. And you said, why can't I have a title?

Why don't I have a title? Why can't I have a title? Right. Everybody got a title but me. And the Major General said, we will forevermore call you Lord Nice. Lord Nice. That's what it was. And it's stuck ever since.

That's what it is. And it's stuck ever since. That's right. So the Major General gave me that, Danny. Yeah. And it's an earlier episode of StarTalk. Well, here we go. I salute thee, he says.

Danny Kringdango, hailing from the flatlands of the Netherlands. A question I have, seeing as to so many sittings and other archaeological discoveries are being made underwater, would this sudden rise in water volume be a result of those ice thingies melting due to global warming? Or could it be due to the Earth's position and distance from the sun and the moon? So when we have underwater archaeological finds where there were civilizations and there's now covered in water

is that global warming rising sea level uh melted icebergs what would cause that yes what he's and that's yes yes okay next question all right so he's from the Netherlands. Yes. The Netherlands. And so they will be in very high demand as sea levels rise. Yes. See, it's a question suitable for someone. Somebody from him, yeah. The whole country is canals. The whole country is canals and dams. And dams and dikes.

And dikes. Right, okay. They're going to be in high demand as sea levels rise, and we want to keep our land masses. Help us make these canals and dikes. And we do it a little bit in New Orleans. There's whole sections that are below or at sea level

that get flooded easily. So they have the levees, this sort of thing. The Dutch are experts at this. Come on now. That's the whole world. I'm not surprised by this question. It's very much culturally informed and inspired. As you go back in time to the last ice age,

we know Earth was covered in ice and glaciers. Where did that water come from to become glaciers? I'm going to say rain. Rain? Where did the rain come from? The sky. Where did the sky come from? No.

Okay. How did the rain get in the sky well it evaporated from someplace else from where from the land it was no no the land is frozen oceans the oceans it evaporates up and then it becomes clouds and then it goes someplace and then it rains down and then it freezes snows down it snows down not rainsows down, freezes. Does it return to the ocean? Well, it can't because it's frozen. Thank you. So then what systematically happens to the oceans? Oh, they got to get shrinked. They systematically drain.

And as they do that, more and more landmasses manifest. That's correct. Coast lines grow. People go, hey, this is a good place to build a city. Hey, guys. Hey, y'all want to build this? Before we had advanced climate modeling. So, no doubt, there's

no end of cities that just got flooded as we slowly came out of the Ice Age. Gotcha. They had to move inland. That would have happened slowly as the water melted once again. Have you ever seen on a map? It might be true elsewhere, but I notice especially North America.

Off the East Coast, if they show the terrain of the bottom of the ocean, there's what we call the continental shelf, which is the same coastline. It's just pushed out a little further. And then you have a big drop-off. When New York, when it used to dump its garbage in the ocean, it wouldn't do it on the shelf.

It would take it to the deep part and then drop it out. So it goes way down. Okay. So you say, where'd that shelf come from? That was the coastline when the oceans were less. Gotcha. Okay? So you can imagine New York City, having been built way off on that edge, it'd be completely underwater now. Right. Okay. So the can imagine New York City having been built way off on that edge.

You'd be completely underwater now. Right. Okay. So the timescale of that is thousands of years. We're now going to have that happen in decades. Yes. Yes, we are. So there you go.

We'll be calling you Danny and all your friends in the Netherlands. In 50,000 years, we're going to dig up, what's this city they called it? New York City. New York? What the heck? Yeah. Oh, to him, it'd be New Amsterdam. Oh, that's what it was.

Yeah, the Dutch had a little action here. All of where you live in this city. I live in Lower Manhattan. You live in Lower Manhattan. That was New Amsterdam. Yeah. Yeah, man. Wow.

All right, Danny, there you have it. Well, please bring a bucket. To bail? To bail? Yeah, man. Wow. All right, Danny. There you have it. Well, please bring a bucket. The bell? The bell. We're going to need you. Bring a bucket, buddy, because we're in trouble. All right. This is Shane A. McDaniel.

He says, hello, Neil. Hello, Chuck. Time dilation discussions usually involve one object moving faster than others to slow down its relative time. faster than others to slow down its relative time. Alternatively, can an object somehow move slower than everything else to speed up its relative time? How might it slow down as such? That implies that you can establish a speed absolutely measured, but all the speeds are relative to one another.

So you can't say, this one thing is not moving and everything else is. You're not making an absolute statement there. Right. say i don't think i'm moving because i'm measuring everybody else to be moving but what are they saying they're saying you're moving by me exactly okay which is the whole train thing that's the whole train that's the whole train when you're looking out the window when you're looking out the window yeah and you see you see the train. Yeah, and you see- You see the train pulling off. Yeah, I said, are we moving backwards? We're moving backwards. No, no, no. The other train.

Right, right, right. Relative to the other train. Relative to the other train. So since all motion is relative, hence the name of the theories, the theories of relativity. Okay. Since all motion is relative, you cannot declare that you are not in motion and everybody else is. Gotcha. Everybody can declare they're not in motion. Right motion and everybody else is. Gotcha. Everybody can declare they're not in motion.

Right. And everybody else is. So you can declare you're not in motion, but then as soon as you go on the other side, you're like, oh no, I'm in motion. Exactly. Right. You know how this came up? It came up in a football game.

Get out. I got a text from, who's the coach of the Seattle Seahawks? Pete Carroll. Pete Carroll texted me. He said, Neil, we just had a play where they want to call it against us where they had a, what happens if you lateral backward, forward lateral?

That's an illegal forward. Illegal forward pass. Illegal forward pass. Because the quarterback. The receiver has to be behind the quarterback. You can only go backwards. Provided the quarterback has crossed the line of scrimmage. If you're past the line of scrimmage.

Right, but otherwise it's a forward pass. Yeah, you can forward pass, right. So they were in a play with a quarterback, Russell Wilson. He doesn't see an open receiver, so he scrambles. Right. He crosses the line of scrimmage. He sees one of his running backs, and he pitches to his running back okay no sorry he pitches backwards to his running back uh-huh and then he goes down and the running back gets a

first down and i think they scored on this play okay and the other team said no that was a forward lateral and illegal if you go to the videotape, the point on the field where Russell Wilson releases the ball is behind the point on the field where the running back catches the ball. Oh, yeah. From the point of view of the field, it is a forward pass. Right.

But they were running so fast. They were running together. Together. So relative to one another, they still remained a backwards lateral. Correct. Wow. Correct. Wow. Correct.

Wow. And it's not their fault they were running faster than the ball sideways motion. Right. Okay? So in other words, he was running so fast forward. That's what happens with them black players. Stop. You can't even tell where the ball is.

This Negro is running fast. So, he's running so fast that when he throws the ball backwards, the ball actually ends up going forward. Okay. Right. He throws the ball backwards, but he's running so fast that when the guy catches the ball, he's past the point. Past the point. Where did we let go?

Even though he's behind him the whole time. Even though he's behind him the whole time. Okay. So I analyzed it, and I tweeted back, and I said, according to the field, it's a forward pass, but according to the moving reference frame of the players, it was a legit lateral. Lateral. And you know what that's called? A Galilean transformation.

Ooh, what's even got a name? That's got a name. A Galilean transformation. You take one coordinate system and transfer it into another. Nice. And it's a completely legitimate, it's just a different coordinate system. Right. And from the coordinate system of the running players,

everything was legit. And you should not penalize them just because they can run so fast. And so the play stayed. I gave Pete Carroll some extra ammo to make sure it wouldn't get overturned. That's cool, man. That's still online. That's great. So that's relativity in a nutshell right there.

Look them up. Galilean transformation. Galilean transformation. And we talked about this a little in some other where, you know, you've been on the freeway, and there's always somebody who's racing somebody else. Always. And they're darting in and out among the cars. Right.

And I was in a hurry. Okay. You're going 60 miles an hour. They're going 90 miles an hour. Okay? In and out among the cars. However, they're not really going 90 miles an hour relative to you. Right.

They're going 30 miles an hour. 30 miles an hour. Because it's 90 minus 60. Right. So it feels dangerous when you see this, but as long as everybody's just moving at 60 miles an hour, as far as they're concerned, you're standing still, and they're driving 30 miles an hour among you.

Right. So it gets dangerous if you decide to not do 60 miles an hour and just turn the car while it's coming by. Then definite accident, and the accident will feel the 90 miles an hour because his body is moving 90 miles an hour, and then it moves zero, and then basically you don't survive that. So it's lethally playing with the laws of physics. Jake from State Farm, I hope you listen. Jake from State Farm. No, this would be a job for Jake and Flo. You need Flo from Progressive.

Yeah, exactly. Double that up. Jake and Flo. All right, here we go. This is Karthik. Karthik says, hello, Dr. Tyson, Lord Nice. This is Karthik. Karthik says, hello, Dr. Tyson, Lord Nice. This is Karthik from Berlin, Germany. Ooh.

If the earliest light from the universe to reach us is represented by the cosmic microwave background radiation, which is from 380,000 years after the Big Bang. Yep. How do we determine how far back from that point the Big Bang took place? that point, the Big Bang took place. So he's saying, how do you know 380,000 years gave you first light from the source of the light, which would have been the Big

Bang itself? So where did we get 380,000 years? And that's basically the question. Okay, so a lot of the action took place in the first fractions of a second. There's an excellent book written by Steve Weinberg, a brilliant physicist, won the Nobel Prize. He wrote a very successful physics book, small, called The First Three Minutes.

That's amazing. And in there, it takes you from the moment of the explosion of the Big Bang to what went on in the universe after three minutes. And I turned those first three minutes into most of the first chapter of my book, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry. Because the first chapter is called In the Beginning. That's the name of the first chapter. So I detail it. There's another book, I believe, that has a chapter. I think there's another book with a chapter that starts in the beginning.

I'm trying to think. I'm pretty sure. Okay, you keep thinking about that. Yeah. You call me when you know. Oh, yeah. It'll come to me. It'll come to me.

That was the old joke when you were a kid. How do you know God was a baseball player? I don't know how. He started in the big inning. Oh. Wow. How do you know God wasn't a comedian that joke that was like safe for elementary school Joe yeah that's cool so what you do is you create

all the physics necessary to give you that cosmic microwave background got Gotcha. And once you know how much mass is in the universe, and you ask yourself, what must have been going on in the universe to give us that state where the photons run free and you get the cosmic microwave background? Right. Once you do all of this, the time it takes to get to that point

turns out to be 380 000 years that's amazing right it's all very well established physics and you know what's funny right now there are people hearing this and they're like no it is so counterintuitive it's like oh no that's what you believe and what they don't understand is that we can see the cosmic microwave background. It's not a belief. Right, right, right. We can see it. We measure it.

We measure it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so we know what matter must be doing in order to create that environment. Exactly. And we're expanding now. So here's what would have to happen if we were wrong. Somehow the universe was birthed into that state but with

nothing before it but we can account for that provided there's a universe before it using known laws of physics as detailed by steven weinberg in his book from 1970s that book came out and in my book i give a full exposition of the first the you know first moments of the universe in fact one of these chairs right the ones that were sitting there. That were awards to him for writing. I won for an essay called In the Beginning. In the Beginning. Which basically birthed that whole first chapter of my book.

Look at that, the universe is crowning. Ah, stupid. Oh, no. I don't know nothing about birth of no universes. Oh. I wonder how obscure that reference is to you. I'm sure. Most people have no idea what I'm talking about right now.

You're talking about... They have no idea. Gone with the wind. Yeah, exactly. And most people have no idea. Okay. Yeah. Maybe they'll look it up.

It'll be a meme somewhere after. Somebody will put it out as a meme so that the kids can know the joke that I made. I don't know nothing about births and universes so it's known laws of physics that get us to that point right that allow us to conclude how how much time before how to go back how to go back because you get to that place and now you can go back from everything that you know at that place correct that's really god i love science you know what you know what As you go back, matter is behaving in all these ways under the temperature, pressure, energy, and all of this. You can make predictions in that time that says,

you know, 98 out of 100 atoms in the universe should be hydrogen. And that's what we see on the other side of that fence. Fantastic, man. Right. That's just brilliant. Yes. It side of that fence. Fantastic, man. Right. That's just brilliant. It's brilliant. Yes.

I love it. Yes. All right. Well, by the way, that cosmic microwave was predicted. It was predicted by a guy named George Gamow. George Gamow? Gamow. Oh, Gamow.

It ends in a W, but it's Russian, so it's a V sound. That's it, Gamow. Gamow. He was on a paper with two or three other authors where they said, if the universe began with an explosion, knowing what we know about quantum physics and matter and energy and temperature and time, what should have happened?

It would expand. It would begin to cool. The energy would become matter. The matter would coalesce. And at this point, light should escape. We should look out in the universe for a universe that has a temperature of about five degrees. And so we looked.

Yes. And we found a universe that was three degrees. Three degrees. Yes. They were so off. Idiots. So Rich God, a friend of our show, he characterized this prediction. He said, it's like saying that a 50-foot flying saucer, predicting a 50-foot flying saucer was going to land on the lawn of the White House, but it was a 30-foot flying saucer.

That's good. So the fundamentals of the prediction are really right, and the details are something that would come out later. Wow. Yeah. So we're good back there. That's all. By the way, if one day we need to sort of rethink the Big Bang, it would not be to discard what works.

It would be to see that the Big Bang fits into an even larger picture of the universe. And the press is always trying to ditch the Big Bang. Right. They're always pooping on the big man. Yeah. Because they think it's just, we're just making stuff up. Yeah, because it's not going to be one of these things where it's just like,

oh, we were just completely wrong and now that's not a thing at all. No. That doesn't happen anymore. Right. No. It's like- It happened before the year 1600.

Right. But it can happen. But after then, we test everything and it doesn't happen that way. It'll be a further explanation of what we already know. It'll be a deeper understanding. A deeper understanding

of what we already know. Right. Correct. Right. I love it. Okay, let's do a quick lightning round because we're running out of time. All right, this is Mo Fury. He says, hi, Dr. Tyson.

What's his name, Mo? Mo. Cool. Love that. His last name is Fury? Mo Fury. That can't be real. He's a Marvel character.

He's the less menacing brother of Nick Fury. I'm Moe Fury. Hey, Thor, what's your problem? It's me, Moe Fury. Captain America, hey, you got an attitude or something? I don't know what your problem is. It's me, Moe. Okay, I don't have an eye patch.

I wear glasses. All right. He says, hey, Dr. Tyson, Baron Nice, okay. I live on a pale blue dot in Tennessee called Nashville. I don't know what that means. As such as I dream about exploring the cosmos, let's say we have one world war in the next century or two. Well, this is off to a positive start.

I know, right? Right. Given that, do you believe humanity will be gallivanting around the solar system by then? I don't mean governments. I'm talking about normal working class people who live and work all over the system like the stories in The Expanse. Great show. Thank you, Mo. Sans the spherical wormholes, of

course. Why does this have to do with another world war? Would we be able to escape? Because regular people have the capability of exiting this planet for another destination.

If regular people have that capacity, so does the military, who might be chasing your ass if you're the enemy. Okay? I will answer this with a quote from Albert Einstein. Okay. If I may. Please do.

I do not know how World War III will be fought, but I know that World War IV will be fought. But I know that World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. Oh, that is so disturbing. Oh my God, that sent chills down my spine because that just says everything. Says everything about everything. Says everything about everything.

Yes. Like- We're done there. That's it. That's it. That's a mic drop and a half. Yes. Yeah.

If they had mics back then. If they had mics, which were made out of sticks, took a stick and put a bunch of dead leaves on top. Is this thing on? You tap the dead leaves. You're slipping another. What do you got?

All right, here we go. Steven Banker says, hi guys. A question about time. Is it possible to measure a length of time shorter than the steposecond or zeptostecond? Zeptostecond. I can't say it.

Zeptostecond. Okay. If so, can we measure infinitely small spans of time? How would we have ever gotten to the point in time if there were possibly an infinite number of moments between the big bang and now wow this guy i love you man because you okay there's a little bit of xenos paradox in there which is not a thing and this dude smokes weed okay i'm telling you stephen banker that's a weed question right there that's a weed question okay i i didn't know that's a category of questions. So. I love it. Couple of points there.

Right. There's something called the Planck length. Okay. The Planck length is the smallest unit of space within which no laws of physics have any meaning. Okay? So in quantum physics, space is quantized by these little units of space.

Okay. Okay? So the time it takes light to cross a plank length, it seems to me would be the shortest unit of time because there's nothing that can take place inside of a plank length. Ooh, lovely. That is the pixels of life. So it's like you're traveling in between the actual pixels that make up the picture itself. Yes.

Yes. So you go pixel to pixel, but there's nothing in the pixel for you. Right? Because the pixel is just, there's no more detail there for you. Got it. Okay? So that would be the shortest unit of time possible. Anything shorter than that, I don't know that you could measure it,

nor would there be anything there to measure. Right, so there's no medium there. No, nothing. There's nothing there for you to put any kind of ruler up to and say, this is where we are, this is where we're going, anything. Because units smaller than that have no meaning.

Right, doesn't make a difference. In the quantum universe. In the quantum universe, it has no meaning. Right. It doesn't make a difference. In the quantum universe. In the quantum universe, it has no meaning. By the way, general relativity requires space be continuous and not quantized. If you want to marry general relativity and quantum physics, you need some, somebody's got to be there for the ceremony, for the shotgun marriage. Because the shotgun marriage was taking place in the early universe. Because quantum physics is the physics of the small. General relativity is the large-scale universe.

When the universe was small, this quantum phenomenon influencing the entire universe because the universe at one time was small. Okay, so let's say you could divide time infinitely small. Zeno's paradox is, you know Zeno's paradox. I don't. You don't know Zeno's paradox. Okay, you have a destinationenos paradox okay you want to you

have a destination well you got to travel half that far now with what's left over you got to travel half that far what's that you got to travel half that far are we there yet you gotta travel half that far okay right you keep doing this you're never getting never getting you're never ever gonna get but you end up getting there. Right. So that's Zeno's paradox. Exactly. Okay. So we would learn how to solve this mathematically. It's because the sum of those halves, even though there's an infinite number of them, they sum to a finite answer in a finite amount of time.

That is dope as hell. Okay. That's amazing. Yeah. So this- It's the finite containing the infinite. Yes. Brilliantly worded. That's amazing. Yeah. So this. It's where it's the finite containing the infinite. Yes. Brilliantly worded.

That's amazing. Lord nice. Yes. The finite can contain the infinite. And indeed it does. And it does. That's great. Yeah.

Yeah. So he shouldn't worry about that. That part of the question. That part of the question. Yeah. Okay. Fast one. Last one.

All right. Here's the last one. Last one. Ali Khan Hermaj. Hemraj. Ali Khan Hemraj. Hemraj. Ali Khan Hemraj. Okay. Your new name is Al.

Okay. This is from Al. Al says. Al says, you're renaming people just for your own convenience? What can I say, man? I hope I got your name right, buddy. Or person. Hello, Dr. Tyson.

Lord Nice. I was wanting your thoughts on if transporter like in star trek could one day just be possible mps dr tyson i saw you in an episode of velma it was awesome what's velma you know what velma is no what's velma velma is from scooby-doo i know oh the woman in scoobyDoo named Velma? Yeah. Had her own show on HBO. Get out. And she's in high school.

The dog doesn't exist yet. And it's really sort of the birth of the- The mystery machine. It's the roots of their origins. Oh, wow. Velma. Yes, I had a brief cameo in it. Okay.

Yeah. Good for you. All right. I think I was a teacher. I forgot exactly what. If I'm going to be a camera, it's got to make some sense, right? I'm not going to be like... You're not going to be a

drug dealer. What's up, Velma? What you need today, girl? It's got to make some philosophical sense that I am in the program. Alright, so anyway, here's the deal. Transporters, which break down your molecules inside of a machine that remembers the imprint of your molecular structure in every single detail, then turns that into a beam of energy,

transports it someplace else, shines that beam of energy to another place where it then reconfigures all of those molecules in the same configuration so that, bang, now you have been reassembled molecule by molecule. Could that one day be possible? Okay, I said I'd give a soundbite answer. This is going to be hard. Okay. Okay, are you ready?

Yep. All right. In 1900, New York City, there were horses everywhere. Yes, there were. And whether you have horses, you have manure. Oh, that's for sure. I read, I have found this hard to believe, but maybe it's right. I read, on average, a horse poops 30 pounds of manure a day.

Woo. It's in the streets. Flies are attracted to it. Oh, God. Back then, there were no supermarkets. People sold their goods on the street, on street carts, including fish. And so it was nasty. That's nasty.

Unsanitary. Terrible. And people trying was nasty. That's nasty. Unsanitary. Terrible. And people trying to find solutions to this. Do you give horses some different kind of feed so there's less poop? Do you put something in the feed so the flies don't want to reproduce in it? Do you, like, what do you do? Right.

And how do you cart away the poop? Well, you got to bring in other horses and put it in a wagon that they drag out. But then they're pooping while they're it in a wagon that they drag out but then they're pooping while they're dragging out the poop that they're taking out of the thing okay this is poopalicious so so how do you solve this problem you invent the car there you go okay right the car solve that problem right i claim i assert that the transporter, as brilliant an idea as that was, which allowed the original series to not have to land rockets on surfaces, which would have been a whole overhead of special effects. So they said, we need another way to do this.

It also ruins most of the storylines. You need a place to put your rocket. Right. And you can't beam into a place to get to job. Yeah, you can't get to job. You got to land. You got to land and get out of the rocket. Right, that sucks.

So it was a brilliant visual mechanism vocabulary for this storytelling. Okay. I'm thinking by then, no, you won't get transported. We just open a wormhole. Oh, there you go. You step through We just open a wormhole. Oh, there you go. You step through. Step through the wormhole. You're not disassembled and reassembled with the risk that maybe something goes wrong.

Using the structure of quantized space. Thank you. There it is. And so any place you would otherwise beam, you just simply open the wormhole and step through. So I think that, like the the car solved the poop problem. Wormholes will solve the transporter problem. Let me tell you something. That is a much better answer than I ever thought you would give.

I mean, that's a really good answer. And so ends our next episode of StarTalk Cosmic Queries, grab bag edition, which Chuck still keeps calling Galactic Gumbo. All right. Always good to have you, Chuck. Always a pleasure. All right. Neil deGrasse Tyson here.

We're out of time. As always, keep looking up.