April 5, 2024 • 50 mins
On this episode of The Middle we've got Neil deGrasse Tyson with us as our personal astrophysicist for the hour - discussing all things space exploration, the cosmos and more. The Middle's house DJ Tolliver joins as well, plus callers from around the country. #space #elclipse #spacetravel #blackhole #wormhole #mars
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to the middle. I'm Jeremy Hompson. Tolliver is here
as always, Hey Tolliver, we have some new listeners this
cool on WYPR in Baltimore, Maryland, and on KI s
U in Pocatello, Idaho.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Okay, so I've never been to either city, but.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
I've never been to Baltimore.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I've never been to Baltimore as well, but I'm booking
tickets right now Thomas first Class.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Also this week new listeners in the Path of Totality
on k e R in Dallas, Texas. Now, Tolliver, have
you ever seen a solar eclipse path of totality? That's
that's the best part to be in.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Look at that.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
No, but my cat does sleep on my face.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Okay. I remember seeing one when I was a kid
in Urbana, Illinois, and I thought it was so cool
that the shadow of the leaves showed the process of
the eclipse. But I actually don't know right now if
I'm more excited about the eclipse or for our guest,
who is the one and only Neil deGrasse Tyson. He's
going to be your private astrophysicist for the hour, taking
your calls about the cosmos and more.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Amazing. I absolutely love that you can call us at
eight four four four middle that's eight four four four
sixty four three three five three. And we have a
special surprise for you at the end of the show.
To stick around.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Yeah, wait for that. But first, last week we had
a really uplifting show. We asked you, do you feel
a call to serve your country? So many of you
called in to share your stories of civic and military service.
Here are some of the voicemails we got.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
My name is Anthony Vezzoli from South ben Indiana.
Speaker 5 (01:24):
My name is Mary McGuire. I live in Fruda, Colorado. HI.
Speaker 6 (01:29):
It's Doug McFarland. I live in Kansas City, Missouri.
Speaker 7 (01:33):
Maria Backer calling from Sarasoda. I did National service right
out of college, which helped me clarify my life's direction.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
I feel a very great need to volunteer for this country.
I work as an election judge, and yes we are paid,
but pay is very little, and it's very important to
make sure that our democracy continues.
Speaker 5 (01:57):
I'm sixty eight years old and I have thought since
I was very young that every American should have to
do some sort of public service.
Speaker 6 (02:06):
I joined the Army when I was eighteen, and I've
been serving for twelve years now, but I've stayed in
because of the perspective I gained, and I realize how
much the US is needed globally, and how great of
a country.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
We have, such inspiring stories thanks to all of you
who called in. Okay, it is hard to predict the future,
but when it comes to solar eclipses, they're actually easy
to predict. And I can make another prediction, which is
that when it happens, parts of this country will sound
something like this.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
It's amazing, that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Oh my god, that is unbelievable. That in Greenville, South
Carolina in twenty seventeen. So if you feel like that
right now, what is our phone number, Tolliver.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
It's eight four four four Middle. That's eight four four
four six four three three five three, or you can
email us by going to listen to the Middle dot com.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
And I am now so excited to welcome astrophysicist Neil
de grass Tyson. He's the director of the Hayden Planetarium
at the American Museum of Natural History and the author
of many books, including The Wonderful Starry Messenger, Cosmic Perspectives
on Civilization, which is just out in paperback. Neil de
grass Tyson, Welcome to the Middle.
Speaker 8 (03:17):
Yeah, thank you for having me. And I've never been
on your show before, but i can tell you that
the eclipse is cutting through the middle of the country.
So the clips, the clip's got the memo from you.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
And I've heard that you. I've heard that you actually
like the concept of the middle the show the Middle.
Speaker 8 (03:34):
Yeah, well just in the sense that, let let me
take a more cosmic view. Yeah, you walk around and
there are people who have hold very strongly held perspectives
or opinions or views so strong that they'll dig in
their heels and you can't even really have a conversation
with them now unless I'm just an old man on
(03:54):
the porch on a rocking chair saying, oh, back in
my day. But let me say, back in my day,
if you had an opinion that differed from someone else,
they wouldn't attack you for that. They would say, oh,
what is that opinion? And then you, oh, that's different.
How about what do you think of this? And then
there'd be an exchange of ideas and then you went
out and had a beer. Right now, the climate is
(04:16):
very different for that if social media is a platform
of expression, let's take it as an example, and I
post any opinion at all, it gets attacked by people
whose opinion differs. And I find that odd because it
means they want everyone else's opinion to be exactly aligned
with theirs. And there's a word for those systems of
(04:37):
nations and God called dictatorships, where everybody's opinion is exactly aligned.
So what I cherish is not so much the middle.
I cherish points of view that render both extremes obsolete.
So is that really the middle or is it another
dimension that you ascend to and then look at what
(04:59):
people are saying, thinking and doing and say, have you
considered it this other way?
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Well, and that's why we like that.
Speaker 8 (05:04):
Isn't of all compromise involves another outlook another That's.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
That's why we also like to say that the show
is about meeting in the middle, which is the other
other way to use that word. You write in your
Bookstory Messenger that Bill Clinton kept a moon rock on
a coffee table in his office. In case a political
argument broke out, he would remind people that the rock
came from the moon. Why do you think that being
(05:28):
reminded of our place in the universe, puts things into
perspective like that.
Speaker 8 (05:32):
It works every time. I mean, it's subtitle of the book,
It's a Starry Messenger cosmic perspectives on civilization. So this
story was communicated to me directly by Bill Clinton, and
I was able to have an extended conversation with him
about that. He would be in the Oval office and
they have a little table often used their photographs of
(05:54):
people seated around this little coffee table thing in the middle,
and if there was a tense moment, he would point
to and say, do you know this rock is from
the moon? And everyone just stopped and then they would say, oh,
the moon right, Oh, nineteen sixty ninety Apollo, we went
to the moon, we brought it back and and it
resets the conversation and allows you to say, is there
(06:18):
another way to look at what's going on from above? Okay?
And by the way, it's are you really meeting in
the middle, No, you're meeting on another platform in another vista.
That is neither where you are or the other person are,
nor anywhere in between. You You've ascended to look back
at what all of these ideas are to reassess what
(06:42):
you think is important and what is not, and a
cosmic perspective has that power over you.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Why do you think that it's so difficult right now
to have that conversation with somebody who you disagree with, when,
as you say, back in your day, and by the way,
back in my day too, and I grew up in
the eighties, it was different than it is now.
Speaker 8 (07:04):
Yeah, I hate saying back in my day or the
one the kids of today, I don't want to be
that guy. Let me just say, I don't want to
be that guy. But I don't know that I have
a good answer for that. What I do know is,
in the age of search engines, no matter what your
idea is, you see, you might have been just the
(07:27):
lone person thinking something in a community, and maybe it
was weird, but it was pretty harmless. Now you type
in your crazy idea and you will find every other
person in the world who has that crazy idea, which
can give you a false sense of authenticity, a false
sense of what is objectively true or false in the world.
(07:49):
And why would there be so many people who think
Earth is flat? They found each other and they think
they're onto something, whereas when they were isolated among other
rational thinkers, that the idea maybe didn't last so long
it wasn't magnified by the knowledge that other people shared it.
So this could be the reason.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Let's get to the phones, because we've got a lot
of calls coming in. Olivia is with us from North
Las Vegas, Nevada, Olivia. Welcome to the middle. Go ahead
with Neil de grass Tyson.
Speaker 9 (08:20):
Hi, my means Olivia, I'm told and I'm from North
Fas Vegas. Before I get into the question, I just
wanted to say, I am a big science nerd, and
I'm a really big fan of viewers, but what specific
struggles and frustration do you frequently have when trying to
communicate the importance of science and critical thinking, because it
(08:41):
seems that there are just some people that don't get it.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Thank you, Olivia for that, Neil de grass Tyson.
Speaker 8 (08:47):
Yeah, So, if I understand what you's asking, it's you know,
if you try to explain sort of objective truth to
people who are deeply embedded in something that isn't they
can be very frustrating. And so do I have any methods, tools,
or taxed to circumvent that or to overcome it? Is
that a fair rewording of her question, would you say? Yeah?
So I got into trouble with fellow educators when I
(09:12):
once tweeted that the teacher, the occasional teacher who complains
quote the kids just don't want to learn. Maybe instead
should be declaring maybe I suck at my job. So,
if you have a challenge communicating with someone, it's all
(09:33):
too easy to blame them for not wanting to listen,
rather than to ask yourself, is there a new way
to approach this topic that can find an opening not
only in their reasoning but also receptors for things? You
might say that doesn't turn the person into someone that
(09:54):
digs their heels in all the more strenuously. So what
I try to do is I try to pose question
back to the person. How about the people who are
sure that the lights in the sky that they can't
explain are visiting aliens, you know, from another planet. They're
like sure of this, And so I just would say,
(10:15):
and I got one. Let's do a cleaner example. Bigfoot.
The people just love Bigfoot. If you type Bigfoot into
the search engines, up will come this was it nineteen
seventy two seventy one, A super eight video film of
this like creature walking behind you know, the in the
(10:38):
distance behind the tree. That's the first thing that comes up.
So consider that everyone today has a high resolution camera
and video. Everybody can do that high resolution color. Yet
we do not have better images than that. And back
then you could only obtain that image if you happen
(11:00):
to have a camera. Think about it, It wasn't that
long ago with only two types of people that had cameras,
tourists and journalists photo journalists. No one else had a camera,
so all manner of life experience could only be communicated
through what you would say is your eyewitness testimony, which
the world has a very false sense of its truth.
(11:22):
I need a witness, said no scientist ever. I need data,
I need a reading, I need a chart recorder. That's
what goes on in scientific circles. Do you realize until
the seventies there were a lot of reports of alien abductions. Yeah,
and these abductions have all but gone away because everybody
has a camera, and if you were abducted, you could
(11:44):
take a picture of it, and we don't have any
pictures of it. You know, that would go viral overnight.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
I want stand by right there and the other grass
ties it. Because I do want to just remind our
listeners that the middle is available as a podcast in
partnership with the iHeart app or wherever you listen to
podcasts and Tolliver. We are actually in space already right
now on the satellite getting out to the stations for distribution.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Absolutely well if anyone is listening out there. This is
part of what was enclosed in the nineteen seventy seven
launch of the Voyager two spacecraft on the so called
Golden Record, which had examples of human music and language,
as well as a message from then UN Secretary General
Kurt Waldheim.
Speaker 10 (12:17):
I sent greetings on behalf of the people of our planet.
We step out of our solar system into the universe,
seeking only peace and friendship, to teach if we are
called upon to be taught, if we are fortunate. We
know full well that our planet and all its inhabitants
(12:39):
about a small part of this immense universe that surrounds us.
And it is with humility and hope that we take
this step.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
By the way, that was sent on a Golden Record,
but they didn't send a record player, so that might
be a problem for the aliens that find that anyway.
We would love it if you head over to Listen
to the Middle dot com and make a contribution in
any amount. If you love this show, help us keep going.
We are about a fifth the way through our fundraising goal.
We would love it if you would help tax deductible
(13:10):
any amount. Listen to the Miiddle dot com. We'll be
right back with more of the middle. This is the Middle.
I'm Jeremy Hobson. If you're just tuning, in the Middle
is a national call in show. We're focused on elevating
voices from the middle geographically, politically, and philosophically, or maybe
you just want to meet in the middle. This hour,
we're joined by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who's taking your
calls about the Cosmos, space exploration and more. Tolliver, what
(13:33):
is that number to call in?
Speaker 2 (13:34):
It's eight four four four Middle. That's eight four four
four six four three three five three. You can also
write to us at Listen to the Middle dot com
or on social media.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
And more calls coming in. Let's go to David, who's
in Columbia, South Carolina. David, Welcome to the Middle.
Speaker 11 (13:47):
Go ahead, Oh hey, God, I could be on Big Follower.
I'm actually on Google Earth looking at the whole and
looking at the diamond head, which is interesting because I
thought it was a peak that it's actually a big crater.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
But anyways, ahead with the question.
Speaker 12 (14:10):
About Yeah, I've just recently seen the some reels of
his talking about dogs and how affectionate they are and
how just all their characters and where did they come
from in the evolutionary chain.
Speaker 8 (14:30):
Question. Okay, So we devoted almost an entire episode of
Cosmos to that very question back when I hosted the series.
And the name of the episode is called and the
Wolf Shall Become the Shepherd, and we chronicle the sequence
of the basically the domestication of wolves. And so I
(14:53):
invite you to sort of dig up that episode, and
it's it's forty five minutes on that single subject. But basically,
we take wolves and say no, you're too violent, or
you're too mean, or you're too and you look at
the litter that any wolf gives, and you see which
are the tamer ones among them? And what they did
(15:14):
back then was simply kill the rest, and you raise
the tame ones, and you keep doing this through multiple
generations until they are what you want them to be.
And so basically dogs were the first GMOs. We genetically
modified wolves to become dogs. We did it with cats
as well, So we've been modifying the genes of food
(15:37):
and other animals ever since we've had the power to
do so.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
By the way, Cosmos was a fantastic show, And I
remember another episode that you did that was sort of
talked about the discovery of infrared light looking out of
you know, the infrared light, how we can see into
space and see different things that we can't see with
the naked eye. And I wonder as you think about
all the ways that we look out in to space,
the light we can see, the infrared light, now gravitational
(16:03):
waves that we can detect. What do you think has
been the most effective way to determine what's out there
in space so far?
Speaker 8 (16:12):
Well, it's been light light because anything that's hot will glow.
And of course there are things in the universe that
are not hot, like black holes and dark gas clouds
and things. But the thing where all the action is
tend to be things that are hot enough to glow.
And so if you have a device that can detect
glowing objects, then which we call telescopes. Right then it
(16:37):
gives you access not only to nearby objects, but objects
clear across the universe, and you learn that they glow
in bands of light that are outside of the human eyes.
It was hard for some people to recognize that there
are things going on in the world that you just
biologically cannot know without the help of scientific instrums, and
(17:01):
so this was in fact, when Herschel discovered infrared light,
he called it light unfit for vision, and that was
all the only way he could describe that. It was
light beneath the red, so we call it infrared less
than red, and beyond that we found X rays, gamma rays,
(17:22):
radio waves, and so the entire electromagnetic spectrum is our
primary means of decoding the universe. And as you correctly noted,
we can now detect gravitational waves. These are when things
go bump in the night, very massive things go bump
in the night, like black holes. We're working on a
neutrino telescope. That's another kind of particle that's not light,
(17:45):
but it's a particle that hails from the earliest formation
of stars in the universe. And so these are windows figurative,
but I think of them as almost as literal windows
that we open up and say, oh, now, this is
another aspect of the universe coming to us. When we
perfected ultraviolet telescopes black holes, it turns out the material
(18:06):
spiraling in gives off copious amounts of ultraviolet. You turn
on an ultra violet telescope, Bam, there are all your
black holes in the galaxy. In the galaxy. So it's
it's literally and figuratively opening windows. So it's by far
our most potent tool that we've had access to since Galileo.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Let's go to Christian, who's calling from Fort Myers, Florida. Christian,
Welcome to the Middle Go ahead with Neil de Grasse Tyson.
Speaker 13 (18:34):
When are we going.
Speaker 14 (18:35):
To be able to habit the exo planets like the.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Red Earth, the Red Earth like meaning Mars, or another
like a much further out planet.
Speaker 14 (18:46):
Oh, it's like an exo planet that goes by that
name where red. I don't know what's exactly the name
of it, but it's slogan is everything's red on the
other side.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Christian, can I just ask you before we go to
Neil the Grass Tyson for the answer, how old you are?
Speaker 13 (19:06):
Twelve?
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Awesome. Thank you for calling in Okay, Neil the Grass
Tyson your answer.
Speaker 8 (19:11):
I'm not sure what it means to be read on
the other side, but I can tell you that the
catalog of exoplanets that we now have is rising through
six thousand and in twenty years ago, nineteen ninety five,
that number was zero. So we've been going like gangbusters.
It's been a cottage industry within my field. And we're
(19:32):
finding planets of all stripes, planets close to their host star,
far away planets around hot stars, around cooler stars. They're
still hot, they're just cooler than the hot stars. We're
finding planets in the Goldilocks zone, which is where we
might more likely find liquid water. And we know that
liquid water on Earth is crucial for life as we
(19:55):
know it, because every place we find liquid water on Earth,
there's life, even the dead. See the Dead Sea that
it's clearly named by people who didn't have access to
a microscope. It doesn't have macroscopic bony fishes in it,
but it's got other life forms in it. So the
catalogs are growing. So I don't know specifically what the
(20:16):
reference would be to red on the other side, but
I can tell you that there's enough planet exo planets
out there that if there's any variation we might care
to think about, it's surely represented in that set.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
So if we you know, we've discovered these these planets
that are way out there, are we going to need
something like what we see in all these science fiction movies,
like a wormhole to get there quickly and within a
human lifetime? And do you think that those exist?
Speaker 8 (20:45):
So, yes, we'll need a wormhole. That's the simplest question
the simplest answer, or it's equivalent, which would be warp drives.
We would need some way to transcend the speed of
light legally, and a wormhole and a warp drive would
do that. Without it, it's hopeless. It's hopeless. Because take
the fastest rocket we have ever launched. That's the one
(21:07):
that went to Pluto. All right, And why was that
the fastest Because we have a rule in science that
whatever is your experiment, you want it to be completed
before you die. Okay, that's an entry level of environment,
and so Pluto is so far away that the principal
investigator said, we want to have this happen quickly. That
(21:27):
is the fastest thing we've ever launched outside the Solar
system and it escaped the Solar system. If you aimed
that to the nearest start to the Sun, you strapped
a ride on it, hitched a ride on it, you
arrive at Alpha century seventy thousand years from now.
Speaker 6 (21:44):
Wow.
Speaker 8 (21:45):
So if it's just not commensurate with human physiology.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Let's go to Taylor, who's calling from San Diego. Taylor,
welcome to the middle. Go ahead.
Speaker 5 (21:53):
Huh hi.
Speaker 15 (21:55):
So this is a great question that you guys are
leading into my question, which is how far out do
you think or if ever in our life time will
we confirm or meet alien life forms or extraterrestrials.
Speaker 8 (22:16):
Thanks, thanks for that question. So to me, an extraterrestrial
life could be bacteria on another planet. That would transform
biology as we know it. If you have a whole
other genesis of life, where does it use DNA to
encode its identity? If not, what does it do? Does
it evolve? There's all manner of questions you could ask
(22:37):
if you found life on a planet other than Earth,
because all of biology is anchored on what happened here
on Earth. So we revel in the biodiversity of life,
but really behind closed doors. The biologists confess to one
another that they have a sample of one and that
sample is life on Earth that all has a common
(22:58):
ancestor going back far enough, so I'd be content with
just slime molds. But generally people who are searching for
life want to see something more interesting than that, something
that we might call intelligent. And there's an analogy made
by Jill Tartar and her colleagues at the SETI Institute
(23:20):
the Search for Extraterrestrial intelligence. Because if they're trying to
communicate with us and they're sending a radio signal, let's say, so,
there are a lot of variables here. Are you listening
at the moment they sent it the first second? Did
it come to us or did it miss us and
go in another direction headed somewhere else in space. Also,
(23:43):
suppose they sent that signal and it was two thousand
years ago Rome right, No one is going to reply
that they don't have the technology, But that doesn't mean
there isn't intelligence and civilization at work on Earth. So
you have to be at the right time, with the
right equipment, pointing our telescopes in the right direction to
(24:04):
receive a signal that might have been sent at the
right time to arrive for you to then decode it.
So the analogy that they give it SETI is you
go to the ocean shore and you take a cup,
an empty cup, you scoop up some ocean water and
look at it and say, the ocean has no whales
in it. So that's how much of the universe we've
(24:26):
sampled in life and how much of the parameter space
that's what we call it, that we've sampled. So we
haven't found any, But you can't say therefore there isn't
because there's so many other ways to search that we
haven't done yet.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Let's go to Chris, who's in Montpelier, Vermont. Chris, Welcome
to the middle.
Speaker 16 (24:43):
Go ahead, thank you. I'm about to see my third
total solar eclips and I'm very excited about it. It is
a beautiful phenomenon, absolutely gorgeous, and it will be missed
if people do not remove their glasses during totality. I
think that messag just being missed. And Neil I was
wondering if you could comment on the safety of looking
(25:03):
at the total solar eclips without glasses and what we
are looking at during the totality with the corona kind
of pulsing from behind.
Speaker 8 (25:15):
Yeah, very important comment there, Thank you for that. So
the sun is just always dangerous to look at. But
during totality, the moon is blocking the sun, so and
you know it's time to take off your glasses because
it turns dark. During totality, the stars come out, you
(25:36):
can see planets in the sky. It's dark. So that's
when the sun is gone. The Sun is completely hidden
by the moon, and so generally it's between what's called
second contact and third contact, where the disc of the
Sun passes the disc of the Moon passes in front
of the Sun, and when the edges come up next
(25:57):
to each other so that it's what's called set can
contact is the diamond ring effect. The tiniest little bit
of the sun comes through and it makes a sparkling
diamond ring effect, and within seconds that's gone. And then
you see the beautiful outer atmosphere of the Sun, which
you normally can't see because it's way dimmer. It's too dim.
(26:19):
The light of the normal sun completely blots it out.
You block the sunlight and then you see its beautiful
glowing outer atmosphere called the corona and has nothing to
do with the coronavirus.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Just want to make or Corona the beer either or Corona.
Speaker 8 (26:36):
The beer precisely. Corona is, of course, is a Greek
or Latin for crown. And so there's a fuzzy outer
outer glow around the darkened center disc of the Sun,
and you can gaze at that with your eyes. At
the third contact where you get the diamond ring on
(26:56):
the opposite side, that's the Moon moving away from in
front of the Sun. That's when it's time to put
the glasses back on.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Okay, another question about the eclipse coming in from Eli
in Largo, Florida. Eli. Welcome to the middle Go ahead, Hi.
Speaker 13 (27:13):
So I was wondering if are there eclipses on Mars
and do they have double eclipses? Does it line up
as well with the two moons?
Speaker 11 (27:23):
What's that like?
Speaker 8 (27:24):
Yeah, great question, thank you. So, as you know, Mercury
and Venus have no moons, we have one moon, Mars
has two moons, and then Jupiter and Saturn have dozens
of moons. So we on Earth have the best eclipses
in the Solar system period period because the Moon is
(27:48):
about one four hundredths the width of the Sun in
actual physical measurement, and it's only four hundredths as far away,
and so geometrically those two terms cancel out, and so
on the sky they're about the same size. And so
you get this perfect matchup if you go to Mars.
Mars has some lame moon mark Mars and Bobos and
(28:11):
Demos one of them. They first of all, they look
like Idaho potatoes and one is like a dozen miles
across or something. I mean, they're lame excuses for they
shouldn't even be called a moon in my in my
I know I'm responsible for demoting Pluto.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Will they eventually become spherical or they'll always look like
I don't.
Speaker 8 (28:29):
No, no, no. If you don't have enough mass to
be a sphere out of the box, you're not gonna
later become a massed uh to become become a sphere.
So so first, they're not spherical, and they're small. So yes,
there are occasions where they will pass between a viewer
on Mars and the Sun, but it's just this like
stone passing in front, so there's no, yes, we would
(28:49):
still call that an eclipse. Officially it's an occultation, but
well it's call it an eclipse, but it doesn't have
the majesty and the the the beauty and the sple
of the eclipses that we have here on Earth because
we have a big moon and with the right distance
to make that beautiful, and no other planet moon combination
(29:11):
satisfies those criteria. So we are lucky.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Neil.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
I have a question, how likely is it that Mars
is going to be habitable, you know, in the next
one hundred two hundred years, because obviously we're talking about
climate change a lot. Is that something that can happen.
Speaker 8 (29:24):
When you say habitable that obviously is not going to
happen on its own, Do you mean do we go
there and terraform Mars? Is that what you're thinking? Exactly? Yeah,
So let's be practical just for a moment. So whatever
we do to Earth, to like trash Earth with climate
change or whatever, if we have the power of geoengineering
(29:50):
to turn Mars into Earth by terraforming it, then we
would have the power of geoengineering to turn Earth back
into Earth. So I don't see Mars terraformed as an
escape hatch for trashing Earth. So that doesn't mean I
(30:13):
want to go there and visit it. And and so
we want to come back or or go there and
hang out. But to think of it as Earth Plan
B it is unrealistic because, like I said, if you
can put clouds and oceans and things on Mars by
seating it with bacteria or whatever in the class, if
(30:33):
you could do all, then do that to Earth and
fits Earth. So it's not a good headline to say that,
but it's true.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Every president since John F. Kennedy has talked about space exploration,
but I would venture to say that nobody did it
as well as he himself. Kennedy absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Back in nineteen sixty two, j Okay proudly declared that
the US will put a man on the Moon, and
he was right here he is.
Speaker 17 (30:57):
We choose to go to the moon and distant and
do the other things not because they are easy, but
because they are hard, because that goal well serve to
organize and measure the best of our energies and skills,
because that challenge is one that we're willing to accept,
one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend
(31:21):
to win.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
By the way, the first crude landing on the Moon
happened seven years after that speech in nineteen sixty nine,
and The last time a human set foot on the
Moon was in nineteen seventy two. What's going on. We'll
be right back with more of your calls coming up
on the Middle. This is the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson.
This hour, we're joined by astrophysicist Neil degras Tyson, who's
(31:43):
with us to answer your questions about space and whatever
else you want to ask him about. You can call
us at eight four four four Middle that's eight four
four four six four three three five three, or you
can reach out at listen to Theemiddle dot com. The
phones are full, so let's go to Tim, who's in Bradenton, Florida. Tim,
Welcome to the Middle.
Speaker 18 (32:00):
Hi, Hi there. I'm so excited to speak to Neil
Degrass Tyson. Huge fan. I considered an honor and apprivilege,
so thank you. My question is what would the observable
universe look like from the perspective of a galaxy formed
on the outer edge, you know, very early on in
the universe.
Speaker 8 (32:23):
Yeah. Sure, So we formed early on in the universe
and we're here today. So any galaxy that formed back
then is alive today, but we don't see it other
than nearby galaxies that sort of aged with us together.
But as you go farther and farther away, we are
looking farther back in time. So if we go to
(32:45):
a galaxy born shortly after the beginning of the universe,
and we see it that light has been traveling for
fourteen billion years over that time, it's become a full red,
bloody galaxy and it's somewhere beyond our horizon. No, we
can't see it what it looks like today. We can
only see what it looked like back then. If we
go to that, if we could somehow magically go to
(33:07):
that galaxy, the universe from that perspective would see us
being born, because our light from being born would only
just now be reaching them. And that's the weird, wacky
cool fact about a universe that has this sort of expansion. So, yeah,
(33:28):
the universe won't look different to them, will look just
the way ours looks. That will be the baby galaxy
and not them.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Does it bother you by the way that NASA now
has to rely on private space companies to get astronauts
out into outer space or is that just is that
a good thing? What do you think that.
Speaker 8 (33:47):
It should have been happening decades ago. First of all,
and by the way, the Apollo program, it was all
tax based money that paid for it. But NASA was
already in deep relationship with the the space industry. But
then it was sort of the aerospace industry at the time.
I live in New York City on Long Island, and
(34:10):
in Bethpage, Long Island was Grumming Aerospace. They built the
Lunar Excursion Module. The lemb people today still walk proudly
down the street because that an aunt or an uncle
or someone who worked as part of that project. So
the private enterprise has always been with us. It's a
matter of whether private enterprise took an initiative and then
(34:32):
the rocket has their name on it instead of NASA.
So and I think that should have been happening decades ago,
to have turned space from a space program into a
space industry. Then it becomes an everyday part of life
as and why not. It's the universe, right.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Let me ask you one more thing about that though,
because there's there's private industry assisting NASA or doing it
on its own with you know, in conjunction with NASA.
But there there's also things like Elon Musk's starlink where
he now, as a private citizen, has a lot of
power over the communications in places like Ukraine that rely
on his satellites, and he could sort of just buy
(35:13):
himself change the course of a ward. What do you
think about that, a private citizen having satellites and that
kind of power.
Speaker 8 (35:20):
Yeah, so historically, I don't think it's ever boded well
when a private citizen meddled in geopolitics outside of the
boundaries of what would normally happen either at the United
Nations or in peace talks or any kind of other
diplomatic encounters. So it seems to me those kinds of
(35:43):
things should be vetted by the State Department. That's why
we have a State department. So you can't have individuals
running around. They might not be fully informed about the
consequences of their actions, whereas the State Department would be.
Some information is secret, some is sensitive, some is protecting troops.
So so I don't mind people having power, i'd mind
(36:07):
if that power is not checked by people who have
access to the bigger story that needs to be known
and and and interpreted and understood.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Let's go to Emily, who's in Compton Illinois. Emily, Welcome
to the middle.
Speaker 5 (36:25):
Go ahead, thank you.
Speaker 13 (36:28):
This is Emily, and my son Brad is going to
ask a question.
Speaker 14 (36:32):
What would it look like on the inside of a
black hole?
Speaker 15 (36:38):
HM?
Speaker 8 (36:38):
Cool? Do you want to find out? I don't want to.
So as you fall into a black hole, if you
look behind you, you will see the entire future history
of the universe unfold, because your time clock will slow
(36:59):
down relative and you won't know this. You'll just be
living your life, but everything outside behind you will look
like it's speeding up, and trillions of years will go
by as the whole future history of the universe unfold.
And as you go forward. There's a description that I'm
(37:20):
only retelling it to you because I didn't fully follow
the argument, But it's based on Einstein's general theory of
relativity that as you go through the black hole, an
entire other space time and you're not crushed and dead.
If you survive this, there's an entire other space time
that opens up in front of you, so you leave
(37:42):
your previous universe behind and enter another one. This is why,
not only in science but in science fiction, black holes
are commonly thought of as portals to other places. So yeah,
but you can test all this by traveling into one yourself.
Now I have, It's not quite in my will, but
(38:03):
I've expressed this to people. If I'm dying from something,
send me into a black hole. Let me die there, right,
I'd rather do that than get hit by a bus
or die in a hospital bed. And then I'll give
all the reporting that I can and I'll get you
experience nature at its most extreme. And I think that
would be a cool way to die.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Brad, which make you want to Does it make you
want to travel into a Brett black hole? Now hearing that?
Speaker 8 (38:26):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Well no, all right, Well, thank you, thanks for calling
very much, and let's go to Sammy, who's in Park City, Utah. Sammy,
Welcome to the middle Go ahead, Hi.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
Thank you. I was just wondering. I had heard something
on Science Friday from a physicist last week and she
was talking about all the possible ways that the universe
will and could die eventually, and I was just wondering
what Neil thoughts on were, what comes after that, or
(39:03):
if there's a multiverse or there's just nothing.
Speaker 8 (39:10):
Yeah, okay, so there are multiple ways the universe could
end based on the physics that we now understand. For me,
the most terrifying is if the dark energy continues unabated.
This is that mysterious pressure in the universe that's forcing
us to expand and accelerate in that expansion against the
(39:34):
wishes of gravity. That if that goes unchecked, the universe
will expand so severely that in twenty two billion years
it will expand faster we think. Then the fabric of
the universe can stretch, and we'd end up ripping the
fabric of the universe. It's called the Big Rip. I'd
(39:55):
lay awake at night wondering about that. If that does
not happen, will nonetheless expand forever as the temperature of
the universe descends to absolute zero. So the universe will
not end in fire, but in ice, and not with
a bang, but with a whimper. Now we may be
(40:18):
part of a multiverse, but that doesn't concern you because
you're in this universe. Yeah, so, because it could be
plenty of other universes two and just fine. But our universe,
all of our data point that it's on a one
way trip to oblivion.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
Let's go to Douglas, who's in New Orleans, Louisiana, Douglas,
Welcome to the middle.
Speaker 16 (40:37):
Go ahead, Thank you so much.
Speaker 18 (40:40):
I just had a question on your thoughts on light
pollution and it's impact on humans connection with the night sky.
Speaker 4 (40:45):
We get to see the eclipse.
Speaker 16 (40:46):
During the day, but there's so much lost at night
now and I want to see what your thoughts are
with that.
Speaker 8 (40:50):
Yeah, it's tragic. Thanks for that question. It's tragedy. Let
me not there. I don't want to cheapen the word
tragic by saying, oh, there's light in the night sky,
so that the world has tragedies. Let's save the word
tragedy for that. In this case, it was unfortunate that
there's entire generations of people who will grow up having
(41:12):
never experienced the majesty of a perfectly dark night sky.
And I don't know that it's getting worse, but it's
just simple that most people live near cities, and if
you live near a city, it's bad. But if you
live out in a farm, you can see the Milky
Way and other subtle elements of the night sky. So
(41:33):
you just have to make sure you take a trip
away from a city sometime and to appreciate what our
ancestors saw every single night of their lives that every
night that wasn't cloudy. So the reason why I don't
think the light pollution is getting worse is we've gotten
a little more clever about the orientation of lamps in
(41:56):
the streets. In the old days, the light would just
illuminated everything. If you flew over a town in an
airplane and saw a street light, that meant someone was
paying for electricity to generate light that went up into
the atmosphere and through the window of your airplane to
the your retin. That's a complete waste of money. So
(42:18):
we got clever about this, and so lamps now have
shades on top. When you do that, you don't need
as much vaultage much wattage. So there are ways we
get around this. So it's too bad. And we know
what's worse than the light pollution is satellite pollution. You
talk about Elon's Starlink satellites that you're looking at the Oh,
(42:40):
that's a beautiful star. No, that's a satellite moving through.
Initially it's kind of fun, or you can see a
satellite and then you realize, no, no, I want to
see the pristine night sky without our technology to contaminate it.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
Yeah, I have to say, the best night sky I've
ever seen in my life was on an island called
Vinyl Haven off the coast of Maine, which was so
dark that you could see so much. And I don't
want to overuse the word magical, but it was magical
and I wish I could see that more often. Where
where's the best night sky you've ever seen? Neil Degrest Tyson.
Speaker 8 (43:11):
On mountaintops, you know where we put observatories. Oh, by
the way, did you know the that Maine? If you
look on a map, Maine is just out there. I
mean because the east coast of the United States curves and
so Maine is like sticking out there. It's damn it's
(43:32):
halfway to London, you know, England or Greenland right in Iceland.
So yes, you get a night sky there. And there
are people duped into, if I may use that word,
duped into thinking that the southern skies are uniquely beautiful.
And so I have you ever been to Australian and saying, oh,
the sky you could just touch it? And I'm saying,
do you realize how many people don't live in Australia.
(43:52):
So so it's not that the sky is inherently better.
It's that there's no light pollution. And if the north
had as low light pollution as the South, you wouldn't
be uniquely complementing the southern hemisphere as the way. And
I'm delighted to learn that your best night sky was
off the coast of Maine.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
I mean it was a long time ago. Maybe the
lights of you know, Boston, weren't as bright back then.
Let me go to Let me go to Nancy, who's
in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Nancy, welcome to the middle.
Speaker 13 (44:22):
Go ahead, Hi, lovely talking to Neil Degrass. This is exciting,
but sure. I recently read about an SBR fast but
no fast radio burst FRB, and I have too many
people in my area that are like, oh, those are aliens,
And I'm like, well, it's just so far a radio wave.
But where are they coming, Trouvid, what are you? What
(44:44):
could you tell me? Educate me about what they really are?
These bursts?
Speaker 8 (44:49):
Yeah, So, anytime we find something mysterious in the universe
or that is something that didn't previously exist in our catalogs,
if your first explanation is it's aliens, then you're not
really doing science, all right, you have to say, well,
can I measure a little better, a little differently? What
does it resemble that I know? And what is different?
(45:11):
Can I isolate this? Can I bring a different telescope
to bear on this? So the very first radio pulses,
which became the prototype for what we call pulsars, people
thought they were aliens all right. In fact, there was
tongue in cheek in the first chart reading of it
of the pulsar? Did LGM someone or a little green man?
(45:34):
Because who could possibly be sending signals with such regularity
in a chaotic universe? And then we learned that they're
rapidly rotating objects very predictably, and circumstances in their environment
can promote the release of radio waves instead of visible light.
And we have radio telescopes and you see these pulses, okay,
(45:57):
and some are really fast, like a thousand times times
per second, And you're saying, well, only aliens could produce that. Okay, maybe,
but that's not my first thought. Maybe there's some physical
phenomenon I have yet to learn about that's causing this.
And even after I've run out of all such explanations,
(46:19):
I'm still not jumping on the alien but because look
at all the things we didn't previously understand that we
could have just explained away with aliens and walked onto
and and and and went on to other projects, but
we didn't. We kept probing it. So as tempting as
it is to say aliens did it, it's not my
first thought.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
So that brings me back to something we were talking
about a bit earlier. And you've used evidence as you've
talked through a lot of these questions that people have
had for you. You call in your book, Starry Messenger, for
us to focus more on evidence as we resolved political
disputes and do all kinds of things. Do you think
that will happen? Do you think that that will get
(47:01):
more evidence based, fact based in terms of how we
communicate with each other, especially in this country.
Speaker 8 (47:07):
If arguments were evidence based, there wouldn't be so many arguments.
So when two scientists have an argument, which we have arguments,
there's an implicit contract that we have signed. It's implicit.
It's either I'm right and you're wrong, or you're right
and I'm wrong, or we're both wrong. And if at
(47:28):
any point we still can't agree, the solution is always
we need more data or better data, we're different kinds
of data to resolve this, then we go out for
a beer. That kind of doesn't happen. And so talk
about the middle of One of the examples in the book,
in the chapter on conflict and resolution, there's a liberal
(47:51):
community that's like heaping upon the conservatives, accusing them of
being anti science and that they'll cite the climate change
denial and this sort of thing. But it's as though
the liberals want to take the science high road. But
then you look at, well, who is into you know,
feather energy and crystal healing and astrology and homeopathic medicine.
(48:14):
Those are deeply embedded in the liberal community as voters right,
and you can to embrace these ideas requires that you
are in denial of some are all the mainstream science
associated with it. So one side can lob complaints to
the other, claiming their high road, but if you look
(48:34):
at what's actually happening, they don't have the hiro. They
just don't. And so it's this kind of self reflection
that doesn't happen often enough because everybody thinks they're in
the right. And if you just sort of explore it.
If I give another quick example.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
Well, actually I want you to hold off on that
because we are running out of time for the broadcast
of this show. However, Tolliver has a support for our
callers that are still on the line in just a second,
and for anybody who's listening. But I do want to
thank our guest Neil de Grasse Tyson, who's director of
the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History.
His book is called Starry Messenger. He's got a podcast
(49:13):
and a TV show called Star Talk. Neil de grass Tyson,
it has been so wonderful having you on the Middle.
Speaker 8 (49:19):
Thank you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
And Oliver now has a surprise for our listeners, which
is this the surprise that Neil de grass Tyson is
not going anywhere just yet.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
So if you're still on the phone, stay right there.
He's going to stay with us for a little longer
to do a special podcast extra with us taking more
of your calls come.
Speaker 1 (49:34):
And so do that. And also if you're not subscribed
to the Middle of Jeremy Hobson podcast yet, you can
do that right now. The Middle is brought to you
by Longnook Media, distributed by Illinois Public Media and Urbana, Illinois,
and produced by Joanne Jennings, Harrison Patino, John Barth, and
Danny Alexander. Our technical director this week is Steve mork.
Our theme music was composed by Andrew Haig. Thanks also
(49:56):
to Nashville Public Radio, iHeartMedia, and the more than four
hundred and ten public radio stations that are making it
possible for people across the country to listen to the Middle.
I'm Jeremy Hobson. Talk to you in our podcast extra
and again next week.
Welcome to the middle. I'm Jeremy Hompson. Tolliver is here
as always, Hey Tolliver, we have some new listeners this
cool on WYPR in Baltimore, Maryland, and on KI s
U in Pocatello, Idaho.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Okay, so I've never been to either city, but.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
I've never been to Baltimore.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I've never been to Baltimore as well, but I'm booking
tickets right now Thomas first Class.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Also this week new listeners in the Path of Totality
on k e R in Dallas, Texas. Now, Tolliver, have
you ever seen a solar eclipse path of totality? That's
that's the best part to be in.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Look at that.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
No, but my cat does sleep on my face.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Okay. I remember seeing one when I was a kid
in Urbana, Illinois, and I thought it was so cool
that the shadow of the leaves showed the process of
the eclipse. But I actually don't know right now if
I'm more excited about the eclipse or for our guest,
who is the one and only Neil deGrasse Tyson. He's
going to be your private astrophysicist for the hour, taking
your calls about the cosmos and more.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Amazing. I absolutely love that you can call us at
eight four four four middle that's eight four four four
sixty four three three five three. And we have a
special surprise for you at the end of the show.
To stick around.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Yeah, wait for that. But first, last week we had
a really uplifting show. We asked you, do you feel
a call to serve your country? So many of you
called in to share your stories of civic and military service.
Here are some of the voicemails we got.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
My name is Anthony Vezzoli from South ben Indiana.
Speaker 5 (01:24):
My name is Mary McGuire. I live in Fruda, Colorado. HI.
Speaker 6 (01:29):
It's Doug McFarland. I live in Kansas City, Missouri.
Speaker 7 (01:33):
Maria Backer calling from Sarasoda. I did National service right
out of college, which helped me clarify my life's direction.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
I feel a very great need to volunteer for this country.
I work as an election judge, and yes we are paid,
but pay is very little, and it's very important to
make sure that our democracy continues.
Speaker 5 (01:57):
I'm sixty eight years old and I have thought since
I was very young that every American should have to
do some sort of public service.
Speaker 6 (02:06):
I joined the Army when I was eighteen, and I've
been serving for twelve years now, but I've stayed in
because of the perspective I gained, and I realize how
much the US is needed globally, and how great of
a country.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
We have, such inspiring stories thanks to all of you
who called in. Okay, it is hard to predict the future,
but when it comes to solar eclipses, they're actually easy
to predict. And I can make another prediction, which is
that when it happens, parts of this country will sound
something like this.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
It's amazing, that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Oh my god, that is unbelievable. That in Greenville, South
Carolina in twenty seventeen. So if you feel like that
right now, what is our phone number, Tolliver.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
It's eight four four four Middle. That's eight four four
four six four three three five three, or you can
email us by going to listen to the Middle dot com.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
And I am now so excited to welcome astrophysicist Neil
de grass Tyson. He's the director of the Hayden Planetarium
at the American Museum of Natural History and the author
of many books, including The Wonderful Starry Messenger, Cosmic Perspectives
on Civilization, which is just out in paperback. Neil de
grass Tyson, Welcome to the Middle.
Speaker 8 (03:17):
Yeah, thank you for having me. And I've never been
on your show before, but i can tell you that
the eclipse is cutting through the middle of the country.
So the clips, the clip's got the memo from you.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
And I've heard that you. I've heard that you actually
like the concept of the middle the show the Middle.
Speaker 8 (03:34):
Yeah, well just in the sense that, let let me
take a more cosmic view. Yeah, you walk around and
there are people who have hold very strongly held perspectives
or opinions or views so strong that they'll dig in
their heels and you can't even really have a conversation
with them now unless I'm just an old man on
(03:54):
the porch on a rocking chair saying, oh, back in
my day. But let me say, back in my day,
if you had an opinion that differed from someone else,
they wouldn't attack you for that. They would say, oh,
what is that opinion? And then you, oh, that's different.
How about what do you think of this? And then
there'd be an exchange of ideas and then you went
out and had a beer. Right now, the climate is
(04:16):
very different for that if social media is a platform
of expression, let's take it as an example, and I
post any opinion at all, it gets attacked by people
whose opinion differs. And I find that odd because it
means they want everyone else's opinion to be exactly aligned
with theirs. And there's a word for those systems of
(04:37):
nations and God called dictatorships, where everybody's opinion is exactly aligned.
So what I cherish is not so much the middle.
I cherish points of view that render both extremes obsolete.
So is that really the middle or is it another
dimension that you ascend to and then look at what
(04:59):
people are saying, thinking and doing and say, have you
considered it this other way?
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Well, and that's why we like that.
Speaker 8 (05:04):
Isn't of all compromise involves another outlook another That's.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
That's why we also like to say that the show
is about meeting in the middle, which is the other
other way to use that word. You write in your
Bookstory Messenger that Bill Clinton kept a moon rock on
a coffee table in his office. In case a political
argument broke out, he would remind people that the rock
came from the moon. Why do you think that being
(05:28):
reminded of our place in the universe, puts things into
perspective like that.
Speaker 8 (05:32):
It works every time. I mean, it's subtitle of the book,
It's a Starry Messenger cosmic perspectives on civilization. So this
story was communicated to me directly by Bill Clinton, and
I was able to have an extended conversation with him
about that. He would be in the Oval office and
they have a little table often used their photographs of
(05:54):
people seated around this little coffee table thing in the middle,
and if there was a tense moment, he would point
to and say, do you know this rock is from
the moon? And everyone just stopped and then they would say, oh,
the moon right, Oh, nineteen sixty ninety Apollo, we went
to the moon, we brought it back and and it
resets the conversation and allows you to say, is there
(06:18):
another way to look at what's going on from above? Okay?
And by the way, it's are you really meeting in
the middle, No, you're meeting on another platform in another vista.
That is neither where you are or the other person are,
nor anywhere in between. You You've ascended to look back
at what all of these ideas are to reassess what
(06:42):
you think is important and what is not, and a
cosmic perspective has that power over you.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Why do you think that it's so difficult right now
to have that conversation with somebody who you disagree with, when,
as you say, back in your day, and by the way,
back in my day too, and I grew up in
the eighties, it was different than it is now.
Speaker 8 (07:04):
Yeah, I hate saying back in my day or the
one the kids of today, I don't want to be
that guy. Let me just say, I don't want to
be that guy. But I don't know that I have
a good answer for that. What I do know is,
in the age of search engines, no matter what your
idea is, you see, you might have been just the
(07:27):
lone person thinking something in a community, and maybe it
was weird, but it was pretty harmless. Now you type
in your crazy idea and you will find every other
person in the world who has that crazy idea, which
can give you a false sense of authenticity, a false
sense of what is objectively true or false in the world.
(07:49):
And why would there be so many people who think
Earth is flat? They found each other and they think
they're onto something, whereas when they were isolated among other
rational thinkers, that the idea maybe didn't last so long
it wasn't magnified by the knowledge that other people shared it.
So this could be the reason.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Let's get to the phones, because we've got a lot
of calls coming in. Olivia is with us from North
Las Vegas, Nevada, Olivia. Welcome to the middle. Go ahead
with Neil de grass Tyson.
Speaker 9 (08:20):
Hi, my means Olivia, I'm told and I'm from North
Fas Vegas. Before I get into the question, I just
wanted to say, I am a big science nerd, and
I'm a really big fan of viewers, but what specific
struggles and frustration do you frequently have when trying to
communicate the importance of science and critical thinking, because it
(08:41):
seems that there are just some people that don't get it.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Thank you, Olivia for that, Neil de grass Tyson.
Speaker 8 (08:47):
Yeah, So, if I understand what you's asking, it's you know,
if you try to explain sort of objective truth to
people who are deeply embedded in something that isn't they
can be very frustrating. And so do I have any methods, tools,
or taxed to circumvent that or to overcome it? Is
that a fair rewording of her question, would you say? Yeah?
So I got into trouble with fellow educators when I
(09:12):
once tweeted that the teacher, the occasional teacher who complains
quote the kids just don't want to learn. Maybe instead
should be declaring maybe I suck at my job. So,
if you have a challenge communicating with someone, it's all
(09:33):
too easy to blame them for not wanting to listen,
rather than to ask yourself, is there a new way
to approach this topic that can find an opening not
only in their reasoning but also receptors for things? You
might say that doesn't turn the person into someone that
(09:54):
digs their heels in all the more strenuously. So what
I try to do is I try to pose question
back to the person. How about the people who are
sure that the lights in the sky that they can't
explain are visiting aliens, you know, from another planet. They're
like sure of this, And so I just would say,
(10:15):
and I got one. Let's do a cleaner example. Bigfoot.
The people just love Bigfoot. If you type Bigfoot into
the search engines, up will come this was it nineteen
seventy two seventy one, A super eight video film of
this like creature walking behind you know, the in the
(10:38):
distance behind the tree. That's the first thing that comes up.
So consider that everyone today has a high resolution camera
and video. Everybody can do that high resolution color. Yet
we do not have better images than that. And back
then you could only obtain that image if you happen
(11:00):
to have a camera. Think about it, It wasn't that
long ago with only two types of people that had cameras,
tourists and journalists photo journalists. No one else had a camera,
so all manner of life experience could only be communicated
through what you would say is your eyewitness testimony, which
the world has a very false sense of its truth.
(11:22):
I need a witness, said no scientist ever. I need data,
I need a reading, I need a chart recorder. That's
what goes on in scientific circles. Do you realize until
the seventies there were a lot of reports of alien abductions. Yeah,
and these abductions have all but gone away because everybody
has a camera, and if you were abducted, you could
(11:44):
take a picture of it, and we don't have any
pictures of it. You know, that would go viral overnight.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
I want stand by right there and the other grass
ties it. Because I do want to just remind our
listeners that the middle is available as a podcast in
partnership with the iHeart app or wherever you listen to
podcasts and Tolliver. We are actually in space already right
now on the satellite getting out to the stations for distribution.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Absolutely well if anyone is listening out there. This is
part of what was enclosed in the nineteen seventy seven
launch of the Voyager two spacecraft on the so called
Golden Record, which had examples of human music and language,
as well as a message from then UN Secretary General
Kurt Waldheim.
Speaker 10 (12:17):
I sent greetings on behalf of the people of our planet.
We step out of our solar system into the universe,
seeking only peace and friendship, to teach if we are
called upon to be taught, if we are fortunate. We
know full well that our planet and all its inhabitants
(12:39):
about a small part of this immense universe that surrounds us.
And it is with humility and hope that we take
this step.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
By the way, that was sent on a Golden Record,
but they didn't send a record player, so that might
be a problem for the aliens that find that anyway.
We would love it if you head over to Listen
to the Middle dot com and make a contribution in
any amount. If you love this show, help us keep going.
We are about a fifth the way through our fundraising goal.
We would love it if you would help tax deductible
(13:10):
any amount. Listen to the Miiddle dot com. We'll be
right back with more of the middle. This is the Middle.
I'm Jeremy Hobson. If you're just tuning, in the Middle
is a national call in show. We're focused on elevating
voices from the middle geographically, politically, and philosophically, or maybe
you just want to meet in the middle. This hour,
we're joined by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who's taking your
calls about the Cosmos, space exploration and more. Tolliver, what
(13:33):
is that number to call in?
Speaker 2 (13:34):
It's eight four four four Middle. That's eight four four
four six four three three five three. You can also
write to us at Listen to the Middle dot com
or on social media.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
And more calls coming in. Let's go to David, who's
in Columbia, South Carolina. David, Welcome to the Middle.
Speaker 11 (13:47):
Go ahead, Oh hey, God, I could be on Big Follower.
I'm actually on Google Earth looking at the whole and
looking at the diamond head, which is interesting because I
thought it was a peak that it's actually a big crater.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
But anyways, ahead with the question.
Speaker 12 (14:10):
About Yeah, I've just recently seen the some reels of
his talking about dogs and how affectionate they are and
how just all their characters and where did they come
from in the evolutionary chain.
Speaker 8 (14:30):
Question. Okay, So we devoted almost an entire episode of
Cosmos to that very question back when I hosted the series.
And the name of the episode is called and the
Wolf Shall Become the Shepherd, and we chronicle the sequence
of the basically the domestication of wolves. And so I
(14:53):
invite you to sort of dig up that episode, and
it's it's forty five minutes on that single subject. But basically,
we take wolves and say no, you're too violent, or
you're too mean, or you're too and you look at
the litter that any wolf gives, and you see which
are the tamer ones among them? And what they did
(15:14):
back then was simply kill the rest, and you raise
the tame ones, and you keep doing this through multiple
generations until they are what you want them to be.
And so basically dogs were the first GMOs. We genetically
modified wolves to become dogs. We did it with cats
as well, So we've been modifying the genes of food
(15:37):
and other animals ever since we've had the power to
do so.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
By the way, Cosmos was a fantastic show, And I
remember another episode that you did that was sort of
talked about the discovery of infrared light looking out of
you know, the infrared light, how we can see into
space and see different things that we can't see with
the naked eye. And I wonder as you think about
all the ways that we look out in to space,
the light we can see, the infrared light, now gravitational
(16:03):
waves that we can detect. What do you think has
been the most effective way to determine what's out there
in space so far?
Speaker 8 (16:12):
Well, it's been light light because anything that's hot will glow.
And of course there are things in the universe that
are not hot, like black holes and dark gas clouds
and things. But the thing where all the action is
tend to be things that are hot enough to glow.
And so if you have a device that can detect
glowing objects, then which we call telescopes. Right then it
(16:37):
gives you access not only to nearby objects, but objects
clear across the universe, and you learn that they glow
in bands of light that are outside of the human eyes.
It was hard for some people to recognize that there
are things going on in the world that you just
biologically cannot know without the help of scientific instrums, and
(17:01):
so this was in fact, when Herschel discovered infrared light,
he called it light unfit for vision, and that was
all the only way he could describe that. It was
light beneath the red, so we call it infrared less
than red, and beyond that we found X rays, gamma rays,
(17:22):
radio waves, and so the entire electromagnetic spectrum is our
primary means of decoding the universe. And as you correctly noted,
we can now detect gravitational waves. These are when things
go bump in the night, very massive things go bump
in the night, like black holes. We're working on a
neutrino telescope. That's another kind of particle that's not light,
(17:45):
but it's a particle that hails from the earliest formation
of stars in the universe. And so these are windows figurative,
but I think of them as almost as literal windows
that we open up and say, oh, now, this is
another aspect of the universe coming to us. When we
perfected ultraviolet telescopes black holes, it turns out the material
(18:06):
spiraling in gives off copious amounts of ultraviolet. You turn
on an ultra violet telescope, Bam, there are all your
black holes in the galaxy. In the galaxy. So it's
it's literally and figuratively opening windows. So it's by far
our most potent tool that we've had access to since Galileo.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Let's go to Christian, who's calling from Fort Myers, Florida. Christian,
Welcome to the Middle Go ahead with Neil de Grasse Tyson.
Speaker 13 (18:34):
When are we going.
Speaker 14 (18:35):
To be able to habit the exo planets like the.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Red Earth, the Red Earth like meaning Mars, or another
like a much further out planet.
Speaker 14 (18:46):
Oh, it's like an exo planet that goes by that
name where red. I don't know what's exactly the name
of it, but it's slogan is everything's red on the
other side.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Christian, can I just ask you before we go to
Neil the Grass Tyson for the answer, how old you are?
Speaker 13 (19:06):
Twelve?
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Awesome. Thank you for calling in Okay, Neil the Grass
Tyson your answer.
Speaker 8 (19:11):
I'm not sure what it means to be read on
the other side, but I can tell you that the
catalog of exoplanets that we now have is rising through
six thousand and in twenty years ago, nineteen ninety five,
that number was zero. So we've been going like gangbusters.
It's been a cottage industry within my field. And we're
(19:32):
finding planets of all stripes, planets close to their host star,
far away planets around hot stars, around cooler stars. They're
still hot, they're just cooler than the hot stars. We're
finding planets in the Goldilocks zone, which is where we
might more likely find liquid water. And we know that
liquid water on Earth is crucial for life as we
(19:55):
know it, because every place we find liquid water on Earth,
there's life, even the dead. See the Dead Sea that
it's clearly named by people who didn't have access to
a microscope. It doesn't have macroscopic bony fishes in it,
but it's got other life forms in it. So the
catalogs are growing. So I don't know specifically what the
(20:16):
reference would be to red on the other side, but
I can tell you that there's enough planet exo planets
out there that if there's any variation we might care
to think about, it's surely represented in that set.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
So if we you know, we've discovered these these planets
that are way out there, are we going to need
something like what we see in all these science fiction movies,
like a wormhole to get there quickly and within a
human lifetime? And do you think that those exist?
Speaker 8 (20:45):
So, yes, we'll need a wormhole. That's the simplest question
the simplest answer, or it's equivalent, which would be warp drives.
We would need some way to transcend the speed of
light legally, and a wormhole and a warp drive would
do that. Without it, it's hopeless. It's hopeless. Because take
the fastest rocket we have ever launched. That's the one
(21:07):
that went to Pluto. All right, And why was that
the fastest Because we have a rule in science that
whatever is your experiment, you want it to be completed
before you die. Okay, that's an entry level of environment,
and so Pluto is so far away that the principal
investigator said, we want to have this happen quickly. That
(21:27):
is the fastest thing we've ever launched outside the Solar
system and it escaped the Solar system. If you aimed
that to the nearest start to the Sun, you strapped
a ride on it, hitched a ride on it, you
arrive at Alpha century seventy thousand years from now.
Speaker 6 (21:44):
Wow.
Speaker 8 (21:45):
So if it's just not commensurate with human physiology.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Let's go to Taylor, who's calling from San Diego. Taylor,
welcome to the middle. Go ahead.
Speaker 5 (21:53):
Huh hi.
Speaker 15 (21:55):
So this is a great question that you guys are
leading into my question, which is how far out do
you think or if ever in our life time will
we confirm or meet alien life forms or extraterrestrials.
Speaker 8 (22:16):
Thanks, thanks for that question. So to me, an extraterrestrial
life could be bacteria on another planet. That would transform
biology as we know it. If you have a whole
other genesis of life, where does it use DNA to
encode its identity? If not, what does it do? Does
it evolve? There's all manner of questions you could ask
(22:37):
if you found life on a planet other than Earth,
because all of biology is anchored on what happened here
on Earth. So we revel in the biodiversity of life,
but really behind closed doors. The biologists confess to one
another that they have a sample of one and that
sample is life on Earth that all has a common
(22:58):
ancestor going back far enough, so I'd be content with
just slime molds. But generally people who are searching for
life want to see something more interesting than that, something
that we might call intelligent. And there's an analogy made
by Jill Tartar and her colleagues at the SETI Institute
(23:20):
the Search for Extraterrestrial intelligence. Because if they're trying to
communicate with us and they're sending a radio signal, let's say, so,
there are a lot of variables here. Are you listening
at the moment they sent it the first second? Did
it come to us or did it miss us and
go in another direction headed somewhere else in space. Also,
(23:43):
suppose they sent that signal and it was two thousand
years ago Rome right, No one is going to reply
that they don't have the technology, But that doesn't mean
there isn't intelligence and civilization at work on Earth. So
you have to be at the right time, with the
right equipment, pointing our telescopes in the right direction to
(24:04):
receive a signal that might have been sent at the
right time to arrive for you to then decode it.
So the analogy that they give it SETI is you
go to the ocean shore and you take a cup,
an empty cup, you scoop up some ocean water and
look at it and say, the ocean has no whales
in it. So that's how much of the universe we've
(24:26):
sampled in life and how much of the parameter space
that's what we call it, that we've sampled. So we
haven't found any, But you can't say therefore there isn't
because there's so many other ways to search that we
haven't done yet.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Let's go to Chris, who's in Montpelier, Vermont. Chris, Welcome
to the middle.
Speaker 16 (24:43):
Go ahead, thank you. I'm about to see my third
total solar eclips and I'm very excited about it. It is
a beautiful phenomenon, absolutely gorgeous, and it will be missed
if people do not remove their glasses during totality. I
think that messag just being missed. And Neil I was
wondering if you could comment on the safety of looking
(25:03):
at the total solar eclips without glasses and what we
are looking at during the totality with the corona kind
of pulsing from behind.
Speaker 8 (25:15):
Yeah, very important comment there, Thank you for that. So
the sun is just always dangerous to look at. But
during totality, the moon is blocking the sun, so and
you know it's time to take off your glasses because
it turns dark. During totality, the stars come out, you
(25:36):
can see planets in the sky. It's dark. So that's
when the sun is gone. The Sun is completely hidden
by the moon, and so generally it's between what's called
second contact and third contact, where the disc of the
Sun passes the disc of the Moon passes in front
of the Sun, and when the edges come up next
(25:57):
to each other so that it's what's called set can
contact is the diamond ring effect. The tiniest little bit
of the sun comes through and it makes a sparkling
diamond ring effect, and within seconds that's gone. And then
you see the beautiful outer atmosphere of the Sun, which
you normally can't see because it's way dimmer. It's too dim.
(26:19):
The light of the normal sun completely blots it out.
You block the sunlight and then you see its beautiful
glowing outer atmosphere called the corona and has nothing to
do with the coronavirus.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Just want to make or Corona the beer either or Corona.
Speaker 8 (26:36):
The beer precisely. Corona is, of course, is a Greek
or Latin for crown. And so there's a fuzzy outer
outer glow around the darkened center disc of the Sun,
and you can gaze at that with your eyes. At
the third contact where you get the diamond ring on
(26:56):
the opposite side, that's the Moon moving away from in
front of the Sun. That's when it's time to put
the glasses back on.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Okay, another question about the eclipse coming in from Eli
in Largo, Florida. Eli. Welcome to the middle Go ahead, Hi.
Speaker 13 (27:13):
So I was wondering if are there eclipses on Mars
and do they have double eclipses? Does it line up
as well with the two moons?
Speaker 11 (27:23):
What's that like?
Speaker 8 (27:24):
Yeah, great question, thank you. So, as you know, Mercury
and Venus have no moons, we have one moon, Mars
has two moons, and then Jupiter and Saturn have dozens
of moons. So we on Earth have the best eclipses
in the Solar system period period because the Moon is
(27:48):
about one four hundredths the width of the Sun in
actual physical measurement, and it's only four hundredths as far away,
and so geometrically those two terms cancel out, and so
on the sky they're about the same size. And so
you get this perfect matchup if you go to Mars.
Mars has some lame moon mark Mars and Bobos and
(28:11):
Demos one of them. They first of all, they look
like Idaho potatoes and one is like a dozen miles
across or something. I mean, they're lame excuses for they
shouldn't even be called a moon in my in my
I know I'm responsible for demoting Pluto.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Will they eventually become spherical or they'll always look like
I don't.
Speaker 8 (28:29):
No, no, no. If you don't have enough mass to
be a sphere out of the box, you're not gonna
later become a massed uh to become become a sphere.
So so first, they're not spherical, and they're small. So yes,
there are occasions where they will pass between a viewer
on Mars and the Sun, but it's just this like
stone passing in front, so there's no, yes, we would
(28:49):
still call that an eclipse. Officially it's an occultation, but
well it's call it an eclipse, but it doesn't have
the majesty and the the the beauty and the sple
of the eclipses that we have here on Earth because
we have a big moon and with the right distance
to make that beautiful, and no other planet moon combination
(29:11):
satisfies those criteria. So we are lucky.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Neil.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
I have a question, how likely is it that Mars
is going to be habitable, you know, in the next
one hundred two hundred years, because obviously we're talking about
climate change a lot. Is that something that can happen.
Speaker 8 (29:24):
When you say habitable that obviously is not going to
happen on its own, Do you mean do we go
there and terraform Mars? Is that what you're thinking? Exactly? Yeah,
So let's be practical just for a moment. So whatever
we do to Earth, to like trash Earth with climate
change or whatever, if we have the power of geoengineering
(29:50):
to turn Mars into Earth by terraforming it, then we
would have the power of geoengineering to turn Earth back
into Earth. So I don't see Mars terraformed as an
escape hatch for trashing Earth. So that doesn't mean I
(30:13):
want to go there and visit it. And and so
we want to come back or or go there and
hang out. But to think of it as Earth Plan
B it is unrealistic because, like I said, if you
can put clouds and oceans and things on Mars by
seating it with bacteria or whatever in the class, if
(30:33):
you could do all, then do that to Earth and
fits Earth. So it's not a good headline to say that,
but it's true.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Every president since John F. Kennedy has talked about space exploration,
but I would venture to say that nobody did it
as well as he himself. Kennedy absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Back in nineteen sixty two, j Okay proudly declared that
the US will put a man on the Moon, and
he was right here he is.
Speaker 17 (30:57):
We choose to go to the moon and distant and
do the other things not because they are easy, but
because they are hard, because that goal well serve to
organize and measure the best of our energies and skills,
because that challenge is one that we're willing to accept,
one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend
(31:21):
to win.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
By the way, the first crude landing on the Moon
happened seven years after that speech in nineteen sixty nine,
and The last time a human set foot on the
Moon was in nineteen seventy two. What's going on. We'll
be right back with more of your calls coming up
on the Middle. This is the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson.
This hour, we're joined by astrophysicist Neil degras Tyson, who's
(31:43):
with us to answer your questions about space and whatever
else you want to ask him about. You can call
us at eight four four four Middle that's eight four
four four six four three three five three, or you
can reach out at listen to Theemiddle dot com. The
phones are full, so let's go to Tim, who's in Bradenton, Florida. Tim,
Welcome to the Middle.
Speaker 18 (32:00):
Hi, Hi there. I'm so excited to speak to Neil
Degrass Tyson. Huge fan. I considered an honor and apprivilege,
so thank you. My question is what would the observable
universe look like from the perspective of a galaxy formed
on the outer edge, you know, very early on in
the universe.
Speaker 8 (32:23):
Yeah. Sure, So we formed early on in the universe
and we're here today. So any galaxy that formed back
then is alive today, but we don't see it other
than nearby galaxies that sort of aged with us together.
But as you go farther and farther away, we are
looking farther back in time. So if we go to
(32:45):
a galaxy born shortly after the beginning of the universe,
and we see it that light has been traveling for
fourteen billion years over that time, it's become a full red,
bloody galaxy and it's somewhere beyond our horizon. No, we
can't see it what it looks like today. We can
only see what it looked like back then. If we
go to that, if we could somehow magically go to
(33:07):
that galaxy, the universe from that perspective would see us
being born, because our light from being born would only
just now be reaching them. And that's the weird, wacky
cool fact about a universe that has this sort of expansion. So, yeah,
(33:28):
the universe won't look different to them, will look just
the way ours looks. That will be the baby galaxy
and not them.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Does it bother you by the way that NASA now
has to rely on private space companies to get astronauts
out into outer space or is that just is that
a good thing? What do you think that.
Speaker 8 (33:47):
It should have been happening decades ago. First of all,
and by the way, the Apollo program, it was all
tax based money that paid for it. But NASA was
already in deep relationship with the the space industry. But
then it was sort of the aerospace industry at the time.
I live in New York City on Long Island, and
(34:10):
in Bethpage, Long Island was Grumming Aerospace. They built the
Lunar Excursion Module. The lemb people today still walk proudly
down the street because that an aunt or an uncle
or someone who worked as part of that project. So
the private enterprise has always been with us. It's a
matter of whether private enterprise took an initiative and then
(34:32):
the rocket has their name on it instead of NASA.
So and I think that should have been happening decades ago,
to have turned space from a space program into a
space industry. Then it becomes an everyday part of life
as and why not. It's the universe, right.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Let me ask you one more thing about that though,
because there's there's private industry assisting NASA or doing it
on its own with you know, in conjunction with NASA.
But there there's also things like Elon Musk's starlink where
he now, as a private citizen, has a lot of
power over the communications in places like Ukraine that rely
on his satellites, and he could sort of just buy
(35:13):
himself change the course of a ward. What do you
think about that, a private citizen having satellites and that
kind of power.
Speaker 8 (35:20):
Yeah, so historically, I don't think it's ever boded well
when a private citizen meddled in geopolitics outside of the
boundaries of what would normally happen either at the United
Nations or in peace talks or any kind of other
diplomatic encounters. So it seems to me those kinds of
(35:43):
things should be vetted by the State Department. That's why
we have a State department. So you can't have individuals
running around. They might not be fully informed about the
consequences of their actions, whereas the State Department would be.
Some information is secret, some is sensitive, some is protecting troops.
So so I don't mind people having power, i'd mind
(36:07):
if that power is not checked by people who have
access to the bigger story that needs to be known
and and and interpreted and understood.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Let's go to Emily, who's in Compton Illinois. Emily, Welcome
to the middle.
Speaker 5 (36:25):
Go ahead, thank you.
Speaker 13 (36:28):
This is Emily, and my son Brad is going to
ask a question.
Speaker 14 (36:32):
What would it look like on the inside of a
black hole?
Speaker 15 (36:38):
HM?
Speaker 8 (36:38):
Cool? Do you want to find out? I don't want to.
So as you fall into a black hole, if you
look behind you, you will see the entire future history
of the universe unfold, because your time clock will slow
(36:59):
down relative and you won't know this. You'll just be
living your life, but everything outside behind you will look
like it's speeding up, and trillions of years will go
by as the whole future history of the universe unfold.
And as you go forward. There's a description that I'm
(37:20):
only retelling it to you because I didn't fully follow
the argument, But it's based on Einstein's general theory of
relativity that as you go through the black hole, an
entire other space time and you're not crushed and dead.
If you survive this, there's an entire other space time
that opens up in front of you, so you leave
(37:42):
your previous universe behind and enter another one. This is why,
not only in science but in science fiction, black holes
are commonly thought of as portals to other places. So yeah,
but you can test all this by traveling into one yourself.
Now I have, It's not quite in my will, but
(38:03):
I've expressed this to people. If I'm dying from something,
send me into a black hole. Let me die there, right,
I'd rather do that than get hit by a bus
or die in a hospital bed. And then I'll give
all the reporting that I can and I'll get you
experience nature at its most extreme. And I think that
would be a cool way to die.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Brad, which make you want to Does it make you
want to travel into a Brett black hole? Now hearing that?
Speaker 8 (38:26):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Well no, all right, Well, thank you, thanks for calling
very much, and let's go to Sammy, who's in Park City, Utah. Sammy,
Welcome to the middle Go ahead, Hi.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
Thank you. I was just wondering. I had heard something
on Science Friday from a physicist last week and she
was talking about all the possible ways that the universe
will and could die eventually, and I was just wondering
what Neil thoughts on were, what comes after that, or
(39:03):
if there's a multiverse or there's just nothing.
Speaker 8 (39:10):
Yeah, okay, so there are multiple ways the universe could
end based on the physics that we now understand. For me,
the most terrifying is if the dark energy continues unabated.
This is that mysterious pressure in the universe that's forcing
us to expand and accelerate in that expansion against the
(39:34):
wishes of gravity. That if that goes unchecked, the universe
will expand so severely that in twenty two billion years
it will expand faster we think. Then the fabric of
the universe can stretch, and we'd end up ripping the
fabric of the universe. It's called the Big Rip. I'd
(39:55):
lay awake at night wondering about that. If that does
not happen, will nonetheless expand forever as the temperature of
the universe descends to absolute zero. So the universe will
not end in fire, but in ice, and not with
a bang, but with a whimper. Now we may be
(40:18):
part of a multiverse, but that doesn't concern you because
you're in this universe. Yeah, so, because it could be
plenty of other universes two and just fine. But our universe,
all of our data point that it's on a one
way trip to oblivion.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
Let's go to Douglas, who's in New Orleans, Louisiana, Douglas,
Welcome to the middle.
Speaker 16 (40:37):
Go ahead, Thank you so much.
Speaker 18 (40:40):
I just had a question on your thoughts on light
pollution and it's impact on humans connection with the night sky.
Speaker 4 (40:45):
We get to see the eclipse.
Speaker 16 (40:46):
During the day, but there's so much lost at night
now and I want to see what your thoughts are
with that.
Speaker 8 (40:50):
Yeah, it's tragic. Thanks for that question. It's tragedy. Let
me not there. I don't want to cheapen the word
tragic by saying, oh, there's light in the night sky,
so that the world has tragedies. Let's save the word
tragedy for that. In this case, it was unfortunate that
there's entire generations of people who will grow up having
(41:12):
never experienced the majesty of a perfectly dark night sky.
And I don't know that it's getting worse, but it's
just simple that most people live near cities, and if
you live near a city, it's bad. But if you
live out in a farm, you can see the Milky
Way and other subtle elements of the night sky. So
(41:33):
you just have to make sure you take a trip
away from a city sometime and to appreciate what our
ancestors saw every single night of their lives that every
night that wasn't cloudy. So the reason why I don't
think the light pollution is getting worse is we've gotten
a little more clever about the orientation of lamps in
(41:56):
the streets. In the old days, the light would just
illuminated everything. If you flew over a town in an
airplane and saw a street light, that meant someone was
paying for electricity to generate light that went up into
the atmosphere and through the window of your airplane to
the your retin. That's a complete waste of money. So
(42:18):
we got clever about this, and so lamps now have
shades on top. When you do that, you don't need
as much vaultage much wattage. So there are ways we
get around this. So it's too bad. And we know
what's worse than the light pollution is satellite pollution. You
talk about Elon's Starlink satellites that you're looking at the Oh,
(42:40):
that's a beautiful star. No, that's a satellite moving through.
Initially it's kind of fun, or you can see a
satellite and then you realize, no, no, I want to
see the pristine night sky without our technology to contaminate it.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
Yeah, I have to say, the best night sky I've
ever seen in my life was on an island called
Vinyl Haven off the coast of Maine, which was so
dark that you could see so much. And I don't
want to overuse the word magical, but it was magical
and I wish I could see that more often. Where
where's the best night sky you've ever seen? Neil Degrest Tyson.
Speaker 8 (43:11):
On mountaintops, you know where we put observatories. Oh, by
the way, did you know the that Maine? If you
look on a map, Maine is just out there. I
mean because the east coast of the United States curves and
so Maine is like sticking out there. It's damn it's
(43:32):
halfway to London, you know, England or Greenland right in Iceland.
So yes, you get a night sky there. And there
are people duped into, if I may use that word,
duped into thinking that the southern skies are uniquely beautiful.
And so I have you ever been to Australian and saying, oh,
the sky you could just touch it? And I'm saying,
do you realize how many people don't live in Australia.
(43:52):
So so it's not that the sky is inherently better.
It's that there's no light pollution. And if the north
had as low light pollution as the South, you wouldn't
be uniquely complementing the southern hemisphere as the way. And
I'm delighted to learn that your best night sky was
off the coast of Maine.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
I mean it was a long time ago. Maybe the
lights of you know, Boston, weren't as bright back then.
Let me go to Let me go to Nancy, who's
in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Nancy, welcome to the middle.
Speaker 13 (44:22):
Go ahead, Hi, lovely talking to Neil Degrass. This is exciting,
but sure. I recently read about an SBR fast but
no fast radio burst FRB, and I have too many
people in my area that are like, oh, those are aliens,
And I'm like, well, it's just so far a radio wave.
But where are they coming, Trouvid, what are you? What
(44:44):
could you tell me? Educate me about what they really are?
These bursts?
Speaker 8 (44:49):
Yeah, So, anytime we find something mysterious in the universe
or that is something that didn't previously exist in our catalogs,
if your first explanation is it's aliens, then you're not
really doing science, all right, you have to say, well,
can I measure a little better, a little differently? What
does it resemble that I know? And what is different?
(45:11):
Can I isolate this? Can I bring a different telescope
to bear on this? So the very first radio pulses,
which became the prototype for what we call pulsars, people
thought they were aliens all right. In fact, there was
tongue in cheek in the first chart reading of it
of the pulsar? Did LGM someone or a little green man?
(45:34):
Because who could possibly be sending signals with such regularity
in a chaotic universe? And then we learned that they're
rapidly rotating objects very predictably, and circumstances in their environment
can promote the release of radio waves instead of visible light.
And we have radio telescopes and you see these pulses, okay,
(45:57):
and some are really fast, like a thousand times times
per second, And you're saying, well, only aliens could produce that. Okay, maybe,
but that's not my first thought. Maybe there's some physical
phenomenon I have yet to learn about that's causing this.
And even after I've run out of all such explanations,
(46:19):
I'm still not jumping on the alien but because look
at all the things we didn't previously understand that we
could have just explained away with aliens and walked onto
and and and and went on to other projects, but
we didn't. We kept probing it. So as tempting as
it is to say aliens did it, it's not my
first thought.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
So that brings me back to something we were talking
about a bit earlier. And you've used evidence as you've
talked through a lot of these questions that people have
had for you. You call in your book, Starry Messenger, for
us to focus more on evidence as we resolved political
disputes and do all kinds of things. Do you think
that will happen? Do you think that that will get
(47:01):
more evidence based, fact based in terms of how we
communicate with each other, especially in this country.
Speaker 8 (47:07):
If arguments were evidence based, there wouldn't be so many arguments.
So when two scientists have an argument, which we have arguments,
there's an implicit contract that we have signed. It's implicit.
It's either I'm right and you're wrong, or you're right
and I'm wrong, or we're both wrong. And if at
(47:28):
any point we still can't agree, the solution is always
we need more data or better data, we're different kinds
of data to resolve this, then we go out for
a beer. That kind of doesn't happen. And so talk
about the middle of One of the examples in the book,
in the chapter on conflict and resolution, there's a liberal
(47:51):
community that's like heaping upon the conservatives, accusing them of
being anti science and that they'll cite the climate change
denial and this sort of thing. But it's as though
the liberals want to take the science high road. But
then you look at, well, who is into you know,
feather energy and crystal healing and astrology and homeopathic medicine.
(48:14):
Those are deeply embedded in the liberal community as voters right,
and you can to embrace these ideas requires that you
are in denial of some are all the mainstream science
associated with it. So one side can lob complaints to
the other, claiming their high road, but if you look
(48:34):
at what's actually happening, they don't have the hiro. They
just don't. And so it's this kind of self reflection
that doesn't happen often enough because everybody thinks they're in
the right. And if you just sort of explore it.
If I give another quick example.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
Well, actually I want you to hold off on that
because we are running out of time for the broadcast
of this show. However, Tolliver has a support for our
callers that are still on the line in just a second,
and for anybody who's listening. But I do want to
thank our guest Neil de Grasse Tyson, who's director of
the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History.
His book is called Starry Messenger. He's got a podcast
(49:13):
and a TV show called Star Talk. Neil de grass Tyson,
it has been so wonderful having you on the Middle.
Speaker 8 (49:19):
Thank you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
And Oliver now has a surprise for our listeners, which
is this the surprise that Neil de grass Tyson is
not going anywhere just yet.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
So if you're still on the phone, stay right there.
He's going to stay with us for a little longer
to do a special podcast extra with us taking more
of your calls come.
Speaker 1 (49:34):
And so do that. And also if you're not subscribed
to the Middle of Jeremy Hobson podcast yet, you can
do that right now. The Middle is brought to you
by Longnook Media, distributed by Illinois Public Media and Urbana, Illinois,
and produced by Joanne Jennings, Harrison Patino, John Barth, and
Danny Alexander. Our technical director this week is Steve mork.
Our theme music was composed by Andrew Haig. Thanks also
(49:56):
to Nashville Public Radio, iHeartMedia, and the more than four
hundred and ten public radio stations that are making it
possible for people across the country to listen to the Middle.
I'm Jeremy Hobson. Talk to you in our podcast extra
and again next week.
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