StarTalk Radio - Quirky Cosmic Queries

Episode Date: February 3, 2020

Aliens, the multiverse, immortality, ʻOumuamua, and more – Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Paul Mecurio answer the quirkiest fan-submitted Cosmic Queries on topics from all across the univers...e. NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons and All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/show/quirky-cosmic-queries/ Thanks to this week’s Patrons for supporting us: Daniel Kulikowski, Natalia Lalicata, Scott Eisen, Jeffrey David Marraccini, Sunil Ingle. Photo Credit: StarTalk. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk. Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. I've got Paul Mercurio, co-host. Great to be here. Paul, welcome back. Yeah, always fun. Damn near old- timer now with us.
Starting point is 00:00:25 That's good. This episode is a Cosmic Queries and they named it for me. I had nothing to do with it. Quirky questions. Cosmic Quirky Queries. Quirky Queries. Sounds like grab bag to me. So I don't know where they're coming from, but Paul, you got the question. All right. So bring it on. All right. But Paul, you got the question. All right. So bring it on. All right. Let's see.
Starting point is 00:00:47 We'll start with the last Kingsguard on Instagram. Is it possible that humans are the most intelligent species in the universe? No. Next question. I agree with you. You want to know why? Is there not sufficient evidence collected? Yeah, there is. Siri, I'll give you one reason, because people review plungers on Amazon.
Starting point is 00:01:04 Really? I went to buy a plunger, and there was 567 reviews of one plunger. I go gather your belongings and move to the woods, people. It's over. I'm not joking. Most intelligent species. Okay, finish the question. Just give him a chance.
Starting point is 00:01:21 Okay. Is it possible that most intelligent species in the universe, and there is no intelligent species out there other than us? Okay, so if there's no other life in the universe, I think it's fair for us to say that we're the most intelligent species that ever existed on Earth and ever existed in the universe if there's no other life out there. However, who defines humans as being intelligent?
Starting point is 00:01:50 And what does intelligence... No, I'm asking you. What's the answer to that question? Humans. Humans, thank you. You can see how not intelligent I am. Man, you're just blowing my mind again. Humans. If I'm here and not here where am i i don't
Starting point is 00:02:06 know just answer the question and leave me alone will you humans you're right humans who defines humans as intelligent humans do okay now what's our dna difference from chimps you would have learned this in biology class how much it's like one or two percent like one percent difference do we count chimps as intelligent well sure if you're a chimp fan but not intelligent on the level of humans chimps are not building airplanes and flying to chimp cities right and humans aren't throwing their poop do chimps really throw their poop, or is that just a thing? No, I've seen it. Okay.
Starting point is 00:02:49 Yeah. If they have a delivery and it comes late, they go crazy. You know, FedEx is late. I wonder if it's good. I wonder if you can get them in the major leagues. We have teams. You'd be the commissioner of the poop-throwing league. And they just go, whoop!
Starting point is 00:03:06 Strike. 90-mile-an-hour fastball, fast poop. So what am I saying? So what does the smartest chimp do? And the primatologists will bring them forward and say, I've said this before, by the way. I'm on the internet probably multiple times saying exactly this, but I'll do it for you. Okay.
Starting point is 00:03:26 Okay. That smart ship will stack boxes and reach a banana, right? We'll get a stick that's just right that can go inside the termite hole and get the termites out. This takes some... And there was Coco, the sign language, right? Yeah. I think Coco was a gorilla.
Starting point is 00:03:43 I'm sorry. That's fine. But same, the primates, the greater apes. And I wanted to make a joke about that. You know, he wasn't just a good gorilla. He was a great ape. I'm trying to get the right lead into that. But that's my punchline, all right?
Starting point is 00:04:01 We'll work on it later. You help me out. Yeah, we'll get you there. Get me there. You help get me there so so if there's only one percent that separates us yet they stack boxes and we have a hubble telescope and poetry and philosophy and art and comedians then that they were listed last in that yeah i was gonna say thanks for you that was really just afterthought you didn't have to do that fake like oh you know make me feel
Starting point is 00:04:30 intelligent i got a comedian at my desk at my table let me add that to the list real quick exactly yeah that's so you can say what a difference that one percent makes you might say right but let's take a cosmic perspective on it if there's only one percent difference between us maybe there's only really a one percent intelligence difference as well maybe stacking boxes to reach a banana is only one percent intelligence away from the hubble telescope and poetry and philosophy and music and art. That seems like a stretch. It seems like it should be more than 1%. Because you are human. And human ego knows no bounds.
Starting point is 00:05:12 So let's do the experiment. Let's go out in the universe and find some other creature that's 1% smarter than us. In the same way that we are 1% smarter than chimps. What would we look like to them? Right. What does a chimp look like to us? So our smartest human, because the smartest chimp does things that toddlers can do.
Starting point is 00:05:39 Toddlers can figure out how to stack boxes. Toddlers can figure that out. Right. But we say, oh, it's a smart chimp. Our toddlers do it. Let's bring in this other species. Show them the smartest human. Roll Stephen Hawking out.
Starting point is 00:05:53 You. No, roll Stephen Hawking out. There he is. They would say of Stephen Hawking, this one is slightly smarter than the rest. But only slightly smarter because he can do astrophysics calculations in his head. Like little Timmy over here
Starting point is 00:06:08 who just came home from preschool. Oh, how cute, Tim. Oh, you just derived the principles of calculus, put it under a refrigerator door. Oh, that's so cute. Oh, you just composed a sonnet. Oh, isn't that cute? Show grandma.
Starting point is 00:06:21 If they're so intelligent, why do they still have refrigerators? Boom. Boom? Boom. Boom. Boom. No, no, no. They don't have refrigerated doors. They don't have refrigerators.
Starting point is 00:06:33 They just have refrigerator doors. Okay? Because you got to put the kid art somewhere. Somewhere. With a magnet. It's floating in the kitchen. You think they have a mudroom? You got to put the, you got to put the,
Starting point is 00:06:46 so, they're so smart why they have refrigerators. That's such a brilliant non sequitur. Smart people don't need refrigerators. I'm here to point out the obvious stuff
Starting point is 00:06:57 that the unintelligent species, I'm representing the unintelligent. So my point is, what would their simplest thoughts look like to us? Here's a simple thought that is inconceivable to a chimp. Paul, I'll meet you tomorrow at Starbucks.
Starting point is 00:07:15 We'll have a latte and we'll get on the plane together, go to Washington and have that meeting in Congress. Okay? What does any of that mean? Is it comprehensible at all to a chimp? What is a latte? That could be just a definition, but we're going to fly to, fly? Are you a bird? No. How do you fly? Well, we invented it. How did you invent it? It required technology. It required metal and engines and fuel and understanding Bernoulli's principle. This is our thoughts that we all take for granted that is inconceivable to a chimp.
Starting point is 00:07:59 I fear the simplest thoughts from this other species that they would lay down the simplest thought and we would be pouring over it with our most brilliant humans for centuries not understanding it. And they'll just laugh at us and put us in a zoo and we'll be their entertainment. So we figuring out calculus and space flight and the Hubble telescope is to them what chimps throwing poop is to us. Okay? You hear that, scientists at MIT? You're just throwing poop, you poop throwers. But here's the thing.
Starting point is 00:08:31 What? Do you think there is life out there? I'm not given reason to doubt that there is, given how old the universe is, how big it is, and how prevalent the ingredients for life on Earth are across the universe. And why do you use the word fear, no joke, why do you use the word fear for that proposition that there may be a species out there that's 1% more intelligent than we are?
Starting point is 00:08:57 No, no, the fear is they give us their simplest sentence. You can't. And we just have no idea what they're talking about. So I don't want to be that stupid. I want to say... Look at me. I know how you feel. I am totally with you on that.
Starting point is 00:09:18 That's why when I'm around you... It's not your fault. This is why I don't hang out with you a lot. Because you are that species from another planet that doesn't throw its poop. But the problem is you're like 20% smarter than I am. So I want to believe that the human intellect is sufficient to solve any problem given enough time and enough people
Starting point is 00:09:40 and enough cleverness. But the proposition that such a species exists, knowing that their simplest sentence may be incomprehensible to us, I fear it only because I don't want to be that dumb. I want to believe that all problems in the universe are tractable by the human mind. And this would be an example that clearly it's not. And it could be the best evidence for why we've never been visited by aliens. Because they've scoured the universe
Starting point is 00:10:13 for other intelligent species and they saw no sign of it on Earth. Well put. Next question. And you want to know why they know that? Because people are reviewing plungers on Amazon. You know, this is related. My other hypothesis for why they never visit,
Starting point is 00:10:30 they actually have visited, but they accidentally came during Comic-Con. And nobody noticed. There's other aliens here already. You know, damn, let's go find somewhere else where we're the first visitor. That is perfect. Okay, let's go find somewhere else where we're the first visitor. You know? That is perfect. Okay.
Starting point is 00:10:48 This is somewhat related, so I think this is a good next question. Mohammed Khan, Facebook. When do you think it will be possible to achieve immortality? I think it has been suggested, and I'm not given reason to doubt this, that the first person to live forever
Starting point is 00:11:01 is already alive. Yeah, it's Beyonce. Everybody knows that that answer came way too quickly off of your tongue i just was thinking i don't know so the the notion what enables that sentence to possibly be true is that get someone who's just born today so we're working on the genome we're isolating the aging gene, whatever that is, if there even is such a thing. And we say, okay, we can now, that newborn person, when they're 20,
Starting point is 00:11:33 they will, we take this potion and they can now live to be 150. That would be a major advance on our longevity. By the time they're 40, that we've improved the potion, now they can live to 300. By the time they're 60, now they can live to 500. By the time they're 80, now they can live to 1,000. By the time they're 100, they can live for a million years. That's the notion, that we'll make incremental improvements that will continue to accrue for the person who's just born today.
Starting point is 00:12:03 And what do scientists or people in this field working on it or thinking about it see as a potential hazard of that? You mean what could go wrong? Yes, exactly. So a couple of things, very important. One of two things has to happen. Either we colonize other planets or you stop making babies. That's a good point. Right? Because if you don't die or you stop making babies. That's a good point.
Starting point is 00:12:25 Right? Because if you don't die and you keep making babies, that ups the population growth rate. Right. The population growth rate relies on the fact that some people die. And food sources.
Starting point is 00:12:35 And resources in general. That's correct. So you need other planets. If you're not smart enough to have technology to get to other planets, living forever is not a good idea. And I have a retaled to living forever. What's that?
Starting point is 00:12:49 What motivation would you have to even wake up tomorrow morning and get anything accomplished at all? Well, it's ego, don't you think? Because you could all, that's in there too. But what I'm asking is, isn't the knowledge that you're going to die give focus and meaning to your life yes i have a child and like if you all of this and i'm being serious i have a child i think you know you have a limited amount of time in on this earth you want to make sure you spend the time
Starting point is 00:13:19 with it whereas if it's open-ended it's like i'll you know I'll see you in 20 years. If I was wrong, the following wouldn't be true. Okay? Have you ever given your loved ones plastic flowers? She's shaking her head. No. No. Let's do better than plastic. Have you ever given your loved ones silk flowers?
Starting point is 00:13:41 No. I've stolen them from a funeral home. Okay. Now, why not? why are you giving her flowers that you know in advance will die i i know the answer because knowledge that the flowers will die magnify the meaning and the attention you give it while they're alive that is the meaning
Starting point is 00:14:05 of limited longevity. You live a different way. You approach things a completely different way. From a different perspective. Now let me pull something out of my ass. Why is the dog so excited to see you when you come home?
Starting point is 00:14:23 The dog only lives 14 years. Whatever is your excitement that spends seven times that amount of years alive, just imagine your entire life you now have to experience in 14 years. What would you do? You would, every day outside, oh my gosh, there's a sun, there's this, oh my gosh, oh, someone's butt I can smell. Another butt, let me smell as many butts as I can. Oh my gosh, okay? There's everything they do.
Starting point is 00:14:53 You're right. It's such intensity. I always say my dog is too optimistic. I'm not a big fan of it. But they're not optimistic if you only live 14 years. They're just right. So it- So I don't mean to psychologically analyze dogs. What I'm suggesting
Starting point is 00:15:07 to you is that what they look like to us is as though they're packing life's intensity in a concentrated way. Of 14 years? Yes. But seriously, why is it excited? Because they think I wasn't going to come back? I don't have a why. I'm just pulling this out of my ass. I'm suggesting that we question the enthusiasm dogs exhibit. Like, this was wholly unjustified. Look, I just came home. Look, I just went out to get a quart of milk. I think it's because they had an accident on the couch, and they're trying to get on your good side.
Starting point is 00:15:42 That too. I know. I did a stain, but come on. That's in the list. But if you went out for an hour, to them it's 14 hours maybe. You've gone for a day, to them it's two weeks. In our
Starting point is 00:15:55 lifespan, that's what it is. Well, what just hit me with this conversation is there is such an interrelation between science and psychology and human beings and the human condition and that you have to take all of that into account in doing what you do. I try to every day of my life.
Starting point is 00:16:14 So knowledge that I will die gives focus and meaning to what I do in life. So if I live forever, it's like, what am I doing? What? What? So that's why i mean just not the on-demand choices would be terrible you will have seen every single thing on your cable system no no they'll make if everyone else is living forever they'll still make movies faster than you can watch them you're not you're not gaining on this one paul wait that means we can get more police academy movies um Alright, here's one
Starting point is 00:16:45 from, this is Kenyon Reed, Instagram. What science fiction concept would you most like to see in a real world application? Very clear, warp drives. I want to visit the other side of the galaxy. X-ray vision, man. We already have X-ray vision. They're called X-ray, we can already
Starting point is 00:17:01 see through things. Yeah, but I want it like in glasses and I can see when I'm, you know, people. You read too many comics as a kid where you have x-ray specs at the back where you can buy them. The x-ray vision, why do you want to see through? It's a good score around it and you have a much better view of it. Under the clothes. Oh, you want to be, that's a different, that's a different issue. Have you spoken about this with your counselor?
Starting point is 00:17:22 All right, so you're saying it's easy. What's the answer for you? By the way, any vision that sees through clothes also sees through flesh. Oh, you've got to ruin everything. I'm just giving you the reality of it. I'm so psyched for this. I'm just saying. All right, okay.
Starting point is 00:17:36 That's what it is. So you don't see through clothes and then just see the body of the person. You're seeing through the body of the person. You see their bones and rings they're wearing and their metal hip that got replaced five years ago. That's what you're seeing with x-rays. I got it. No, we have much better power of longing
Starting point is 00:17:55 than just do you want to see an x-ray. Warp drives, you get anywhere you want in the universe. And you think that will be something at some point? That's not what the question was. It was just what would I most want to see, not that I think what was the most likely. Is it likely that that would happen, you think? I'm skeptical.
Starting point is 00:18:10 Yeah. Well, you're prescient because we have Mel Powell at Mel Powell. Next question, go. What is it? Ask Warp Drive someday, yes or no. That's the question. You just answered it, so there you go. I will go out on a limb and say no,
Starting point is 00:18:24 so that in 300 years you can go back and play the tape of me saying no as you whiz by me at warp speed. We've got to take a break. When we come back, more Cosmic Queries Quirky Questions Edition. It's going to be your turn. We're back.
Starting point is 00:18:57 StarTalk Cosmic Queries. Quirky Queries Edition. Paul. Yes. Give it to me. I got you. Here we go. Remind me, just your tweeting at Paul Mercurio.
Starting point is 00:19:07 Mercurio. M-E-C-U-R-I-O. Facebook and Instagram. And you can check out my podcast, The Paul Mercurio Show. That's the name of the show? Yeah. We had a big thing. Paul Mercurio's name of the show is called The Paul Mercurio Show.
Starting point is 00:19:18 We sat around the table, 12 of us. We spitballed names and that's what we came up with. For a day and that's what you came up with. For a day, and that's what you came up with. Now, you're in good hands. There was the Andy Griffith Show. Right. And, you know, Seinfeld. It's just Seinfeld, right?
Starting point is 00:19:32 Well, I tried two chairs and a microphone for a while, which I kind of liked, but then that, whatever. It wasn't as cool as Between the Ferns. No, exactly. But the other thing you helped me with, you gave me a suggestion for a show name, which I using so um all right here we go sammy john lennon instagram do you believe omuamua was just an unusual space rock or an alien probe i hope
Starting point is 00:20:00 i wish i wrote that question I hope you say probe. I wish I wrote that question. Alien probe. Because it's long and slant. I mean, it's like... What is that all about? Why do people jump to that when they start talking about aliens? Why is it always... If anything that you could think of that they would do when they came here, why is it...
Starting point is 00:20:21 Probing your organs, right. The obsession with my anus. Are they all gastrointestinal doctors? Is that it? They all want to be proctologists. They invent their own colonoscopy tests and they're trying to put it on us to make money? Come on, people.
Starting point is 00:20:35 You're better than that. Okay, ready? The amulamula question. Ready. Right? I have a... What's this joke? You ever heard this one?
Starting point is 00:20:51 What do you call an Italian suppository? Have you ever heard this one? No. Innuendo. That's great. I can't take credit for that one. I, that's great. I can't take credit for that one. I'm telling every one of my Italian relatives at Christmas.
Starting point is 00:21:13 You got to do it in a U.N., though. I want to make a toast for Christmas. Ding, ding, ding. Before we do that, I have an Italian joke. I thought that was so funny. That is hilarious. Oh, my God was so funny. That is hilarious. Oh, my God. Too funny.
Starting point is 00:21:36 So, Amuamua is the first confirmed interstellar visitor to our solar system. It's a rock, right? Can I be more poetic about it, please? Won't you let me ride this? It's got a beautiful Hawaiian name, which which means scout basically except it's repeated and in some languages hawaiian included if you repeat something it's done for emphasis so oh mua is a scout oh mua mu sorry the mua is a scout oh mua mua is a scout scout so it's the first visitor from interstellar space that we have ever confirmed moved through our solar system.
Starting point is 00:22:09 And it is trivial to learn whether it belongs here or comes from elsewhere. You just look at how fast it's going. How do we know that it's from another? I'm getting there. So you measure how fast it's going, and you say, at that speed, it is moving too fast for the sun to contain it.
Starting point is 00:22:33 It is too fast for it to orbit the sun. It will come into the solar system in one side and come out the other side. Our gravity will alter its path, but it's not going to wrap it around into orbit. So there are four kinds of orbits you can have. You can have a circle, an ellipse, slightly flattened circle, a parabola, which is an ellipse that's so big and open
Starting point is 00:23:00 that it's open on the other side and the thing never closes back on itself, that it's open on the other side and the thing never closes back on itself, okay? Or a hyperbola, which is even greater than everything a parabola was. And if you find something that has a hyperbolic trajectory, it was born somewhere else and it's going somewhere where you're not. So this had, we're not ready for rock yet, okay?
Starting point is 00:23:23 This visitor. This visitor. This visitor. Yes. So that told us it came from somewhere else outside of the solar system on a one-way visit. So now you add up all the gravity that we have that could be affecting its trajectory, and you find out it's on a different trajectory.
Starting point is 00:23:44 What are you going to do about that? Different than the one you calculate? Yes. And we know how to calculate trajectories. We got this. We know Newton's laws of gravity. So the question becomes, when did it get altered and how did it get altered?
Starting point is 00:23:58 Correct. Finally. Or is this somebody altering it consciously, on board? If something is moving non-gravitationally, something's in charge of it. That's not gravity. If something is moving through space and just all of a sudden starts slowing down,
Starting point is 00:24:20 something's controlling it. But then why wouldn't that... In fact, that's the opening scene of the movie, the remake of the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still. We detect some fast-moving thing in the solar system with hyperbolic speeds, headed towards Earth, and then it rapidly begins to slow down.
Starting point is 00:24:42 It's alien. It's being controlled by aliens. But if that were true why in all seriousness why would it not it surely is sophisticated enough to be able to sense that there are beings on this planet and not stop to explore or you mean okay so now it's not just am i controlling my orbit am i actually analyzing destinations that's a whole how much do you want out of this rock? So you're saying it may not be a rock. No, so because its orbit, its trajectory around the sun was not, quote, following Newton's laws,
Starting point is 00:25:18 that meant something was affecting its trajectory. And some hypothesize maybe it's an intelligent craft. If there's not actual aliens on it, maybe there are active navigational tools on it that go into autopilot as they near a star. Or being controlled remotely.
Starting point is 00:25:36 No, because they would be too far. How do you know that? At the speed of light? If you can't define what's on there... Okay, so if they're controlling it from afar, they'd have to use subspace communication systems such as what they do on Star Trek. Because on Star Trek, if they're going warp speed,
Starting point is 00:25:53 how are they going to send a signal ahead of them if they're moving faster than the beam of light itself that they would be sending to move ahead of them? FedEx. It's amazing. They're amazing, I'm telling you. Always on time. So what you need is a FedEx that can deliver backwards in time.
Starting point is 00:26:08 Exactly. You know, I needed to get this there yesterday. We've got it. Here we go. It's the yesterday, sir. Cost you extra. It's another $5, but boy, is it worth it. So that's why the alien reference.
Starting point is 00:26:22 So that's why there's a, it was a hypothesis, maybe aliens did it, but there are other ways a trajectory can be influenced. As you near the sun, if you have ice content, the sun will evaporate that ice and the ice outgasses. Oh, now you have a little, you know, retro rockets that can alter which way your object is moving. So there are other ways that it could be influenced. And I'm not going to jump to conclusions and say it's aliens.
Starting point is 00:26:48 I'm not going to rule it out, but I'd rather not that be my first suggestion. And just to wrap this up on this subject, it's gone, so any analysis of it is done. Whatever we've done, yeah, it's left the solar system, correct. Well, sorry, it exited out the back door. Right. But it's still out there, but it's no longer near enough
Starting point is 00:27:09 to our sensors and detectors and telescopes to get any meaningful data any further. Got it. Yeah. So Oumuamua is Hawaiian for scout. That was discovered using telescopes on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. So just out of respect for the culture and things. It's not the only thing that has a Hawaiian name. A lot is discovered from that. And they say this thing, they speculate,
Starting point is 00:27:30 is between 300 and 3,200 feet, something like that. Yeah, I forgot the exact number. I forgot, but it's about that. It's about that. And moving that fast, again, they can do a fairly accurate measurement. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, fairly accurate. They know it's elongated. And one of my concerns is when you have elongated things in space, it's usually an asteroid that broke apart from the tide forces of whatever it last went close to, and it gets stretched in front and behind itself. And if it's a solid object,
Starting point is 00:28:00 it breaks into pieces that extend in front and behind itself. And so that it's not a solid object that it's just this Because it's a very long cigar shaped object Yeah, John Laird at John Larry seven Twitter. What is the most counterintuitive thing about the nature of the universe? That's true despite seeming false at first glance. I love that question, and I've never been asked it before. Thank you. What's the guy's name?
Starting point is 00:28:27 John Laird. John, thank you for that question. Beautiful question. Okay, counterintuitive. Let me think. So, counter... That there's not a Chick-fil-A at more rest stops on the East Coast. That's counterintuitive to me.
Starting point is 00:28:45 Well, except that if you're traveling on Sunday, you can't buy from them because they're closed on Sundays. That's right. That makes sense. There's more travel traffic, you know, tourist, you know, trip traffic on the weekends. So half the time, it's not going to be there. Good point.
Starting point is 00:29:00 Just saying. Yeah. Okay. Because on the seventh day, God rested. Yeah. And Sbarro opened. To fill in the saying. Yeah. Okay. Because on the seventh day, God rested. Yeah. And Sbarro opened. To fill in the gap. Yes.
Starting point is 00:29:09 By the way, you know, the actual seventh day was not Sunday. It was Saturday. Really? Yeah. Yeah, that's why the Jewish Sabbath is Saturday. And why? And what is Saturday in Romance languages? You know it in Spanish?
Starting point is 00:29:22 What is it in Italian? Saturday. Aren't you Italian? I am, but I don't. Okay. Do you have a Italian language? So I know it in Spanish? What is it in Italian? Saturday. Aren't you Italian? Yeah, but I know. Okay. Do you have Italian? So I know it in Spanish. Sabbath, though.
Starting point is 00:29:30 So it's Sabbath. That's the seventh day. Why did Sunday become the seventh day? Because Christians worked very hard to distinguish themselves from the Jews who preceded them. They said, we can't celebrate the Holy Day the same day as the Jews because we're different.
Starting point is 00:29:48 So they moved it, physically moved it to Sunday. So that is the Holy Day on the Christian calendar. Saturday is the Holy Day on the Jewish calendar, as you all know. And it begins at sunset the day before on Friday. So it's sunset Friday to sunset Saturday. And plus this sunset rule can only exist if you live between the Arctic circles. Because if you go north of the Arctic,
Starting point is 00:30:10 the sun never sets. Oh. Or never rises. That's why there are no... Jews in the Arctic? Is that what you're saying? It makes sense. When that was figured out.
Starting point is 00:30:22 I mean, the Holy Land, no one knew about the Arctic back then. I was north of the Arctic. I couldn't find a synagogue anywhere. Anywhere. Anywhere in the Arctic Circle. I went north of the Arctic Circle. I could not find the synagogue anywhere.
Starting point is 00:30:32 And I'm like, how is this not possible? Even like a little one. It doesn't have to be like a big one. A short one. A little one. Just like a two-seater. You know, you just, you get disappointed in life. Okay, John Lair laird what is the most
Starting point is 00:30:45 counterintuitive thing about the nature of the universe that is true despite seeming false at first glance counterintuitive all right you ready let's go way back on this one that earth is moving through space at 18 miles per second. And you have no knowledge of this. We have to measure this. We have to figure this out with telescopes, with smart people, with data, with calculations. We associate motion with, hey, I can feel I'm in motion.
Starting point is 00:31:21 I can feel that. But the more pure motion becomes, the less you feel it. that's why on very large vessels if they start moving you don't even know they started moving because everything around you is moving your chair your window everything if you're on a bus sometimes it looks like the other bus went backwards no you started going forward on so basically the larger the vessel the less aware you are of how much that vessel is moving. You could be on an ocean liner, and it can start leaving port. You would, and oh my gosh, we left. Because you're surrounded by so many things that are also moving.
Starting point is 00:31:55 And everything is moving smoothly. If you're on bumpy roads, you would know. Right, so if I'm on that boat, and it starts moving. But movement through space is smooth. Can't get smoother than that. So the relevance of that in relation to this question is you're saying that the Earth... It's not intuitive that Earth is moving anywhere, and this is why we went thousands of years with people thinking Earth was stationary in the center of the known universe.
Starting point is 00:32:15 What is making it move? It's not what's making it move. It's that if it moved much slower, it would fall into the sun, and we would all die. And if it moved much faster, we would escape from the solar system and we'd be a vagabond planet in interstellar space. So the only planets that survive the formation of the solar system are the ones that had the right speed
Starting point is 00:32:33 at the right distance to sustain in orbit. And there's eight of them. Get over it. Eight. So for me, that's an old school one. You want a modern one? Yes. It's not intuitive.
Starting point is 00:32:48 Here we go. It's not intuitive that when tide waters come in and out on the shoreline, you are actually sitting on a rotating earth passing through a tide that is stationary in space. Right. Because when I sit there, I think, oh, the water's coming in, going out, coming in, going out. You're on Earth that is rotating inside and out of high and low tides. A tidal bulge.
Starting point is 00:33:15 A tidal bulge, that's right. So to me, we had another Cosmic Queries where we spent a lot of time on that topic, but I think that's a good one because it looks like water's moving in and out, but you're the one moving through the tide. Yeah, see, that to me is counterintuitive, and I wouldn't believe you unless you were.
Starting point is 00:33:35 And I got another one. You ready? Yes. Okay. A lot of people want to know what happens after they die. Okay. Evidence shows, you put together all scientific evidence,
Starting point is 00:33:49 biological and physics and thermodynamic. People mock you. You have no existence after you die. And you say, well, what does that feel like? If you say I have no existence, what is that like? Wait a minute. No existence as a physical body or just... Everything about you that says you exist now, that you tell yourself, I exist, I think, therefore I am.
Starting point is 00:34:11 In terms of my presence in the universe, how I affect... Yes, it's gone. You will have no existence on death. Laws of physics and biology tell us that. You can believe what you want in a country where we have protection of religious expression, but if you want to ask science what science has about it, you go into a state of non-existence.
Starting point is 00:34:29 You can say, well, what's that like? I'll tell you exactly what it's like. It's what it was like before you were born. You're not asking yourself, what was it like before I was born? I had to have some existence. You didn't. You have no existence, a state of non-existence before I was born. I had to have some existence. You didn't. You have no existence, a state of non-existence before you were born. So I'm not giving reason to think that your state
Starting point is 00:34:51 of non-existence in death differs in any fundamental way from your state of non-existence before you're born, giving that much more meaning to what it is you can and should do while you're alive in this world that's a good point and and afterlife for you no that concept i'm not convinced and because i'm not convinced i'm doing as much as i can in my own life yeah yeah that's true i don't want to say i'm looking forward to afterlife so i'm going to chill on the beach you know, but it's true. You're a greeter at Walmart on the side. In my spare time. You do it as much as you can. Next question.
Starting point is 00:35:32 All right, okay. Let's see here. This is Sampan Gosal, Facebook. Where does the line of limits lie in engineering, science or creativity? Oh, I love that. I will answer that question when we return from this next break.
Starting point is 00:35:54 StarTalk Cosmic Queries. Quirky Queries Edition. Hey, here's a shout out to the following Patreon patrons. Daniel Kulikowski and Natalia Lalikata. Thanks guys so much for supporting us. Without you, we certainly couldn't do this. And if you would like your very own Patreon shout out, go to patreon.com slash StarTalk Radio and support us.
Starting point is 00:36:35 We're back. StarTalk Cosmic Queries. Quirky Queries edition. Paul. Nice to be here. Give it to me. Pick it right back up. Who else do you have? Paul. Nice to be here. Give it to me.
Starting point is 00:36:43 Pick it right back up. Who else do you have? Sampan, Gasol, Facebook. Where does the line of limits lie in engineering, science or creativity? Ooh, it's both. People ask questions and they assume it has to be one or the other. That's a good point.
Starting point is 00:36:59 Somehow we don't allow blended solutions to things, and that's wrong. Sometimes the actual answer is in between the extremes but we like arguing extremes because we like a fight well i think we're also tribal by nature and we want to be in one group or the other oh that's probably the deepest reason of them all then i'm done right now because i'm not gonna i'm not gonna top that. So it's are you in my camp or the other person's camp? So I think it's both. For example, my physics professor in college
Starting point is 00:37:33 discovered a new phenomenon in nature. It's that nuclei of atoms resonate with electromagnetic energy. Radiation. Okay? Got a Nobel Prize for it. resonate with electromagnetic energy. Radiation is going, okay? Got a Nobel Prize for it. That phenomenon is called nuclear magnetic resonance. A clever engineer said, if you can identify nuclei with this method,
Starting point is 00:37:58 I can build a machine, put you in that machine, and make a map of the different nuclei that comprise your body. Some nuclei is fat tissue. Some nuclei is tumor tissue. Other nuclei is muscle tissue. Thus was born the magnetic resonance imager. MRI.
Starting point is 00:38:22 Correct. Now, it's really a nuclear magnetic resonance imager, because that's what he discovered, but that's one of the forbidden N-words you're not supposed to take away the nuclear magnetic resonance imager. Let me tell you something. This engineer is so smart. Why am I sitting in that tube, and you can't pump some music in or something? Oh, I'll take it up with them. Yes. Yeah, I feel you're being sarcastic. Were you in the tube that long? A couple of days.
Starting point is 00:38:48 My body's very stubborn. They were finding things in my body. Keys. You're not supposed to eat keys. Oh, geez, you know. Since I was a kid. Can I tell you my favorite MRI joke? Please.
Starting point is 00:39:02 Okay. It was from... Only you would have an MRI, Joe. Who's the comedian, very deadpan? Stephen Wright? Stephen Wright. Stephen Wright. Right.
Starting point is 00:39:14 Like, if Salvador Dali's art were comedy, he would be it. Okay. So Stephen Wright, he said, I'm going to have an MRI to see if I'm claustrophobic. That's great. It makes a lot of sense. Right, right. Just check the brain to see if the brain tells you if you're claustrophobic,
Starting point is 00:39:36 and you're in a freaking mood. All right. So that's an example of the science had to pre-exist the engineering application of it. There is no MRI without the science that got the Nobel Prize. Hang on. Okay. So the best thing for an engineer is to have science laying around when no one did anything clever with it yet.
Starting point is 00:40:01 That's the best kind of engineering solutions I've ever seen. But how about creativity? That was the question, right? Where does creativity come from? That's what I was going to say. Is that invention that your professor, Discovery, made, is that considered creativity? Well, there's a difference. Creativity that is not science is unbounded. that is not science is unbounded. Creativity that is science,
Starting point is 00:40:30 if you don't come up with it, somebody else will. Bounded by the laws of nature and the laws of science? Yes, in science, nature is the ultimate judge, jury, and executioner of your idea. In art, I guess public sentiment is the judge, jury, and executioner, but that can shift and that could be anything. Or not. Or not or whatever.
Starting point is 00:40:48 One person creates it and feels it's beautiful. Right, right. Nothing's preventing you from creating anything you want, but nature's preventing me from discovering anything I want. So that's why Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and Van Gogh's Starry Night are unique creations in the human mind. Whereas Einstein's relativity, it's not unique. If he didn't do it, somebody else would have a few years later.
Starting point is 00:41:15 Maybe several people stapled together to be equal, as smart as he was. So the nature of the creativity manifests differently. But hang on a second regarding einstein i i can't buy that there's not some creativity some nuance is not that you look at a problem differently than another astrophysicist yes come at it in a different way yes and isn't that by definition creativity or a former i'm not saying it's not great well i'm saying it is and you're gonna listen to me. You got to leave
Starting point is 00:41:46 because this is going to get bad fast. No, I'm serious about that. What? So, I'm not saying it's not creative. I'm saying it's a different kind of creativity. I cannot pull anything out of my ass and say this is how nature works. You can pull anything out of your ass and say this is art how nature works. You can pull anything out of your ass and say, this is art.
Starting point is 00:42:07 And I have. In principle, you can do that. Right, okay. Of course, not all art survives. Not all artists get famous. And there are reasons they're not somehow connecting to the human condition in ways that other artists do. I get that.
Starting point is 00:42:19 I'm just saying, if Van Gogh didn't paint Starry Night, no one ever will paint it ever in the future history of the human species. But are you saying a scientist can only apply laws a certain way and can't do it in a creative way that's unique to that person? You can, whatever your creativity is, it's bounded by the laws of nature that enable the world as it is.
Starting point is 00:42:44 You can only do so much with the way things are in terms of the laws of nature. enable the world as it is. You can only do so much with the way things are in terms of the laws of nature. Correct. There you go. So I like creativity. It just manifests a little differently. That's all. And you definitely need and want creative engineers.
Starting point is 00:42:57 You definitely want creative scientists. But the engineer can invent stuff with pre-existing laws of physics. They can improve on things that no one else saw. We've made major improvements on the internal combustion engine from the earliest days. These are engineers over the decades. Now we have electric cars.
Starting point is 00:43:17 That's a whole jump into another place. Now they can benefit from another century of creative engineers perfecting the electric car. And then driverless cars. And then driverless cars and the like. So those are engineers perfecting on things that are not invoking new laws of physics. But I think the most fertile engineering ideas
Starting point is 00:43:34 have a fresh law of physics ripe for the picking. They say, now let me create something on Earth that's never been here before. Some machine that exploits a law of physics that we just discovered. That's the coolest stuff out there. And I consider that creativity. I didn't say it wasn't creativity.
Starting point is 00:43:52 Okay. We are in violent agreement. Really? Next question. Okay. This is Anzaman Sam A. Facebook. Is it possible to travel back in time by going to another universe
Starting point is 00:44:10 that is exactly the same as ours but different time zones? Okay. So in a multiverse, our current thinking is that if there's an infinite number of multiverses, there's another universe where all these same molecular configurations exist, except you have some evil goatee and mustache. It's the evil, and everything else is the same, right? Okay.
Starting point is 00:44:36 Is that still a thing? Yeah. Yeah, you need it. Yeah. Evil people have to, like, stroke something, you know? Is it the cat? What is it? They have, like, stroke something, you know, is it the cat? What is it? They have, like, nervous whatever?
Starting point is 00:44:47 I don't know. The evil person needs a twitch. And it can't be a toy cat. God forbid it's, like, just, like, a little furry. Yeah, it's got to be real. So with that, you can imagine a universe shifted in time. I don't have a problem imagining that. Here's the difference.
Starting point is 00:45:02 You can imagine a universe shifted in time. I don't have a problem imagining that. Here's the difference. Even if your entire molecular configuration is reproduced in that other universe, I'm not convinced it's you. I'm just not convinced of that. Because of my DNA makeup? No, it's identical to you.
Starting point is 00:45:20 It's just not you. Because that entity's life experiences are different than mine? No, because it's, it's a parallel universe where all of that is the same. Same mother, same upbringing. Well, no, no, sorry. The molecules configurations are all the same. Does that, does that entity, if I'm at five, fall off my bike and scrape my knee, did that experience happen to that entity? There'll be multiple universes where that happened when you were three, five, seven, nine, 11. Didn't happen. Could have happened.
Starting point is 00:45:49 Happened bad. Happened good. You died in this other one because a truck hit you. All those combinations would exist. So you find the one that's closest to ours but shifted by 10 minutes. That's this question. So the one, can you go back in time into that life? And all I'm saying is I'm not convinced that your consciousness
Starting point is 00:46:07 is transportable in that way. I can make an exact replica of you over here. Is your consciousness occupying this? The reason why I'm skeptical is we already have examples of identical people. They're called twins, but they don't share each other's conscience. They are separate people. They're called twins. But they don't share each other's conscience.
Starting point is 00:46:26 They are separate people. They might finish each other's sentences because they're raised together and they do the same things together. They think differently. They logic differently. They, they, they, they...
Starting point is 00:46:36 They're not the same people even though they are genetically identical. That's my point. And so if you're not the same person, this is my fear of the transporter in star in star trek all right beam me up scotty your body and soul and soul are down there and they beam you up into the ship what they did was they disassembled your atoms and reassembled them
Starting point is 00:46:59 over here are you the same person or are you a photocopy of the same person if you're just a photocopy then do you share all of the consciousness i think therefore i am i think therefore am i you how do you define consciousness in this consciousness is i think it's a poorly defined thing where everybody's trying to define it's a very amorphous word in this context. It's amorphous in many contexts. The whole books on consciousness, you know why they're still publishing books on consciousness? Because we don't know anything about consciousness.
Starting point is 00:47:34 That's not true. We know something. But the fact that it is an active field of research, the evidence of this is that people keep publishing books on it. Consciousness explained. Consciousness re-explained. My version of consciousness. Their version of consciousness.
Starting point is 00:47:52 This will continue until we understand consciousness, and then no more books will be written about it. Why do you think it's so difficult to understand it? Because you're trying to understand the thing that is making you try to understand it. It goes back to another episode where we were talking about the mind. The mind-brain. Why only 10%? How can my consciousness understand itself?
Starting point is 00:48:10 That is a challenge that we've yet to rise to. Do you think it's worth pursuing? Or do you think it's futile? Oh, no. I think anything that we don't know is worth knowing. You're asking a scientist, is it worth knowing? No, definitely. Check it out. It may be that consciousness is just something else. anything that we don't know is worth knowing. You're asking a scientist, is it worth knowing? No, definitely.
Starting point is 00:48:25 Check it out. It may be that consciousness is just something else, some illusion of something else that's actually going on in our brain. But it's like on Earth, it looks like we're in the center of all motion. It looks that way and it feels that way. We feel like we have a consciousness, but go to the heart of it? No, we're in orbit around the sun. We're not in the center of anything.'s some other thing going on perhaps just saying oh we ran out of time i know why do i take so much time to answer questions uh because is that
Starting point is 00:48:55 okay if i do that you yeah i'm fine you know we know you like to hear yourself talk and uh you know i'll just shut up from now on i I don't have to say anything. No, because this is why I keep saying it. You're great for people because you take things to places where you don't expect and you explain. In one question, you get six answers to things you never expected. That's how my brain is wired because the whole world is connected. And you can just answer a question compartmentalized, but that's not where the fun thinking happens.
Starting point is 00:49:22 No, and then so, you know, literally in every question that I've done with you over the last couple of shows, there have been six or five revelations per question for me that had nothing to do with the question. Completely useless information that I'll never use. That's what useless means, I guess. You don't have to define useless. See, this is why people are...
Starting point is 00:49:42 Useless information that I will never use. What the hell kind of sentence is that? This is why you don't get invited to more parties. Right there. You just can't let it go. Useless information. You can't let it go. You know what's true about this useless information?
Starting point is 00:49:53 I never use it. You got me. Paul, we got to go. Yes. Dude, love you, man. Yeah, you too. All right. So much fun.
Starting point is 00:50:00 Keep it going. Paul Mercurio, that was and will continue to be. Yes. Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, ending this episode of StarTalk Cosmic Queries, quirky queries it was. As always, I bid you to keep looking up.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.