StarTalk Radio - Cosmic Queries – New Year

Episode Date: January 4, 2021

Happy 2021! Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice are looking at the year ahead, reminiscing on the year past, and answering fan-submitted Cosmic Queries on the speed of light, gas giants, and more! NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/show/cosmic-queries-new-year/ Thanks to our Patrons Christopher Sukhanenya, Dmitry Pugachevich, Eugenio Barrera, Z. Reese Downing, Sondra Ballegeer, Chris Ziegenhagel, Matthew H Cooper, Jonathan R. Brown, Yakov Goldberg, and Michael Blevins for supporting us this week. Photo Credit: Storyblocks. 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. This is StarTalk, Cosmic Queries Edition for the new year. Chuck, nice. Co-host Chuck. Hey, Neil. Happy New Year, buddy. Happy New Year 2021. 2021. Yay! Yeah, we made it. year chuck nice co-host chuck hey neil happy new year buddy happy new year 2021 2021 yay yeah we made it we survived did you have doubts did you i really did to be honest there were many many times toward 2020 where i doubted i would see 2021 there was a turbulent year on many fronts and

but i try to sort of take stock in the measures of turbulence that we experienced. And I look back, you know, during the Second World War. You know how turbulent those times were? No. I can quantify it. I can quantify it. I was not there. Oh, you weren't there.

Okay. But there are books. That's why we have books. You can know without being there. I'm books. That's why we have books. You can know without being there. I'm sorry. That's why I have you. Okay. Everybody else has books.

All right. So between 1939, the beginning of the war, and 1945, 1,000 people per hour were killed. Wow. Because of that war. That's, um. Per hour. That is. Right.

What a lugubrious thought, to say the least. One of the great low points of civilization was the Second World War, at a time when people thought the First World War was the war to end all wars. So that's one measure. Another measure, when I think of the 1960s, 1968 in particular, with two assassinations, two highly significant assassinations with Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, who was then declared a candidate for president. So it wasn't simply another politician or influential figure. He was trying to become president.

And to the assassinations, there was campus unrest. There was riots in the inner cities. Wait a minute. Now, are you sure that wasn't 2020? Okay. So here's my point. So you look at all this, and let me tell you something. In my circles, the way we think of 1968, oh, by the way, let's just set it straight.

The deaths in Vietnam peaked in 1968. Okay, we were losing 100 servicemen a week, basically. And the Tet Offensive, this is the great sort of resistance that was put to our presence there on the Chinese New Year, where no one thought that they would be trying to fight back on a day that everyone would be celebrating, called the Tet Offensive. All that happened in 1968, okay? And so we, oh, 68, I think, was also the Melee Massacre, okay? Do you remember that? This is with, you know, so it was terrible. Ugly.

Ugly, that's the better word. It was an ugly year. And I would declare it, just by my own metrics, to be the most turbulent, bloodiest year of a decade that was the bloodiest year on American soil since the 1860s in the Civil War itself. So that's what 1968 represented. represented however all right in my circles what we know is that in december 1968 we left earth for the first time right we went to the moon in 19 so people forget this we left earth and went to the freaking moon in 1968 apollo Now, no one remembers them because they didn't park on the moon. They didn't get out.

They didn't land. Let me tell you, it's tough to do a drive-by. It was a drive-by. Nobody gives you credit for a drive-by. For not getting out of the car. That's right. Remember when Bush flew over Katrina? Oh, okay. Right, That's right. Remember when Bush flew over Katrina? Oh, okay.

Right, right, right. So what we did, we went to the moon, circled it a dozen, 15 times, and then came back. But in those orbits, that famous photo, taken by a Hasselblad camera by the way, NASA was not gonna miss an opportunity. They got the best

cameras available in the day. Hasselblad camera, bam, Earthrise over the moon. Over the moon. And there it was. Earth, not as we see it in the schoolroom globe. I've talked about this often. You know, you go to school and there's Earth and the countries are color-coded.

The states are color-coded, for goodness sake. All right? And there's no clouds. It's just color-coded countries on this ball. And there it is in all of its natural majesty. Afloat, adrift in space, in the darkness of space. And you see ocean and land and clouds that picture comes back and the astronauts got all emotional and someone who's religious read from genesis okay and and some people complained

you know ardent atheists complained we're using tax money to put religion in space i'm thinking they're the first ones ever to go to the moon. Let him read whatever the hell he wants. Exactly. I don't care what he does, okay? He's the one that went to the moon and you didn't, okay? So what was written about that, because that happened at the end of December, because they were there during Christmas, okay, is that NASA saved 1968.

Wow. So, wow. NASA saved 1968. Last night a DJ saved my life, and NASA saved 1968. That's pretty cool. Yeah, and so when I think of 2020, I think of... Is there a way that NASA saved 2020? I don't know. Please? Please? Is there a way? But I think space has a way of having us all look up.

By the way, that image of Earthrise over the moon? Right. For me, the most potent statement to come out of that whole era birthed with that photo is, we went to the moon to explore the moon, and we discovered Earth for the first time. That's a beautiful statement. Yes. And hopefully one day the statement will be, I went to the moon and all I got was this lousy T-shirt. Because that means that space travel will be I went to the moon and all I got was this lousy T-shirt. Because that means that space travel will be so common. So casual. So casual.

That what you complain about is. Like, yeah, that would be a very cool day. All right. So what happened? So there was a total solar eclipse in the second week of December that crossed the bottom part of South America. So Chile and Argentina got a piece of that. So good for the rest of the Americas there.

But not only that, on December 21st, the solstice, the December solstice, the planets Jupiter and Saturn got so close, if you took off your glasses, you'd think there was one object on the sky. It's pretty wild, man. For me, what was good about that was the last time anyone saw something that close in the sky for those two planets was 800 years ago. The Dark Ages. Or maybe the Middle Ages. I get my ages confused. But back then, that is not a time you wanted to live in.

We can be sure about that. Yes, exactly. All right? It was even hard on white people to be living back then. That's when you know times are rough. That's when you know. That's when you know times are rough. Okay?

So you go back then. So we're talking about the year 1223 or 26, somewhere back then, these two planets got that close together on the sky. Wow. So to me, that says, wow, you know, it forces you to think back in time when someone else saw the same kind of conjunction, it's called, that you are. There was some guy laid out on a rack being tortured. And he looked up and he was just like, is that Jupiter and Saturn?

That close together? All our stereotypes of that ever. Everybody was on the rack. Everybody's on the rack. Being tortured. Hey, look at that. that hey that's kind of interesting so so uh so i think if it gets you to look up and there's a common thing everyone in the world can see then i think that has value it if you want to think think, if we can't escape our own tribal roots,

if tribalism must gurgle up, maybe we can instead think of a tribe as all of the human species. Well, see, then we need an alien invasion to make that happen. Oh, you mean like COVID? Oh, yeah.

So maybe if a virus came to Earth and affected everybody, maybe we would all get together and fight it in harmony. Oh, you mean like COVID? Oh, yeah. So maybe if a virus came to Earth and affected everybody, maybe we would all get together and fight it in harmony. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Good thought, Chuck. Clearly, there's no hope for us at all. Okay. So that was the low point for me. It wasn't even specifically COVID and the economic and social and personal damage it was causing. COVID and the economic and social and personal damage it was causing.

It was recognizing that we as a species did not mobilize coherently to fight a common invader. That, for me, was the testing grounds for an actual alien invasion in case the aliens wanted to kill all humans, like they do in every science fiction movie where bad aliens show up. Wow, man. So I was upset by that. And I thought higher of humanity. I thought we could aspire to higher goals, higher positions of wisdom on how we would treat.

So what it is, we just tribalized again. Oh, I'm an anti-masker, and I'm an anti-vaxxer, and I'm an anti-this, and you're that. And my favorite bit of insight to come out of that was just, or educational insight, is you tell someone, you know, one state is going to open its borders and the other is not, and one country and this and that, but we're all still traveling a little bit, right? What's going on?

And so, like I said, it's like designating a peeing section of the swimming pool. Okay. Okay. Guys, I'll be right back. No, you guys stay right here in the

deep end. I got to make my way down to three feet and take care of a little business. Okay. And then I'll come back. Right. And I'll see you when I... Dude, that's brilliant. That is brilliant. I agree.

And so it's insight into how futile it is to say, for one country to say, I'm not going to clean up this water because it's my problem, not your problem. It's everybody's problem because water travels. Air travels. Okay? Viruses travel. And in fact, viruses have the benefit that we invented airplanes just for it. There's no other way a virus could cross the Atlantic.

Okay? Viruses, let me get on this airplane. Yep. Look at that. It's amazing. It's like back in the day. So viruses. Let me get on this airplane. Yep. Look at that. It's amazing. It's like back in the day. So viruses have the most frequent flyer miles. That's right.

Just like, these human beings are amazing, guys. Look at what they've done for us. Look at all the things they've invented to get us where we need to go. Where's a Gary Larson comic when you need one? Because that would be cool. Just the virus express. Exactly. Wow.

So I think there's a saying, if someone says, oh, it's raining so heavily, yeah, probably that means it will rain a little less heavily an hour from now, right? I mean, if something is at its worst, pretty much things can only get better. Not 100% of the time, but most of the time. In fact, this is why weird medical cures exist at all, right? So you take regular medicine, it's not working for you. You got some

intractable problem and you get worse and worse and worse. And then you get to some bottom stage. I can't take this anymore. I'm not going to do the prescribed medicine. I'm going to have crystals rubbed above my body when I'm sleeping. Okay? And then you start getting better. Okay? Because your body, all right, at the low point, you either keep going and die,

at which point you don't write the book about this new cure that you found, or you start getting better by natural causes, but you want to credit whatever you happen to be doing while that happened. So this is the susceptibility of our belief systems when that happens. But when things hit their worst, you think maybe they'll get better. So I can't imagine 2021 being much worse than this. And kudos to the medical professionals for coming up with a vaccine on record time. Yes.

Record time. Right. Okay. And I was surprised to learn because I'm not a medical professional. I'm looking up in the journals. And most of these vaccines for like smallpox and mumps, it took decades to develop. Decades. So it's not simply that a vaccine

exists, it's that the system sped up that process. And ideally, in the future, vaccines will just be waiting on the shelf. So no matter what the thing comes in, you just tweak something real fast and bada-bing,

the virus doesn't stand a chance. So that'd be kind of cool the day that happens. So we need to at least celebrate how quickly this turned around. Absolutely. I can't wait to get my vaccine. I don't care what anybody says. I'll take it publicly. You know, as a matter of fact, I wish I could take somebody's place right now. Just jump in front of the line. I wish I could cut the line because I would do it in a second. Did you see some of the early vaccine videos? I think the Russians had some early version,

but people were concerned about the side effects. So someone is there and they're speaking to you and they get the Russian vaccine and halfway through, they start speaking Russian. That's pretty funny. Halfway through the interview. That's funny. That was pretty funny.

I like that. So anyway, so this is ostensibly a Cosmic Queries. Yeah, man. We want to be future-leaning on this. Okay. And so you got any for me? I assume we're still honoring our Patreon supporters. Absolutely.

So of course, we'll call it a New Year grab bag for this one. And how about this? We'll start off with Gordon Vu from Patreon. Hey, Dr. Tyson and Dr. Nice. I am wondering if... He called you Dr. Nice. He called me Dr. Nice. Gordon, you're a good man.

Thank you, sir. Don't do that, though. Don't do that, brother. Wait, wait. Chuck, in my book, you're a doctor of comedy. Oh, that's... Oh. Oh. You got me, man. Look, wait. Chuck, in my book, you're a doctor of comedy. Oh, that's, oh. Oh, you got me, man.

Look at that. That was very nice. And I bet the fan base will agree. Oh, you got me. That was, I'm serious. That was unexpected. Thank you. Okay.

He says, I'm wondering if a light particle will travel forever in space if unhindered. Does light particles obey the second law of thermodynamics? So is it in motion and continually in motion? Okay, so this is a question that very much concerns itself with the future, the future of a particle of light. What we'll do, we'll take a quick break, and when we come back to the New Year's edition of Cosmic Queries, we'll go straight to that question on StarTalk. Hi, I'm Chris Cohen from Haworth, New Jersey, and I support StarTalk on Patreon.

Please enjoy this episode of StarTalk Radio with your and my favorite personal astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson. We're back. Star Talk with Chuck Nice. Hey, hey, hey, Neil. So you tweet at Chuck Nice Comic, right? Yes, sir. Thank you very much.

Okay, you know what's the funnest times when I follow your tweets is when you are live tweeting some important sporting event. You just, you're all up in it. I love it. He dropped that pass. What's wrong with him? Blah, blah, blah, blah. And I can just hear you just railing on all what's going on. My favorite is when I'm following my home team, the Philadelphia Eagles,

and you can hear the absolute devastating disappointment in my tweet. The angst and anguish. Yeah, because honestly, that is the fun of being an Eagles fan, learning how to take disappointment and make it fun. This was true for the Boston Red Sox for so long, but then they started winning, and their whole raison d'etre, which was, oh, we almost get there but not, and that's what bound people together.

When they started winning, it was like that got lost. Yeah, you can't say it anymore. I'm hoping to have that experience one day with the Eagles. And for old-timers, they remember, was it Susan Lucci, who had the record for never winning an Emmy Award, a daytime Emmy for the soap operas that she had appeared on. And so that became the thing, right? Yeah, you know, are you not going to win an Emmy again this year? You know. Exactly.

And then she won an Emmy, and then that whole stick went out the window. And her whole career was over. Just killed her. So, we left off with a question about the fate of a particle of light. So who asked that again?

So Gordon Vue, and he says, I'm wondering if a light particle will travel forever if left unhindered. Does a particle of light obey the second law of thermodynamics? Right. So a particle of light, so a photon, let's call it a photon. Right. If the universe were static, okay? So if it were just stationary, not expanding, not shrinking, and it's just there, and if it were infinite,

and then out comes a particle of light, that particle, that photon will travel forever, unhindered and unimpeded. Gotcha. It'll just travel forever unhindered and unimpeded. Gotcha. Travel forever, okay? It's not gaining complexity. It's not losing. It's just travel.

However, we live in an expanding universe, and in an expanding universe, the photon, which also can be thought of as having a wavelength of light, as it moves through an expanding universe, that wavelength gets stretched, embedded in the fabric of the stretching universe itself. And when you stretch light, you give it longer wavelength, the distance between crests. When I say wave, I mean the natural thing you think of in a wave. There's a hill and a valley. So the distance from crest to crest, that's a full wavelength, that stretches.

That reduces the energy of the photon. So the photon in this universe approaches lower and lower energy. And if it started out as a blue photon, it goes backwards back through the spectrum, becomes a red photon, then a microwave photon, a radio photon you then become a it goes backwards back through the spectrum becomes a red photon then a microwave photon a radio photon and then in the very distant future its wavelength could be miles long you know far out of your capacity to see with the naked eye or any of our equipment and and the fate of the universe uh just descends into this long wavelength graveyard. Ugh. Wow. Have a nice day.

Yeah. Sorry, photon. Sorry, photon. But I got to throw this out there. I got to throw this out there. You may know from relativity that the faster you go, the slower time ticks for you, as seen by others who watch this. So this is the relativity of time. So it travels, ticks slower and slower and slower. So the faster you go, the slower time ticks.

And this just continues and continues and continues. If you hit the speed of light, time stops. No time, right. No time. For you. For you. Right. It'll look like everything else around you is speeding up, okay? So the photon

has no concept, itself, has no concept of time. So if a photon is emitted by your flashlight even, and you point it out in space, okay, that photon will travel forever until it hits something. Right. And the moment it hits something, the photon will say to itself,

boy, that was quick. I was just emitted by a flashlight. Right, exactly. Because no time elapses for that photon. So it doesn't matter how long it travels. As far as it's concerned, it was emitted and absorbed instantaneously, in the same instant. Look at that. That's very cool.

Whoa. Yeah, yeah. Way to go. Freaky photons. Who knew we would get all that out of Gordon Booze? That's amazing. All right. All right, keep itman? That's amazing. All right. All right, keep it coming.

Let's go to Josh V. He says, hey, Dr. Tyson, how did StarTalk come about? And how did you get Chuck involved? I don't know if he's about to lodge a complaint or not. That's unclear. That is unclear. Right. We don't know.

And then he says, how many folks work behind the scenes to bring us these episodes? Can you give a shout out to the folks off the camera who make StarTalk possible? And this is Andrii Sinir. So there you go. Wow. Wow. Okay. I would do better if I had a list so that I can just rattle them off. But what I can say is, in fact, I'm a little disappointed in myself because I was on a podcast just recently.

In fact, I was on Nagin Farsad's podcast. Yes. And her podcast is Fake the Nation. And at the end of the podcast, she went through the list of everybody who makes that show, the producers, the writers. Oh, I hate when they do that. And I said, I know I hate

when I'm listening, but now I'm thinking we got people who make this happen. Exactly. And I never read their names on the list. Well, listen, there's a reason why you're make this happen. Exactly. And I never read their names on the list. Listen, there's a reason why you're behind the scenes. Okay. Okay. All right.

Run some credits. Run credits at the end. Okay. And do like you do in TV. They just fly by. They just fly by. So, And do like you do in TV. They just fly by. They just fly by. So it's a great question. Thank you for thinking about this because you know there are people behind the scenes. So a StarTalk was an idea that came about about 12 years ago, actually.

And Helen Matzos, who's a co-executive producer with me, and there's a third fellow named David Gamble, who's no longer part of the organization, but the three of us applied for a grant from the National Science Foundation on the grounds that we think we can create a radio program that can bring science to the public and have sponsors want to support it. There were already radio programs that dealt with science, but they're like on NPR, right? And so every quarter you got to beg for money. And so why do you have to do that? Oh, because it's the science is good for you, but not good for good for marketing.

Okay. So we were living with this expectation that you could not sell science. But I said to myself, I've seen people react when I talk to them about science and cool things and black holes, and I know this. But not only that, there's science everywhere. So maybe let's fold in some fun celebrity guests, real celebrities, like authentic people that everybody knows of, and talk about the way science has touched their lives. So instead of a journalist interviewing a scientist, let's have a scientist interview folks pulled in from random places.

That scientist would meet and then bring the other. And I know from my life trying to educate is that if you make people smile, not make them smile, that sounds like it's a force. But if they enjoy the moment, they're more likely to remember what happened in that moment. So we said to ourselves, we want to combine celebrities with comedians. And I will have the steering wheel on this conversation. And I will also have dials to dial up or down the comedian and up or down the...

And we can deliver a persistently reliable combination of content with gravity and content with levity. And that would then become the DNA of StarTalk. We thought we'd become commercially viable in three years

as a three-year grant, but it would take an extra two years. And so we got an extension grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which is very big into science and the public. And in the fifth year, we finally drew in enough money from advertisers to pay all of what we have. So we have producers, we have writers. What the writers do is they come up, they say, okay, we have this guest. Why don't we talk about this? And so they're not scripting words that are coming out of your or my mouth, but it was their idea to have the topics that we identify. So for example, we just posted at the end of last year, we posted an interview with Olivia Munn. Okay.

I knew of her as an actress, but I didn't know her whole profile, the work she did in X-Men. And she's a geek herself. So we got researchers who establish all of that. And they prepare those notes for me. And I drive the bus and I know which way to turn from the notes that we have a team of writers do for us and researchers. So there's that. Then there are people who maintain the Internet. We have someone, the name is Jeff Simons, who is the cultivator of the Patreon community.

All right? And he also writes the fan page for StarTalk, telling you what's coming up, what just happened, what to look forward to. So the whole fan interactive dimension of that is covered there. We have someone else who posts to Twitter and to Instagram and to Facebook. And we only recently opened up TikTok. So StarTalk's TikTok is primarily me, but we're going to find ways that others can contribute to that who are part of the family. So all told, there's about 15 people behind the scenes.

And I have not only Chuck as a comedian, but we have three or four other comedians that are kind of out in the wings. If Chuck can't make it because he's got a day job, Chuck, do you have a day job? Yes, I work at Payless Shoes. Okay. They went out of business, I think.

That's why, okay? Exactly. Maybe they didn't. I don't know. No, they didn't. It's my street. That's why I said that because they went out of business. So Chuck, we can't have Chuck every minute of his life.

So we have some other comedians, and you've seen them, and you've heard them, and we love them all. Eugene Merman was an early comedian in this, but then he moved out of town up to Boston and we tapped into the Eugene Merman's Comedy Festival, which gave us access to other comedians. And so, and the very first comedian for StarTalk was Lynn Koplitz. And so that's what we've been. And over that time, of course, the landscape has changed where terrestrial radio, which is where we began, then gave way to podcasts. And then we had a stint on Sirius XM. And so now we have our YouTube channel with more than a million followers. So the radio show concept is grown into, of course, we video all of our radio shows now

so that you can consume them in both media. So that's the total structure of this. And the one closest to what you're experiencing now is Lindsay Walker. Lindsay's behind the scenes. One day, maybe we should take a family picture, and then we'll put it up and have little, you know, face identify everybody. So there's not only Lindsay Walker, but we also have Lucy Wong,

who does some of the sort of normal StarTalks, but then she does all the rest of the StarTalk Sports Editions. So we got people all plugged in to the operations of the StarTalk enterprise. And so it's an entire community. And I was embarrassed that I have never read that list. And so what I might do, here's what I'll do.

I'm going to... We're going to run credits. No, no, what I'm going to do, I'm going to have a show where, or at least part of a show, I'm going to devote at least five or ten minutes to just introducing each one of them, and they'll all come on and say hi to everybody. And that way you'll get to see the StarTalk family. We'll do a show just of that. Okay, I'm just going to say.

Oh, oh, oh, where did we find Chuck? He was panhandling on the street. Absolutely. Tell a joke for $5. No, Neil met me on the subway. I was like, excuse me, ladies and gentlemen of the subway. I mean you no disrespect. So he gave me his dollar.

My favorite joke from the homeless subway comedian, have you seen him? My favorite joke of his was, I'm so broke, I can't even pay attention. Right. I thought that was good. Yeah. I can't even pay attention. Right. I thought that was good.

Yeah. So my guy, so that guy is on the B train. Oh, you already know? What train the dude's on? That guy's on the B train. The six train dude is just like, what's the best nation in the world? A dough nation.

Hello, hello. Oh, that's good. Yeah, yeah. Well. I figure if they can make me laugh, you know, I don't mind giving them a couple of dollars. I mean, if I pay to see a comedian at a comedy club, if he doesn't happen to have access to a comedy club. Right. Or his comedy club is the captive audience of a subway train.

Yeah. I don't mind slipping them a couple of dollars. I hate all competition. I don't care where it comes from. You hate the competition. You ain't getting where it comes from. You hate the competition. You ain't getting my money. No. I'm like, brother, uh-uh, man.

No, uh-uh. You have people thinking they can get a show for the price of a doggone subway ride? No, uh-uh. No. I like when you say you hate the competition, but no matter where it comes from. No, we don't like it.

I don't care where it comes from. We don't like it. So give me another fast one before we take a break. Oh, man, that's a tough one. Here we go fast. Here it is. John Jacobson, what would the impact be to the current theories in cosmology if the speed of light at the beginning of the universe was faster

than it is observed to be now and even slower in the distant future. Ooh. Wow. Okay, I like that. I like it so much we have to take a break and we'll come back. So when we come back, we will find out the implications of a change in the speed of light on StarTalk Cosmic Quidditch. Hey, we'd like to give a Patreon shout out to the following Patreon patrons.

Christina Magistrali, Torin Wallengreen, and Eric Huffman. Guys, thank you. No, seriously, thank you so much for your support. Without you, we couldn't do this show. And for anyone listening who would like their very own Patreon shout out, please go to patreon.com slash StarTalkRadio and support us. We're back. StarTalk Cosmic Queries, the New Year's edition. We're trying to think of the future. Trying to leave the past behind us.

Yes. Water under the bridge. Please. Yeah. So, a question was, what would be different if the speed of light were not constant? So, let me make a very stark statement here. Okay. First, we have never measured the speed of light to be anything different than it is in the laboratory.

Okay? Now, because when we look out in space, we look back in time, we have ways of measuring the speed of light in those locations back in time. So we can make measurements that apply at a different place at a different time. When we measure the speed of light there and then, it's the same value that we get in my laboratory.

I believe that's why they call it a constant. A constant. That would be the C in M equals. Chuck figured that one out. Okay. The constant to end all constants. And so you might say, well, how do we measure the speed of light? There's several ways, but let me tell you an interesting one. It's called the fine structure constant.

This is a ratio of other constants that tells us how the energy separates in the levels of atoms. And so the separation of those energy levels, if a light enters or exits the atom, that affects the spectrum. Okay. So if the fine structure constant were different in the early universe than it is today, or any of those constants, then the spectral features of atomic elements in the early universe would look different from how they do today. Wow. But they are exactly the same. Carbon, in the first few moments of the universe,

is leaving the same spectral signature as it does today. And that spectral signature has the speed of light built into it for it to give us what it is we see. That is amazing. It is, it is, it's amazing. It's, it's, it's not, it was not obvious. And by the way, this is, we're not just assuming the speed of light was the same,

but we, we, we are, we have, we intermittently pose the question, all right? And consider that Isaac Newton wondered, you know, my law of gravity is busting ass, right? It's got the Earth around, the moon around the Earth and Earth around the sun. Jupiter's moon's going around Jupiter. It's a badass theory of gravity, Newton's theory of gravity. Then he said, but does it apply beyond Neptune, the last known planet that they had? Does it apply to other stars?

So this was an open question until we could measure the speed of binary stars elsewhere in the galaxy. And they were following Newton's laws. Then we measured galaxies and we find out they were following Newton's law. So when you add all this together, yes, these things are constant not only in place but in time. And not only in time but in place. So that's my first comment in response to that question. understanding of the universe, invoking the fact, the observed fact that the speed of light does not change, that if somehow the speed of light started changing up on us, to say how did it affect cosmology, it affects everything. Everything.

We'd have to start science all over again. That's how significant such a fact would be. So that's my answer. You know, it's not, oh, we'll have to rethink this, but not that. No, everything. Right. Everything. Wow.

Maybe biology probably wouldn't be different, I would suspect. But chemistry, we'd have to understand. The fine structure constant would have been different. What would chemistry look like back then compared to now? Molecules would be different, okay? Because the energy levels of atoms, energy levels of electrons in atoms are what dictate how strongly molecules are held together. Right.

Oh, my God. That's amazing. So thank you for making the very clear point that speed of light uses the symbol C because it is the mother of all constants. Yeah, very nice. E equals M. C squared. C? Okay.

There you go. All right. That sounds so cool, man. All right. Okay. There you go. All right. That sounds so cool, man.

All right. Let's go to Yulina Nowak. I think it's Yulina. Yulina. Okay. I hope that's your name. From Facebook. We should take up a collection. We should take Patreon money and take up a collection to give Chuck pronunciation lessons.

No, no. See, here's what people don't understand. What? People send me all kinds of stuff. They're like, hey, this will help you with names. And hey, this will help you pronounce. And here's what you're failing to realize. I don't care.

Okay. don't care okay if you want your name pronounced correctly send me the phonetic pronunciation of your name along with your name otherwise just have fun listening to me struggle as i tried to figure out what the hell your name is so all right so all right here we go she says or he says uh what would the advantage who is who is the person yulina i think yulina nowak uh what would the advantages uh or disadvantages of living on a gas giant cheers from poland excellent uh excellent in fact would there be giant. Cheers from Poland. Excellent. Excellent. Would there be any advantages of living on a gas giant? So my recent book was just translated into Polish

and I just did an interview on Polish television. Nice. Regarding that. Yeah, yeah. They spoke English to me. I don't know Polish. You know, apologizing that the English wasn't good, I say, dude, I don't know any Polish at all, so don't apologize to me for whatever it is you do in the English. And guess what?

This is what lets you know you're American. You go to any nation in the world and you try to speak their language and they look at you like, look at how you butcher my language. I tell you that in English. They tell you that in English english look at how you butcher my language you come to america and you can only say five words all right but you're just like please you to tell me how train you please to tell me how train food and we go, oh, my God, your English is so good. Once you learn to speak English, it's so good.

Because we know we can't speak daylight. That's why we know. And that's what it is. Right. All right. So, now I forgot the damn question. What was the question? So, the gas giant, are there any advantages?

Gas giant. So, there are two ways you can think about that question. One of them is maybe we could live on a moon that is orbiting a gas giant. Ooh. Okay? I like that. Because we know moons that have atmospheres. There are moons that have water around Jupiter and around Saturn.

So liquid water, by the way, that's way outside the Goldilocks zone if you're orbiting Jupiter, way outside the comfort zone where Earth is, where we can sustain liquid water not too close. You evaporate and not too far you freeze. Out there it's freezing, but there's an energy source, which is this sort of symphony of tidal forces among the moons and of the main planet that stresses the physical object that is the moon. And when you squeeze it and unsqueeze it and squeeze and unsqueeze, you're actually pumping energy into it.

Much the same way when you, if you play racquetball, you say, let's warm up the ball by hitting it multiple times. You deform the ball, the ball recovers its shape. And every time you do that, you're pumping energy into it and you literally warm the ball. That's what's happening to Europa. That's what's happening to Io. That's what's happening to Io. These are moons in the outer planets.

And in fact, Io has raging volcanoes from energy that have been pumped in by this process. So we have sources of energy. So the gravity of the big planet, the gas giant, is causing the moon or the other body to undulate in such a way that it creates heat. Yes. Wow.

Deep in its interior. And so on Europa, which may have a kilometer deep layer of ice because it's sitting outside of the Goldilocks zone, deep inside there's evidence that there's an ocean of liquid water that might have more water than all the oceans of Earth. Wow! So what you do is you move to one of these moons and maybe introduce an atmosphere or go to one that already has an atmosphere, Titan,

one of the moons, the largest moon of Saturn, one of the largest moons in the whole solar system, has a thick atmosphere, except it's an atmosphere of methane, which is the gas that comes out of your stove. And your butt. I'm sorry, and your butt. Thank you for that physiological addition to my comment.

I just want to make a contribution. Thank you for your scientific addition. You're correct. Scientific addition, yes. Methane is the product of bacteria that metabolizes in the absence of oxygen. And your entire gut, intestines right on through. There's no oxygen there. So there's anaerobic, non-oxygen thriving bacteria. And so one of their byproducts is methane. So yes, in camp, when they wanted to light your fart on fire,

there's science behind that. Come on, baby, light my... Okay. And those of you who are old-timers with StarTalk, Chuck, you and I talked about this, was it five years ago? We talked about a new talent that Superman could exploit. Let me tell you. Because if he's a superhuman in every way, then he would have super farts. One of my, yes. If that's the case, he could, you know, remember how he can blow on something and freeze it? Well, if he lights one of his

farts, you can ignite an entire village. My favorite, probably to this day, still my favorite conversation we have ever had on StarCraft. What's that one? Hands down. I cried the entire time.

You did cry. I cried. Because we were trying to imagine Superman dropping his drawers. Well, because I was seeing him with the flap and the buttons on the back. And you pull the flap down and you look back. Oh, God. It's amazing. It's awesome.

It's science. That's awesome. It's science. It's what it is. Oh, God. If only they taught science like this in school, kids. It'd be the best. Kids would never, ever get turned off. All right, so why did we start talking about methane? So we're talking about the Titan's atmosphere is methane.

Right, and methane is only flammable if it's in the presence of oxygen. So people worried that the spacecraft would ignite the entire atmosphere of Titan because we landed there. Europe had a probe that landed there called Huygens. But no, not a problem. But anyhow, so you can live in a moon that orbits one of these planets provided it's been warmed by this tidal force because we need a source of energy for our own metabolism.

And we have to figure out, you know, is it plant life? Is it animal life? Maybe these oceans in Europa have fishes swimming in them. All right, so you can go ice fishing there. That could be fun. So that's a new opening of the Goldilocks zone that we previously hadn't considered when we were restricting our search for just that golden distance from the host star.

So in terms of the gas giant itself, without a surface to walk on, and if you did have a surface, the gravity is very high. So I cannot endorse any urges to live in the atmosphere of a gas giant, because most of their mass is in the form of gas. Oh, wow. Look at that. That's amazing. Yeah. So Chuck, I think we have to end it there. That went fast.

Oh, God. That was like nothing to... Some fun questions just to begin the new year. And so Chuck, a happy and healthy new year for you and your family. Thank you. Same to you, my friend. Yeah, I'm just trying to keep the universe, trying to bring the universe down to earth

for whoever will listen. There you go. Alright. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson bidding all of you happy new year, happy 2021. May it be better for you than it ever was for any of us in 2020. Let me tell you

something. If your 2021 is worse than 2020, just give up. Yeah, it's time to give up on that. It's time to give up on life. Go to another planet. Exactly. It's like, well, I'm out of here completely. I'm out. All right. This has been StarTalk Cosmic Queries, New Year's

Edition. Neil deGrasse Tyson. Keep looking up.