StarTalk Radio - Stars Talk to Neil – Reversing Earth’s Rotation

Episode Date: March 8, 2024

What happens after death? Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-host Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly answer science questions from celebrities like Kelly Clarkson, Dax Shepard, Sway Calloway, and more!NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons can listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://startalkmedia.com/show/stars-talk-to-neil-reversing-earths-rotation/Thanks to our Patrons JEFF MARTINKA, Lacey Jane, Scott Bringloe, Jehan Hariramani, Julien Genest, Melissa Rittenhouse, and Jared Cone for supporting us this week. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

Coming up on StarTalk Special Edition, I've got Gary and Chuck, and we are fielding questions from celebrities who have harbored thoughts and queries about our place in the universe their entire lives, and they've handed them to us. Next on StarTalk. Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk Special Edition. Today, of course, I've got Gary O'Reilly. Gary.

Hey. All right, man. And, of course, Chuck Knight. Lord Chuck Knight. That's right. Gary. Hey. All right, man. And of course, Chuck Knight, Lord Chuck Knight. That's right. Yes. Well, over the years, anytime I'm at any special sort of celebrity type event, it could be a red carpet of any kind or a premiere of a film and all the actors show up. If I'm there, I pull out my smartphone and I acquire questions from celebrities.

And on the spot, on the assumption that we all have questions about the universe that just linger within you. And how often are you in the company of an astrophysicist?

There's only about 8,000 of us in the world and there's about 8 billion people. So if you ever find yourself in the same room with an astrophysicist, Kidnap them. That's the time.

Because they're very valuable. In a great ransom. That's the time to ask your questions. So Gary, you accumulated them. They've been on the shelf for a long time. They have for a while, but got around to curating them. Curating them, thank you.

And having captured their cosmic curiosity, well, let's find out what it is they want to know. They're curious about. Yeah. First one. I'll start with that. And it's Sway in the Mornings. Sway in the Mornings? Yeah. Right. For SiriusXM.

That's an actual show. It's not a like direction. It could be. So Sway in the Mornings, right. It's not a direction. It could be. So Sway in the Morning, right? It's not a direction. It has a deep question about us as a species. So let's hear it and let's find out what you think to his question. Okay. Neil, let me ask you a question.

I know mankind are meant to be nomadic in its original form. And mankind has begun to sat on this planet Earth tens of thousands of years ago. When we talk about viruses, am I inaccurate if I was to say that mankind is a virus to this planet Earth because of the damage and destruction that it's done to not only the Earth, but other people? Are we just ants with consciousness? Can you answer that for me, Neil? or we just ants with consciousness? Can you answer that for me, Neil? What the hell is Sway talking about?

I mean, that question was all over the place. He started off with nomadic human beings, which really, I mean, he said tens of thousands, but yeah, that's pre-agriculture. That's pre-agriculture. He's correct there. He's right. Give the man some Starkle. I'm going to give himulture. That's pre-agriculture. He's correct there. Right, he's right. Give the man some... I'm going to give him that.

I'm going to give him that. Starkle street cred, go. But then from there, he went from being nomadic to viruses. Are we a virus? I'm trying to figure out, like, is that because viruses spread and we came out of the Serengeti and spread all over the earth is that i guess that's what you know yeah yeah yeah so um so first of all uh yes there's a lot of evolutionary features we have for all the time we were human until we settled and a lot of those features are just sort of dangling there within us

without any way to manifest other than in weird ways. Okay. And so, you know, why else would we be intrigued by movie stars were it not for the fact that there was a day where the person who brought home the food was like the most important person in all the tribe. You want to have babies with that person. If you didn't, then your babies wouldn't be that person to sustain the future of the tribe. So what is the modern version of that? It's a person bigger than life on a screen,

even though they ain't bringing home the food. But we don't know how to react to that genetically other than by how we were honed on the Serengeti. That may explain why I want to have Keanu Reeves' baby. Okay. So, okay. Well, so, so, so, there's leftover dangling features. Okay.

So, I think we are not alone as a species to spread where we are. Okay? Right. Okay, when he said nomadic, if you're nomadic, you're here, then you go there. Yeah, right. Usually you do that when you run out of food here. Right. Then you follow the herd.

You follow the herd. Right. And so, but as an organism, we have one priority, and that's to reproduce ourselves. Our genetic code. That's the primary priority of any virus. Or any species. Yeah, if it didn't, they're not a species for very long. Right. They go extinct fast.

So, now the virus part is, we infect places, kill it, and then move to another place, leaving behind a death and destruction. Then we're much worse than viruses. Why? Because the truly effective viruses evolve to a place where they know how to live parasitically.

Yes. They don't eliminate the host. They don't want to kill the host. Yeah, because if you kill the host, there's no way to spread the germ. There you go. Exactly. You're killing the golden goose.

Right, right. So by his estimation, we are far worse than a virus. Okay. We're just not smart enough to realize that yet. There you go, Gary. We're stupid viruses. We're stupid viruses. Okay.

Sway. Panel. There you go. We're dumb ass viruses. The panel concludes, yes, we are as bad as viruses, but worse. And plus, we don't even know we're a virus. So that makes us stupid. Yeah.

Wait a minute. Who said that? What's, oh man. What? What's the character's name, buddy? Mr. Anders. No, no, of course. That's the Matrix.

I know, but what's his name? Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith. He's a Smith. Yes, the Smith. Okay. Mr. Anderson. And he says to. No, he says it to Morpheus. Morpheus. Get your He's a Smith. Yes, the Smith. Okay. Mr. Anderson. And he says to...

No, he says it to Morpheus. To Morpheus. Get your movie straight, dude. You're on my show. That's the right movie? And you can't remember the... Wait a minute, that is the right movie. It is, but you don't remember the name of the movie or the character.

I remember the name of the movie. I didn't remember the character's name. Okay. All right, next up. Who do we have? All right, so staying with the theme of Hollywood. Okay. Film director and Hollywood legend, Rob Reiner.

Rob Reiner. Okay. Film director, Hollywood legend, Rob Reiner. Rob Reiner. Yes. So I always, you know, we all want to know where we go after we pass away. You know, who knows? Heaven, hell, what happens? And I always thought, you know, Neil thinks of us as we're all part of the cosmos. So since we're all part of the cosmos, do we then go back into the cosmos? How does that work? Where are all our atoms and molecules? Where do they go?

I hope to God that you answered him. Well, Rob, most of us go back to the cosmos, but you're going to hell. No, that is not how I answered him. And I had to resist. That would have been awesome. No, it would not have been. That would have been so awesome. Okay. Had that been a stupid question, I would have said,

Meathead, what do you think? Because that was Archie Bunker's call to Meathead. That's this guy. He played the son-in-law. Okay, there's a lot going on in that question. So, first of all, nothing enters or exits the universe-in-law. Okay, there's a lot going on in that question. So, first of all, nothing

enters or exits the universe. It can transform. Okay? So, I have spent my life dining upon flora and fauna to bring nourishment to my body. Correct. In death, it is my choice to be buried so that flora and

fauna can dine upon me. Completing the great... Circle of life. Circle of life. Simba. The circle of life. Go ahead. Thank you, Mufasa.

So that's my sort of angle on that. There are others who want to be cremated. Yay. And for me, I'd rather keep the energy on Earth. But if you want to be cremated, what happens is all the energy that's contained in your molecules, because molecules, by their very existence, contain energy in the atomic bonds that connect them.

Right. Okay? This is why anything burns at all. You just say, oh, you're burning it. energy in the atomic bonds that connect them. Right. Okay? This is why anything burns at all. You just say, oh, you're burning it. Where do you think the energy came for it to burn? Where do you think that comes from? You're breaking apart molecules. They're releasing energy, and they're exothermic.

Okay, there it is. That's your chemistry term for it. Endothermic, you absorb it, and exothermic, it gives it off. So if you get cremated, your body turns to heat. You heat the air. The air rises through the chimney. That air then enters our atmosphere. Right.

And it radiates infrared into the atmosphere, radiating infrared back into space. Right. Moving at the speed of light. Infrared photons. So if you want to live forever in the universe, then you'd be cremated, and your photons would be traveling across the galaxy.

And the universe, ultimately. If you want to give back to the Earth, then you'd be buried. And now they have these caskets with seeds embedded. They're like earthen caskets. Biodegradable caskets. Biodegradable ones, yeah. Totally, yeah.

Yeah, but they're not just biodegradable. No, they're for things to come and eat. Yeah. That's basically it. Yeah, you are the snack. Yes. Yes, not just it degrades over time. Basically.

Actively. They're turning you into compost is what they're doing. Actively tearing you up. So that's what's going on when we die. Right. And your consciousness, we want to believe that that continues. Right. If you don't upload it to a computer, these are just neurosynaptic firings in your brain, which we know go away when you go through a series of mini strokes. Right. You go through strokes, oh, now you don't know who you are. you can't speak the language, you have dementia.

And to believe somehow that your actual consciousness is still there to be transported or transferred when we know your brain just goes away, that requires leaps of faith that many people have, but not sort of atheistic scientists. So where do we land in terms of our soul? That's kind of important. That's part of the same consciousness question. By the way, they tried to measure the soul,

to their credit, back 120 years ago, 130 years ago, when x-rays were discovered by Wilhelm Brunchen, a German physicist, where he saw the bones of his hand and his rings.

And so the hard material, the bones and the metal, showed up on the photo. And he said, oh my gosh. And it had immediate medical applications, of course. So at the time, people said, wait a minute, if you can see through the body, maybe if we x-ray you while you're dying, you'll be able to watch something come out of your body.

Don't want to be the volunteer for that. That's a serious experiment to volunteer for. So they brought her into the hospital and they found nothing. Right. Yeah. See, now, as far as going out to the universe or going into the earth, my desire, and this is in my will, my instructions for what to do with me when I die.

I want to be cremated. And then I want the ashes from my cremation. Which at that point contained no energy at all. No energy at all. Because all of that, people say, these are my ashes. This is like the soot left over from the action that happened when it was burned. But go on. But part of it is you that's in there.

Plus I'm told they can't burn the bones. So there's some bone chips in there. There's some bone Plus, I'm told they can't burn the bones. So there's some bone chips in there. There's some bone chips, yeah. But I don't want the bone chips. I just want the ashes. And I want you to take... I want the ashes taken to restaurants all around Manhattan and just put little bits in pepper shakers all over the city

so that I can become a part of everybody in New York. That is nasty. And that's not even true. Yeah, it's in your will. Right, okay? I'm dead serious. I put it, I mean, nobody's going to honor it

because it's against the law. What from? I found out that it's against the law. Okay. So you really were planning to carry this out? I want that done. Yeah, no. Just a couple pinches.

Like a little pinch. Not much, not much. Just a pinch. And then you shake the pepper shaker up and then I'm inside. Okay, I don't mean to brag, but all the restaurants

I eat in have pepper mills. Don't worry, we'll get to them. And they're not looking. Mine just have pepper shakers. I don't know where you eat. That's just sliding.

That means I just got a slide of 20 to a waiter. I'm Nicholas Costella, and I'm a proud supporter of StarTalk on Patreon. This is StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson. Alright, who do you got up next? Okay, next up, singer and TV celebrity Kelly Clarkson. Kelly Clarkson! America's sweetheart! We all love Kelly Clarkson.

Who doesn't? I have a friend of my niece who declared that the last time Americans agreed on anything was when she won American Idol. That may be, I hate to say it, but that could be true. America's been going downhill. Well, in that case, she just totally screwed us.

Doggone Kelly Clarkson. Ushering in the age of division. What you got? That's a burden to put on the young lady. Anyway. So I've been on her show several times. I was even in one of her music videos. Oh, wait a minute.

Yeah. This is new information. Oh, you didn't know about this? Please do tell. This music video was filmed around Columbus Circle when she was taping in the Time Warner Center. And so I was invited to just be someone on the street as she skips by.

Right? So, she was preloading the folks in the back rack, in the backdrop. And I was one of the people preloaded. And... So,

when you say you were in her video, you were a walk-on. Oh, so what? That's how you were. Let me... You were an extra and you're now bringing it up.

Why you gotta play that? Why you gotta... Let me feel big in the show. He was an extra and all of a sudden, up. Why you gotta play that? Why you gotta, let me feel big in the show. He's an extra and all of a sudden he's lead man. That's pretty cool.

Okay, so I've been on your show many times and so this is one of the times I managed to nab a question from her. It's interesting because you've got this question about what a phenomenon

that occurs here on Earth but she's wondering if it occurs elsewhere. Listen to what she has to say. Okay, sure. Okay, so Neil, are there rainbows anywhere else in the universe?

Do they exist? Ooh. Well, we all know that rainbows happen when unicorns fart. So, the real question is, are there unicorns anywhere else? Wait, wait.

I feel like unicorns poop out ice cream. Multicolored ice cream. Like Neapolitan ice cream. I don't even know what to do with that, man. I hadn't heard the fart one. I am stuck between you two. No, a unicorn fart is rainbows.

That's where rainbows come from. Where did you... What nursery rhyme did you get this from? I mean, that's just science, Neal. That's science. Yeah. Okay's science. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

All right. All right. So, a rainbow, okay, of course, sunlight going through a raindrop and refracting into the raindrop and then dispersing as it comes out. So, refract is just simply the bending of light. But light, when it goes from a lighter medium into a heavier medium,

it actually disperses. So you go from white light, and you know what happens? The different colors of light travel at different speeds in the medium. Since they travel at different speeds, they separate out. And the blue separates from the indigo, from the orange, and the yellow,

and the green. They've all got their own lane. They've got their own lane. Yeah. They've got their own lane. And so it refracts in, disperses, and those then come out.

And if you have a wall of raindrops, okay, and with the sun oriented properly, behind you, basically behind the sun oriented properly, basically directly behind you, then you see a rainbow. If you can reproduce that anywhere in the universe,

you will get a rainbow. So the question is, are there any planets that have rain or some other transparent liquid coming out of the sky? So how about when we're planets where there's liquid methane and you have a methane rain, would you get the same thing? Yeah, that should also give you a rainbow. Correct.

And by the way, you also have moonbows. Okay? So this would be moonlight coming through. You've seen these coming through. So I'm thinking

if moons make moonbows, then raindrops should be making sunbows. So I recently experienced a new kind of rainbow for me. I was up flying in a helicopter, and I'll have to add to this, didn't have any doors on it, which was proper scary for someone who's scared of heights. And I saw a circular rainbow beneath me.

And that's the first time I didn't even know that they existed. Here are two facts, okay? All rainbows are complete circles. Fact number one. Fact number two, all rainbows are a series of rainbows, only occasionally do you ever get to see the second of them. Okay, there's the primary rainbow, which we all see when we see a rainbow. Then there's a second, there's a third, third, and a fourth.

And they're dimmer and dimmer and dimmer. And typically in daylight, you don't notice them. Okay. So not only that, wherever the rainbow is, you are in the exact line between that rainbow and the source of light creating it, such as the sun. Well, okay. When you're on the ground and it's raining and the sun is directly overhead, you would have a rainbow beneath your feet, but that's not the configuration of the optics for you. Okay? So the sun has to be low enough for the top of the rainbow to then show up in the sky.

Then you say the rainbow is in the sky. But if you're well above the whole thing, Yep, which we were. then the sun is behind you. You're up above, the sun is behind you, and you can see the entire circle of the rainbow. Every single rainbow is exactly the same size. It's interesting because the pilot,

as much as he was a thrill seeker, said, right, you're going to get a real rainbow experience coming up here now. So he saw the rain. And he, on purpose. He did exactly what he needed to do to give us that experience. On purpose. Yeah. So what you didn't, maybe you didn't

know to look for the second rainbow. No. Chuck, you remember early internet? It was this guy who was hiking and wherever. Double rainbow. The double rainbow guy. Do you remember that? Oh my God. It's a double rainbow. No, it's the guy. Oh my God, I'm so high.

No, no. He had basically a religious experience. Yes, he was. He said, God. And he started tearing. You don't see him. You only hear him. He's clearly prostrate.

Well, he's taking the video, so that's what you're hearing. Yeah, he's prostrate. He's on the, he's tearing up. You don't get out much is what I'm thinking. And he says, what does this mean? What's it mean? And I had to, I'm sorry. I had to like reply to that.

And I said, this is what happens to you if you've never had a class in physics. Yeah, well. You see natural phenomena and think it's divine. When it's very natural, it's just how rainbows work. It was also tripping balls on mushrooms. How do you know? I'm dead serious.

That's what came out later. If you haven't seen it, I mean, it's now like internet archive, YouTube archive. Double rainbow guy. Double rainbow guy, and he's always worth it. Yeah, it's just physics, dude. But then it came out later, like he did an interview or something. He was like, I was out of my mind on mushrooms. Oh, really?

Okay. Yeah. All right. Yeah, which is cool. I mean, I, really? Okay. Yeah. All right. Yeah, so, which is cool. I mean, I love it. I love it. So, and they're all the same size. And every rainbow

is unique to you. Especially when you make them with a garden hose, which is what we used to do as kids. Okay. You put the garden hose on shower,

and then you turn it, hose straight up, and you put the shower in the air and then it's got to be a sunny day of course and you make a rainbow.

In my housing projects we didn't have garden hoses. Why you got to make me feel bad about my upbringing, man? I'm just saying. Okay. We didn't have a backyard

with an adjustable hose. I can't help my bougie upbringing. What kind of hood are you from? Here's how you do it. Go into your backyard near your jungle gym

and turn on the hose. Oh, God. The point is, each rainbow is an optics just for you. So every rainbow is exactly face on. You've never seen a rainbow at an angle to your

sight line. Have you ever noticed that? I'd try to notice next time. I have. So because of that, if you walk towards a rainbow, it will move because it's always the same angular size. It will move farther away from you until you're out. You are in the rain and it's not and you can't see it. Okay. You can chase it out of the rain and because it's always face on to you and at the same distance to you optically uh that is the same angle you can never go to the end of the rainbow so kelly there's uh wherever there is rain and sunshine there's a rainbow okay all right wherever in. Ever in the universe, this could occur. Okay.

So it might be a methane bow. Or a methane bow. Yeah. Or ammonia bow. An ammonia bow. Yeah. That's cool. Because ammonia is a liquid

and a lot of overlapping temperature range as water. Exactly. So an ammonia doesn't have rare ingredients. It's nitrogen and hydrogen, NH3. Is it going to give us the similar colorways we get in Earth rainbows? Or is it going to skew differently? No, it depends on what the color source is. So if it's our sun, it's going in there with white G-biv.

Right, white light. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. You got it. Good one, Kelly. Oh, okay. All right, so next up, actor-comedian Dax Shepard has a question. Dax Shepard?

Yeah, so Dax is kind of like, not quite remembering an explanation you gave to him about aerodynamics, so he's reaching out for another one. So Dax is married to Kristen Bell. Right, right. So I met her once at Comic-Con, and I met him later,

and I was on his podcast in his garage apartment in his backyard in Los Angeles. Nice. Yeah. So I said, if I'm going to be on his podcast, he's got to give me a question for my shelf. Do you have a hose with variable settings? It was near the swimming pool, yes. And his swimming pool wasn't as big as Chuck's swimming pool in his backyard.

Give it to me. Dax Shepard. Dax Shepard. Dax Shepard. Here we go. Okay, Neil, I have a question. It's about lift. Now, I said the other day on the show that lift's caused by the shape of the wing being longer on the top

than the bottom or vice versa, that the air splits and travels faster, so that makes it lighter. And then people said, I don't think you have that right. So I want to know, how does a lift work? Just to be clear, it matters more that an airplane wing is a wing than what its precise shape is in cross-section. Because a plane, if it moves at the proper angle,

upwards with its nose up, the air coming at it will just lift it. Okay? Just regardless of the shape of it. I'm just saying that I'm thinking about the old biplanes, how they used to have that angle in rest. Oh, yeah. Right, right.

Yeah. The plane horizontal, the good memory there. Yeah, from those photos. The horizontally parked plane, the wings are pitched upwards. Angled upwards. Okay. So, and it's how I saw this done once. Probably other planes can do it.

The F-16 fighter jet can actually fly upside down. Okay. And all you have to do is make sure that it's angled into the wind. You're Tom Cruise. Or that it's angled into the wind gives enough lift to the bottom of the plane. So you get lift for free just doing that. All right. In addition, you have this Bernoulli effect, okay, where you have a massive air.

The wing splits the air, and the air going above the curved top travels faster than the air on the bottom to catch up with what was on the bottom. And if you have faster moving air, there's less pressure there. And I can do that. All right, here we go. Oh, I know where you're going. It's this experiment here where I just have a ribbon of paper and I can blow across the top of it. That'll be faster moving air than what's on the bottom.

And the bottom lifts up. The bottom just lifts it straight up. So it's the speed of it, that'll be faster moving air than what's on the bottom. And the bottom lifts up. And when I do that, the bottom just lifts it straight up. So it's the speed of the air. So there's still some debate about the relative value of each of those contributing to the total lift of the plane. I've seen people argue about this. But I can tell you that both play a role. And if you sit over the wing

when the plane is either taking off or landing, it wants the maximum lift it possibly can have because it's not going 500 miles an hour yet, okay? So at whatever speed with your fat ass on the thing and everybody's luggage, it needs as much lift as it can. So the wing on takeoff and on landing is as large as possible. The wing extends the flaps. Take a look next time.

Yeah, for sure. Okay? It extends it, gives it more lift than it otherwise would have, and then as it approaches speed, the wing shrinks back. Right. And so… Same thing with the F-16. That's the F-15. No, no, any of the

supersonic planes. Yeah, they all... When they go supersonic, they reduce the area because they don't need it because they're going so fast. What's with the nose? With a supersonic... No, you're talking about... You're talking about the Concorde. No, the nose is because the nose is so long, the pilot

can't see the runway. That's the only reason for that. So so long, the pilot can't see the runway. Oh, okay. That's the only reason for that. So the nose goes down, so we can see where the hell it's going. Also, on the bigger jets, in the back of the plane, do you see it angles up to the tail? Have you ever seen that?

Yes. You know what that angle is? It has to be there, because when it takes off, you don't want to drag the plane. You don't want to drag the bottom of the back of the plane. It has to clear the runway when it angles to increase the lift to go up.

When you say the pilot says, get the hell, get the nose the hell out of the way, I want him to do it in that pilot voice. Go to pilot school. Learn how to do the pilot voice. I went to planetarium school. You get to talk like this in the dome of a planetarium. Welcome to the universe. That's planetarium school.

I know, but it's the same thing. Today I'm your captain. And he's got this calming reassuring. Yeah, very calm. Even though you're about to fly into the side of a mountain. They all sound the same. Just like when you turn on NPR and all the people, no matter what NPR, they all sound the same.

That's what the pilots are. Okay, right. Next up. Oh, gosh, yes. Another actor. Star of Curb Your Enthusiasm, J.B. Smooth. J.B. Smooth! J. J.B. Smoove! J.B.! He's curious.

Okay, I first met him at, he had a, it was a dinner. And I forgot the name of his show. It was like, you'd have dinner with him. Five guys around the table. Around the table. It was real food. There were cameras everywhere. And first time I met Jerry Cooney, Okay. By the way, the boxer.

The boxer. I remember when he was active. I didn't know who he was at the table. I kind of recognized him, but I kind of didn't. Let me tell you something. As many times as he's been big up, he didn't know who he was.

Stop. Yeah, my boy, he's been pummeled by a lot of folk in the past. No, I'm good. So I do not have small hands. Yes, I know that. I know, yeah.

Okay, I don't have small hands. No. So I'm accustomed to what other hands feel like when I shake them. I shook this have small hands. Yes, I know that. I know, yeah. Okay, I don't have small hands. No. So I'm accustomed to what other hands feel like when I shake them. I shook this man's hand. My hand, I felt like... Child's hand. Like a child's hand.

And I said, who is this guy? Yeah. And then I was reminded he was Jerry Cooney. Those giant meat hooks that he has. Meat hook hands. Right. So he was at the table, and J.B. Smoove was there,

and we just chilled. And so then so then, then I had a cameo on Kevin Hart's House Husbands of Hollywood. Real House Husbands, yeah. Real House Husbands of Hollywood. Yeah.

I had a cameo and he, I think he's a regular and so I bumped into him in the, in the hair and makeup and he still got someone working on his head.

He still got the, the smock on, whatever you call it when you're there. And I say, I got to get a question from him. So here it is. Yeah.

Hey, Neil. It's your guy, J.B. Smoove. You know me, man. I'm always full of questions, man. I'm also a world traveler. You know, in my mind, I'm also a space traveler. I've been everywhere.

All the planets, the Milky Way, all that good stuff. You know, I should have been on Mars right now with that damn'm also a space traveler. I've been everywhere. All the planets, the Milky Way, all that good stuff. You know, I should have been on Mars right now with that damn rover. The space rover. I could have been driving that thing around. Anyway, here's my question. I saw a movie.

I was turning channels the other day and I saw Superman, right? And Lois Lane had died. And the man went around the Earth counterclockwise, I think, maybe a hundred times in a row. Zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom. Neil, is it possible for anything who can break the sound barrier to go reverse up the Earth's rotation and change time and go back and save a life?

I need to know, Neil! Neil! Say, say, Gabby! Cosmic minds want to know! That wasn't so much a question as a distress flare. It was a distress call, right? Help me! Okay, that's an iconic scene

in the original Superman, the movie. Right. And that was 1970-something, eight maybe, I don't know. That'd be Christopher Reeves? Christopher Reeves, yeah. Well, he's done several of them,

but that was the first one. Yeah, whenever that was. It might have been a couple of years earlier. But anyhow, in that film, Lois Lane dies, and she's a love interest of his. Yeah.

And he's very upset, and he decides to change the direction of time. Right. Okay? So he gets up and flies backwards around the Earth's direction of rotation. And apparently that creates enough sort of friction, I guess, between his force field and Earth's, that Earth slows down, stops, and reverses. Yeah.

Okay? Yeah. Then he goes back to before Lois Lane dies, but now he has to jumpstart Earth again because that's how he left it, but now he starts it at an earlier moment in time. So he does this, then reverses, okay? Now it's earlier than Lois Lane dies. He goes back, then reverses. Okay? Now it's earlier

than Lois Lane dies. He goes back, saves Lois Lane, and there it is. I think that that is definitely doable. You think so? Oh, God, yes.

It has to be. Okay. And I have to say, not a chance. Okay, let's assume it is doable, which it isn't. But let's assume it is.

It is. If you stop the rotation of the Earth, anything not seat belted to the solid Earth will slide due east at 800 miles an hour. 1,000 miles at the equator, 800 miles where we are, a little slower near Santa Claus. The entire... So there's a hiccup. The entire North and South Atlantic Ocean will wash onto Europe and Africa. The entire

Pacific Ocean will wash onto North and South America. And that act would have killed billions of people. All worth it for Lois Lane. Because she's such a charmer. All worth it for Lois Lane. Because she's such a charmer. All worth it for Lois Lane, buddy. There's a surf event.

A real proper surf event for that. So he would have killed billions. Yeah. So that's first of all. Second, the flow of time on Earth is unrelated to what direction we happen to rotate. Aren't there planets that rotate in that direction? The opposite direction.

Venus among them. Right. So the rotation direction. There are other people who think if you stop rotation, we'll all float. Right? No. People need to do some physics. The rotation of the Earth is actually sticking us to the Earth because of centrifugal force.

In fact, it's the opposite. If you're at the equator, the spinning of the earth makes you a little lighter because it wants to fling you off. You're a few ounces lighter on the equator than you are at No, what's going

there if it's just a few ounces? You weigh less, but you'll still be as fat as you were. Just all that fat together will show up less on the scale.

That's all. You'll look exactly the same. Exactly. Why ruin that thought now? Okay, but he's Superman, and so

we'll give him a cut. You give him a break. I'll give him a hall pass on that one. It's a memorable scene. It was very memorable. It was inventive for a movie, and it was using special effects of 1978. Nobody had even considered it at that point.

Right, right, right. In its day. Yeah, yeah. And we got to end here, but let me just say that I've met Superman. Oh, really? Did you know I've met Superman who now now your next question

is supposed to be what how did you meet Superman no no which one which Superman oh which Superman Alfred see there's only one Superman

and that's the one I met there you go okay so that's the real Superman okay I met the real Superman that's the guy in the comics. In the comics. That's right.

Because the rest of them are all pale imitations. I am in Action Comics 14. Yes. In a telephone booth. So Superman visits the Hayden Planetarium. He comes to my place here. And we talk about... I won't give away the story.

That'd be so funny if you came out as his arch nemesis, Black Science. Black Science Man. Wait, wait. I think I have a copy of it. Hold on here. So you have it. I have in my hands this is Action

Comics 14. Okay? And this is Superman. Why don't you keep that on a plastic sleeve? What? You're supposed to keep it on a plastic sleeve. Maybe I have more than one of these. Because I'm in it. This is not the last one that exists in the universe.

So one of the stories, he comes to the planetarium so that we can bring together all of our electronics and our computers to witness in the sky the destruction of Krypton. Oh, Superman. Because that light was just then reaching Earth. And so…

Superman's a little morbid, huh? Yeah, yeah. So here's the Rose Center for Earth and Space, right there. And he comes to visit. And there it is. Can I see? I want to do a dramatic reading. You want to do a dramatic reading?

All right. I'm going to do a quick dramatic reading. Quick dramatic reading. Okay, here we go. All right, here we go. Let's start here. He's got his vest on on the other page. Okay, here we go.

Here it goes. Is this Neil? Okay. No, yeah. So, well, it starts over here. All right. He says, thank you,, so, well, it starts over here. All right. He says, thank you, Lisa,

but our guest is a busy man. Let him do what he came here to do. Dr. Tyson. That was Superman. Okay. And he says, he sounds excited. Mm-hmm. Tonight of all nights, Superman,

please, call me Neil. That is awesome. That's awesome. That's awesome. And then Neil, oh my God, look how much they made Neil look like Billy Dee Williams. That's amazing. This is great. Okay, so then they walk over to a control room and Superman is being escorted by Neil.

And he says, we've arranged something special tonight. Usually when you visit, the best we can do is draw inferences from the fluctuations in starlight from stars in the core of this constellation. But this time, data from telescopes all over the world are being fed right here. And then Superman says, all over? That must have been huge. He's 10. Is that what he said? I'm telling you.

He's 12 years old. People don't know. That's how the real Superman in the comics, that's how he talks. That's what makes him even more super than Superman. Because when you talk, when he shows up, he's like, you know, he's just like, hey, is everything okay, guys?

You're kidding. Okay. And you talk when he shows up. He's like, you know, he's just like, hey, is everything okay, guys? You can't. Okay. So then, and then Neil says, please, after all you've done for the world, the whole astrophysics community felt it was the least that they could do. And then Superman goes, I, Oh, jeez, thanks. What the hell is that? So, when they called me up, and they said, can we... They first wanted permission

to film here, and then they called me back and said, can we portray you? And what am I going to say, no to that? That's not a no question, right? So anyway, so I have actually met Superman. And this was a... That's super cool. Yeah.

All right. All right, dude, that's all we have time for. We have more though, right? We do. Okay. We got to do it again. We got to do this. We'll do this again.

We just got to do it again. Totally do this again. Anyway, so this has been StarTalk Special Edition. Of course, with Gary and Chuck. Thanks for doing this. Yeah, it was great. I enjoyed this format. And until next time,

this is Neil deGrasse Tyson. Keep looking up.