StarTalk Podcast: Quirky Cosmic Queries

hey YouTube averse Startalk coming up cosmic queries quirky queries this is Startalk Neil deGrasse Tyson your personal astrophysicist got Paul Mercurio co-host wait to be Oh welcome back yeah oh he's fun damn near old timer now with us 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 some of a grab-bag to me so I don't know where they're coming from but Paul you got the question alright so bring it bring it alright we have a patreon oh yeah I forgot they get in they slip in oh yeah Jacob behind the behind a rope they come in come in first Jacob Horton could the solar system have a stable 2 star system yeah yeah it can well first any pair of stars will be stable I think what he really means by that is if you had two stars with the planet orbits be stable among those two stars so the if if you're gonna have planets orbiting a star and you want to throw in a second star what that others start to be very close to the first one so that as they orbit your planet out here you don't see really two stars because they're just so close together in orbit around each other you see one sort of smeared large star there if you're too close or if they are orbiting too far away from each other your orbital Allegiance will be tested all the time here are two stars orbiting each other now you're orbiting the two stars one day you're closer to this star the next day you're not who who do you belong to who's your daddy right yeah and so this can greatly disrupt the stability of your orbit in that system and therefore the stability of the planet the planet orbit itself nothing sorry not only the planet orbit but also your climate l2 is the living condition right because sometimes you're close to a star sometimes you're farther away over short periods of time so that'll wreak havoc on your climate there's no stable tide for you to evolve in because it's running ran shackle annually if not monthly in addition not only does it affect your climate you orbit is affected you're close to one you're gonna slingshot around that you're gonna come around another hey can go hey while you go hey why I love the word in this context and so some of the planets will fall in others will get ejected so the only stable orbits around binary star systems are ones that are very far away relative to the separation of the two stars themselves so that the two stars just look like one object that they're orbiting because they are close together close enough together so if this were our place your fist and and they're a star on this side and this side and it's not work it is it possible that they could sort of orbit very restricted cases there's a there's a figure eight orbit that exists otherwise they might slam into each other yeah it's just not you know you were gonna be orbiting outside of both systems not orbiting in and through them you could you could fly spaceship around it that'd be fun but no these are not stable orbits another way to get a stable orbit put a star way the hell outside of the solar system I'm sorry outside of where the planets are orbiting all eight of them hmm way outside then you're orbiting in here you don't even know it's out do you don't care right the Stars the two stars know about each other but you don't you just you're committed to one star no you don't you know significantly feeling what's going on out there you just to keep in your in your part and I've always said I'm a one star guy yeah that's that's a little stable situation out there yeah especially since you can be consumed in fire it vaporizes on the spot yeah all right next question all right 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 I don't know why is there not sufficient evidence collected yet Syriana I'll give you one reason because people review plungers on Amazon really I went to buy a plunger and there was five hundred and six seven reviews of one plunger I go gather your belongings and move to the woods people it's over yeah I'm not joking most intelligent species okay finish the question just give me a chance okay is it possible the 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 and what doesn't tell no I'm asking you what's the answer to that question humans humans thank you you see a not intelligent I just blowing my mind you ma'am I'm here and not here where am I I don't know just answer the question and leave me alone will ya humans you're right 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 1 or 2 percent like 1% 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 humans aren't throwing their poop so chips really throw their poop is that just a thing if they have a delivery it comes late they go crazy you know that X is late what if it's good I wonder you get them in the major leagues you know we have teams the Commissioner of the poop throwing 90 mile an hour fastball fast food so what is the smartest chimp do and the primatologist will bring them forward and say oh I I've said this before but I'm on the internet probably multiple times saying exactly this but I'll do it for you ok that the smart chip will stock stack boxes and reach a banana right we'll get a stick that's just right that can go inside the termite hole and yeah the termites out this takes some and there was cocoa the sign language yeah I think Coco was a gorilla I'm but that's fine but same primates the the greater apes and I wanted to get make a joke about that you know he wasn't just a good gorilla he was a great ape you know I'm trying to get the right lead into that but that's my punch line all right we'll work on it later Jimmy there you helped 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 thanks you that was really just so you can say well what a difference that 1% makes you might say right but let's take a cosmic perspective on it if there's only 1% difference between us maybe there's only really a 1% intelligence difference as well maybe stacking boxes to each a banana is only 1% intelligence away from the Hubble telescope and poetry and philosophy and music and art it seems like a stretch so that's that's one it seems like it should be more than 1% because you are human and human ego knows no bounds 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 what the smartest chimp does things that toddlers can do toddlers can figure out stack boxes toddlers can figure that out whoo-hoo it's a smart chimp our toddlers do it let's bring in this other species show them the smartest human Steven Hauk rolls Stephen Hawking out you know 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 who just came home from preschool and they don't allow cute Tim oh you just derived the principles of calculus put it on the refrigerator door all this okay oh you just compose a sonnet grandma they're so intelligent why do they still have refrigerators no no no they don't have refrigerated doors you'll have a frigid they just have refrigerator doors okay because they got to put the kid art somewhere in the kitchen so it's so smart I never feature it's such a brilliant non sequitur people don't need refrigerator I'm here to point out the obvious stuff that the unintelligent speech 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 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 gonna fly to that fly would it why are you a bird no how do you fly well we invented it how did you invent it it required technology 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 I year the simplest thoughts from this other species that we would they would lay down the simplest thought and we would be poring 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 spaceflight and the Hubble telescope is to them what chimps throwing poop is to us okay you hear that scientists at MIT they're just throwing poo you poop throwers but here's the thing what do you think there is life out there I'm not giving 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 no no the fear is linked you well they give us their simplest sentence 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'm totally with you on that that's why I went I was not involved this is why I don't hang out with you a lot because you are that species from another planet no doesn't throw its poop no and your butt problem is you're like 20 percent 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 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 in the universe are tractable by the human mind and this would be an example that clearly it's not to me and it could be the best evidence for why we've never been visited by aliens because they've scoured the universe 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 right you know this is really no I hate my other hypotheses for why they never was they actually have visited but they accidentally came during comic-con and nobody noticed it some other aliens here already you know damn let's go find somewhere else and where were the first visitor you know that is perfect okay this is somewhat related so 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 giving reason to doubt this that the first person to live forever is already alive yeah it's Beyonce everybody knows that answer came way too quickly offer you're done yeah so the the notion what enables that sentence to possibly be true is that get someone who's just born today hmm so we're working on the genome we writing the aging gene whatever that is if the even is such a thing and we say okay we can now that newborn person when they're 20 they will we take this potion and they can now live to be 150 there would be a major advance on our longevity by the time they're 40 we 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 a thousand by the time they're hundred 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 is just born today and what do scientists or people in this field working on or thinking about it see as a potential hazard of that I mean what could go wrong yes exactly so a couple of things very important one of two things has to have either we colonize other planets or you stop making babies mmm because if you don't die and you keep making babies that ups the population growth rate you probably can grow through eight relies on the fact that some people die and food resources in general that's correct so you need other planets if you if you 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 rebuttal to living forever what's that what motivation would you have to even wake up tomorrow morning and get anything accomplished at all well let's see you go don't you think because you could all that's in there too but I'm 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 us and I'm serious I have a child I think you know you have a limited amount of time in on this earth you doesn't make sure you spend the time with it whereas if it's open-ended it's like a house you know let's see in 20 years if I was wrong the following wouldn't be true have you ever given your loved ones plastic flowers it's my wife she's shaking her head no no let's do better than plastic have you ever given your loved ones silk flowers no I've stolen them from a funeral okay now why not why are you giving her flowers that you know in advance will die 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 of limited longevity you live a different way you ompletely approach different way I'm a different perspective now let me now pull something out of my ass why is the dog so excited to see you when you come home the dog only lives 14 years whatever is your excitement that spent seven times that amount of years alive it just imagine your entire life you not have to experience in 14 years what would you do you would do it every day outside Oh someone but I can smell let me smell as many butts as I can oh my gosh okay there's there's everything they do you're right 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's I don't mean to psychologically analyze dogs this is what I'm suggesting 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 gonna come back I don't have a why I'm just actually I'm pulling it down my ass I'm suggesting that we question the enthusiasm dogs exhibit hmm like this was wholly unjustified look I just came home look I just went out to get a quart of milk you know I think it's because they had an accident on the couch that's in the list but if you went out for an hour to them it's 14 hours maybe right you gone for a day to them it's two weeks in our lifespan that's what it is well we just hit me with this conversation is there is such an interrelation between science and psychology and human beings in the human the human condition and now you have to take all of that into account in doing I try to every day of my life yeah so knowledge that I will die gives focus and meaning to what I do in life so if I live forever think what am i doing well that's why that means just not the on-demand choices would be terrible 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 it you know if you're not gaining on this one ball weight that means we can get more police academy movies all right here's one from this is Kenyon read Instagram what science fiction concept would you most like to see in a real world application very clear work drive I want to visit the side of the galaxy x-ray vision man we already have x-ray vision they call x-ray we can already see through things but I want it like in glasses and I can see what I'm you know you read 20 comics as a kid we have x-ray specs at the back where you can buy them the x-ray vision why do you want to see through to good score round 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 of have you spoken about this with your accountant I'd say you're saying it's easy what's the answer by the way any vision that sees through clothes also sees through flesh I'm just giving you the reality of it so psyched for this I'm just saying that's what it is so so you don't see through clothes and then just see the body of the person you seen through the body of the person you see their bones and rings they're wearing another their metal hip that's got replaced five years ago that's what you're seeing with x-rays that's know you we have much better power of longing than just do you want to see an X rays yes 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 so just what would I most want to see not that I think what was the most likely is it likely that that would happen I'm skeptical yeah yeah it's too complicated to figure I know it's just it's too it's too out there now don't trust me because when I first start trust our Trek and they had this box then they put food in it came out a few seconds later hot I said nah that'll never well you're pressuring because we have Mel Powell at melp our next question go what is it asked wort wort 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 so that is 300 years you can go back and play the tape of me saying no as you wish by me at warp speed we're about to go to break but well you had a message yes you tubers don't miss any of the episodes of Startalk how just below click on the bell subscribe Startalk cosmic queries quirky queries additional ball yes give it to me here we go remember just you're tweeting at pole and Mercurio a me see you alright and you can check out my podcast of Paul Mercurio show that's the name of the show yeah I name we had a big thing Palmateer o's name of a show folk the Paul Mercurio you know we we had we sat around the table 12 of us we spit ball names and that's it for a day and that's what you came out with now you're in good hands there was the Andy Griffith Show right and you know Seinfeld it's just I felt right so high well I tried two chairs and a microphone for a while whatever but then there wasn't as cool as between the ferns exactly but the other thing you helped me with you gave me a suggestion for sure name which I'm using so all right here we go Sammy John Lennon Instagram do you believe a Mulla Mulla was just an unusual space rock or an alien probe [Laughter] this long and sweat I mean it's like - its what is that all about like why do people jump to that when they start talking about aliens white what what I should always anything that you could think of that they would do and you can't they came here while probing your organs right yeah obsession with my anus what do they are they all gastrointestinal doctors is that it they all want to be part ologist try to put around us to make money come on people you're better than that okay ready you ready so a mu amor is the first confirmed interstellar visitor to our solar system it's a rock right can I be more poetic about it please once you let me ride this one it's got a beautiful Hawaiian name which means scout basically except it's repeated and in some languages Hawaiian included if you repeat something it's done for emphasis so the mullah is a scout Oh mwah mwah is a scout scout so the it's the first visitor from interstellar space that we have ever confirmed moved through our solar system 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 was that it's from another I'm getting there so you look how you measure how fast it's going and you say at that speed it is moving too fast for the Sun to contain it 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 so there are four kinds of orbits you can have you can have a circle and ellipse slightly flattened circle a parabola which is an ellipse that's so big and open 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 be like Neil deGrasse Tyson is a genius like that kind of hyperbole well those so the hyper is root to many uses and the term hyperbola is a shape a geometric shape hyperbola and it's the most extreme of the energies of these orbits hyperbole is language that's excessive and unwarranted usually and what else you have hyperdrive hyperspace these are things are beyond and beyond the normal so this rock is this had that would not great for rock yet okay this visitor its visitor yes so it 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 all the difference what are you gonna do about that different than the one you calculate yes and we know how to calculate your victories we got this we know Newton's laws of gravity so you so the question becomes when did it get altered and how did it get all 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 something's controlling it 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 it's alien it's being controlled by aliens but if that were true why all serious is 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 saying it may not be Iraq no so so because its orbit its trajectory around the Sun was not quote following Newton's laws that meant something was affecting its trajectory and some hypothesized maybe it's an intelligent craft if there's not actual aliens on it maybe they're active navigational tools on it that go into autopilot as they near a star or being controlled remote no because they would be too far how do you know that if you are the speed of light if you can't define with that what's not okay okay so if they controlling it from afar they'd have to use subspace communication systems such as what they do in Star Trek because on Star Trek if they're going warp speed how they're going to send a signal ahead of them if they're moving faster than the beam of light itself that they would be sending 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 of time you know I need you to get this this year yesterday we've got it here we huh yesterday sir watch the extra so that's why the alien reference so that's why there's a it was hypopneas 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 in the ice out gases oh now you have a little you know retro rockets that couldn't alter which way your object is moving so there there are other ways that it could be influenced and I'm not gonna jump to conclusions and say it's aliens hmm I'm not gonna rule it out but I'd rather not that beat my first suggestion but the end just to wrap this up on this subject there is not it's gone so any analysis of it is done whatever we've done yeah it's it's left the solar system incorrect okay well sorry it's it's it exited out the back door right right but it's still out there but it's it's no longer in Europe enough to our sensors and detectors and telescopes again any meaningful data any further yeah so Abu amour is Hawaiian for Scout that was discovered using telescopes on Mauna Kea in Hawaii yeah 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 your this thing they speculate is between 300 and 3200 feet yeah I forgot the exact number I forgot but it's about that it's about that I'm moving that fast like again they can they can do a fairly accurate measurement oh yeah well 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 it breaks into pieces that extend in front 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 Jon Leuer t7 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 John Laird John thank you for that question beautiful question but counterintuitive let me think so counter that there's not a chick-fil-a at more restaurants companies the coast that's counterintuitive well except that if you're traveling on Sunday you can't buy from them cuz they're closed on Sunday that's right and that makes there's more travel traffic you know tourists you know um trip traffic on the weekends then so half the time he's not gonna be there good point just saying yeah okay because on the seventh day God rested yeah and Sbarro of it to fill in the gaps by the way you know the actual seventh day was not Sunday it was Saturday yeah yeah that's wise the Jewish Sabbath is Saturday and why why and what is what is what is Saturday and we're Romance languages you know what in Spanish what is it in Italian Saturday aren't you Italian I am today Salomon so I don't in Spanish Sabbath Oh let cetera so Sabbath that's the seventh day why did he get why did sunday become the because Christians worked very hard to distinguish themselves from the Jews who preceded them so we can't celebrate the height the height of the the holy day the same day as the Jews because we're different 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 Friday right all right so sunset Friday to sunset Saturday and Plus this sunset rule can only exist if you live between the arctic circles because it would go north of the Arctic the Sun never sets or it never Rises that's why there's no there are no Jews in the park no if I went north of the Arctic Circle Mike's right now to find the synagogue and I was it possible to see you just you get disappointed in life okay John Laird what is the most counterintuitive thing about the nature of the universe that is true despite seeming false at first glance counterintuitive are 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 but to figure this out with telescopes with smart people with data with calculations we associate in motion with hey I can feel I'm in motion 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 move your chair you're win - everything found a bus sometimes it looks like the other bus went backwards no you started going forward hmm 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 to start leaving port you would and oh my gosh we left because you're surrounded by so many things that are also moving and everything is moving smoothly if you're on bumpy roads you would know right so if I'm on that boat and it's stuck but moving through space is smooth can't get smoother than that until so the relevance of that in relation to this question is you're saying that the year it's not intuitive that earth is moving anywhere and this is why we went thousands of years was people thinking earth was stationary in the center of the known universe what is making it move it's not what's making it move it's that if a moved much slower it would fall into the Sun and we would all die and it move much faster we would escape from the solar system and we'd be a vagabond planet in interstellar space so the only planets that survived the formation of the solar system are the ones that had the right speed at the right distance to sustain in orbit and there's eight of them get over it eight so for me that that's it that's an old school one you want a modern one yes it's not intuitive here we go it's not intuitive that when tidewaters 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 what 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 a high and low tides of tidal both it's a tidal bulge that's right so to me now we we had another cosmic queries where we spent a lot of time on that topic but I think that's a good one if because it looks like waters moving in and out but you're the one moving through the tide yeah see I did that that to me is counterintuitive yeah and I wouldn't believe you know and I got another one you ready yes okay a lot of people want to know what happens after they die okay evidence shows he put together all scientific evidence biological and physics and thermodynamic let people mock you you have no existence after you die and you said well what does that feel like if you say I'm no he says what does that like wait a minute we use 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 mm-hmm in terms of my presence in the unit yes how is 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 says about it you go into a state of non-existence you can say well why is that what's that like mmm I'll tell you exactly what it's like this is what it was like before you were born hmm you're not asking yourself what was like 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 given reason to think that your state 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 hmm in this world hmm that's a good point and and afterlife for you know 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 gonna chill on the beach you know it's true you're a greeter at Walmart on the side in my spare time do it as much as you can next question okay this is Sam pond go saw at Facebook mm-hmm 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 so probably I go to break but you haven't yeah I want to be loving this and I don't know how you're not subscribed to the show click on the bell below and do not miss any episodes of star talk we're back star talk cosmic queries rookie queries edition all nice to be here give it to me pick it right back up who else do you have Sam Pongo saw 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 we somehow we know we don't allow blended solutions to things and that's wrong sometimes the actual answer is in between the extremes but we'd 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 at Yahoo that's probably the deepest reason of them all then I'm done right now I'm not gonna top that so it's are you and my camp were the other person's camp so I think it's both for example my physics professor in college discovered a new phenomenon in nature it's that nuclei of atoms resonate with electromagnetic energy radiation okay I've got a Nobel Prize for it that phenomenon is called nuclear magnetic resonance a clever engineer said but if you can identify nuclei with this method 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 correct now they took 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 some of this engineers so smart why am I sitting in that tube and I can't pump pump some music in or something oh I'll take it up with them yes we were you in the tube that long couple of days my body is very stubborn they were finding things in my body he's you're not supposed to eat peas since I was a kid okay my favorite MRI joke please okay it was from oh you would have all right yo who's that who's the comedian very deadpan like it even right Stephen right Stephen right right like if Salvador Dali's art work comedy he would be it okay so Stephen right he said I'm gonna have an MRI to see if I'm claustrophobic [Laughter] right let's just check the brain to see if the brain tells you if you're close before you in African alright so we're well so that's an example of the science had to pre-exists the engineering application of it the original MRI without the science that got the Nobel Prize hang on okay so the best thing for an engineers have science laying around with no one did anything clever with it yet 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 gonna say is that invention of that your professor discovery made the is that considered created well there's a difference creativity that is not science is unbounded creativity that is science if you don't come up with it somebody else will bounded by the laws of nature and yes science 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 anymore not or not or whatever one person creates it and feels it's beautiful and right right nothing's preventing you from creating anything you want but nature's are preventing me from discovering anything I want so that's why Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and Van Gogh's Starry Nights 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 maybe several people stapled together because it to be equal as smart as he was so the nature the creativity manifests differently but hang on a second regarding Einstein I I can't buy that there's not some creativity some nuances that you look at a problem differently than another astrophysicist yes I'm at it in a different way yes and isn't that by definition creativity or a formula I'm not saying it's not crazy well I'm saying it is and you're gonna listen to me you got a we gonna get bad I'm serious so Paul 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 the this is how nature works you can pull anything out of your ass and say this is art you know and I had principal you can do that right and of course not all all art survives not all artists get famous and their reasons they're not somehow connecting to the human condition in ways that other artists do I get that I'm just saying if van Gogh didn't paint sorry 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 that and can't do it in a creative way that's unique to that you can whatever your creativity is it's bounded by the laws of nature that enable the world as it is you only do so much with the way things are in terms of the laws of nature correct there you go so I so I like creativity it's just manifest a little differently that's all and you need definitely need and want creative engineers 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 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 the 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 have a fresh law of physics ripe for the picking theythey 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 okay we are in violent agreement really next question okay this is an zaman Sam a Facebook is it possible to travel back in time by going to another universe 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 is that still a thing yeah yeah you need it yeah if you evil people have to like stroke something you know is it the cat but what is it they have like nervous whatever the evil person has so it can't be a toy cat no no it's like just like a little furry yeah it's got to be real yes so so with that 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 to you I'm just not convinced of that because of my DNA makeup no it's identical to you it's just not you because of that pert 'that that entities life experiences are different than mine no because it's a it's a parallel universe where all of that is the same same mother same up well--don't sorry saying the molecules configurations are all so what does that does that entity if I'm at 512 off my buddy can scrape my knee that that experience happen to that entity there'll be multiple universes where that happened when you were three five seven nine eleven didn't happen could have happened happened bad happened good you died in this other one because a truck hits you all those combinations would exist so you find the one that's closest to ours but shifted by ten minutes that's this question so the money can you go back in time into that life and all I'm saying is I'm not convinced that your consciousness 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 call twins but they don't share each other's conscious they are separate people they might finish each other sentences because they're raised together and they do the same thing differently they logic differently they they they they 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 Startalk in Star Trek all right beam me up Scotty your body and soul and soul are down there and they beam me up into the ship what they did was they disassembled your atoms and reassemble them 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 a very amorphous word in this context it's amorphous in many contexts there are whole books on consciousness you know why they're still publishing books on consciousness because we don't know anything about consciousness 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 hmm consciousness explained consciousness re-explained my version of consciousness their version of consciousness this will continue until we understand consciousness and then no more books will be written about it why do you think it's because you're trying to understand the thing that is making you try to understand it it goes back to another episode when we were talking about the brain the mind the mind brain only 10% how can my consciousness understand itself that is a challenge that we've yet to rise - 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 you know definitely check it out and it may be that consciousness is just something else some illusion of something else that act that's actually going on in our brain but this is the it's like on earth though it looks like we're in the center of all motion and 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 hmm we're not in the center of anything there's some other thing going on / just fail you probably ran out of time I know it take so much time to answer question because is that okay if I do that you yeah you know we know you like to hear yourself talk you know I'll just shut up from now on I don't have to say anything no because this is why I keep saying it you'd be you're great for people because you take things to places where you don't expect and you explains in one question you get six answers that's what rain is wired because the whole world is connected and you can just answer a question carbon compartmentalize but that's not where the fun thinking happens 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 really had nothing to do with the question Oh completely use this information that I'll never use that's what useless means no you have to define useless information that I will never use this is the high you don't get if I invited more parties right there you just can't use information you can't let it go you know what's true about this useless relation I never use it you got me Paul we gotta go yes yeah all right so much fun you know and Paul material that was and will continue to be yes Neil deGrasse Tyson your personal astrophysicist and in this episode of star talk cosmic queries quirky queries it was as always I bid you to keep looking up I'll show you my math stash like you're an evil [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: StarTalk

Views: 380,505

Keywords: StarTalk, star talk, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Paul Mecurio, binary star systems, planetary orbits, orbital allegiances, intelligent life, extraterrestrial life, immortality, Beyoncé, science fiction, x-ray vision, warp drives, Oumuamua, interstellar object, alien space probe, comet, multiverse, StarTalk Radio, Space Podcast, Astronomy Podcast, Science Podcast, Cosmic Queries, YouTube Space NY, youtube, youtube space, full episode, podcast, science, paul mecurio neil degrasse tyson

Id: uxvsSuNw4ys

Length: 52min 28sec (3148 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 30 2020