Stars Talk to Neil - Alien Love

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Neil deGrasse Tyson
Coming up on Startalk Special Edition, it's gonna be celebrities. Ask Neil and I take questions from the likes of Kevin Hart, the musician Jack White. Oh, my gosh. And we explore whether gold is rare in the universe. What is the nature of love?

And are aliens real? Coming up on Startalk. Welcome to Startalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. Star talk begins right now. This is startalk.

Neil degrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. This is a special edition, which means we've got Gary O'Reilly. Hi, Neil. In the house. Yes, Chuck.

Chuck Nice
Nice. Hey, hey. Also in the house here at my office, the Hayden Planetarium of the American Museum of Natural History. Today we're going to do celebs. Ask Neil.

Gary O'Reilly
Do we want to call them stars? Stars. Oh, look at that. Star talk. Stars are talking, talking.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
They got questions. Talking to Neil. See, we don't know whether it's you talk to stars or stars talk to you. It depends how you feel. Who should go first?

No, these are stars. These are stars. So in my walks through life, if I bump into somebody famous or I befriend one. I try to get them, if they have a question about the universe and get their permission to put their question in the show. Yeah.

And I don't answer it at the time. So they gotta, like, now we have forced them to listen to the show. Yes, exactly. To get. To get.

Chuck Nice
Once you answer yes, this episode will air in approximately six weeks. All right, also, so what questions? Are we ready for these? I think we should be. Okay, so who's first up?

Gary O'Reilly
All right, so we have a Hollywood actor and stand up, who I should say, really, his star has risen to the heights. Very much so. It is Kevin Hart. Kevin Hart, yes. So you meant stand up comedian.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
You said I have a stand up. Yes. Stand up comedian. Yes. A stand up comedian.

I guess there aren't many stand up other. There's no stand up astrophysicists?

Chuck Nice
No. What do we think? What do we think? So long. No, but he has an interesting question about space.

Oh. Let's take a listen and let's get your reaction. Okay. Hey, Neil, Kevin Hart here. Uh, I have a metaphysical question for you.

Kevin Hart
I know you're probably saying to yourself, Kevin, ooh, I didn't know that you were in the metal, metaphysical stuff, but I am. Neil, if I were to go to space and I wore dress pants and I didn't iron them, is space capable of taking the wrinkles out or am I gonna be in space, wrinkled up? He might wanna look up metaphysical.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
Check out the definitions. Maybe he's picking the man apart. He's brought his curiosity to the table. He's brought his curiosity. And you, another comedian, and you don't like other comedians.

Chuck Nice
That's not true. Coming into space, I think that's what's happening. Let me tell you something I enjoy. Kevin, I think I'm just saying funny. I'm, you know, listen, I just think.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
That.

Chuck Nice
When you say you have a. Metaphysical question, are you talking about iron and pants? You might want to make it a metaphysical question. This is all I'm saying. Okay.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
All right. Kevin, my man. Kevin. So, um, have you noticed that you don't have to iron pants? You don't have to iron clothing to get rid of the wrinkles.

They have these steam irons, right, where you hang up the clothes in the closet and you go vertically up and down. So it's not a traditional iron. We have a flat iron on an ironing board. Right. Which is white, okay?

That's weight and heat and steam will flatten it out. But you can take out the wrinkles if you just glide up and down with a heat source that has steam within it, you can do that. Okay, so now watch. If I put your ass in space and I put you close enough to a star, the energy from the star will heat your body. You will sweat trying to stay cool.

That sweat will evaporate and steam your pants. What? There you go. With you in them. With you in them.

Gary O'Reilly
That just sounds like someone getting. When you're done, you'll be like salmon. Yeah, steamed salmon inside the foil. That's what you'll be. Remember back in the sixties, seventies, space roots would look that silver foil.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
Yeah, they all had silver. Right. Right. So now if you had those and that happened, you are going to get cooked. Yeah.

Chuck Nice
What gets me is I would think that someone of Kevin's stature would be able to afford dry cleaning in space, even in space. We now went to the point where he has a butler. Oh, he definitely has not a butler. But somebody looking after his stuff tends to that. So he's going to have a space butler.

That's kind of like, if he's going. To space, surely he'd have a space. Yeah, he would have. He would have a space butler. Yeah, I'm pretty sure he's got it like that.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
All right, so, Kevin, if you don't otherwise have space butler, a. No, there's a word for that. For that person who looks after your clothing. A valet. Valet.

If you don't have a space valet, boy, that's the subject of a sitcom by space valet. Space valet. Where do I park the spaceship? So if you don't happen to have a space valet, you can steam out the wrinkles of your clothing with your own body heat. There you go.

All right. I'm not sure he's gonna be satisfied. I'm gonna say the best metaphysical answer you could have given.

Gary O'Reilly
It could have been metal, physical. And then we could have gone with. Iron, by the way, for the same reason. If you're all sweaty inside your ironed clothes, right. And you go sit in a car and you're sweaty in the car, and you get out of the car, you have a fresh set of wrinkles that have been pressed by the heat and the steam of your body.

Chuck Nice
That's right. That's why you're wrinkled. But the wrinkle doesn't know. That wasn't on purpose. It says, oh, I feel pressure and I feel heat and I feel moisture.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
I'm going to make a crease. Is that the creases are all misaligned. We don't have air conditioned seats in space yet? No. Well, yeah, I don't think you would need them, to be honest.

Chuck Nice
Yeah, you just open the window. Roll down the window. Even better. Roll down the window. Well, if you're not facing a star, it's very, very cold.

Right? Yeah. Facing a star, it can be very, very hot. Anyway, that's the answer, Kevin, for you. There you go.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
All right. All right. Next up, you got more? Oh, yes. Okay, there's more.

Gary O'Reilly
All right. Musician and singer songwriter Tommy James from Tommy James and the Shondells. Tommy James? Yeah. Oh, my gosh.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
I met him throwback at SiriusXM headquarters here in New York. I'm there and he said, hi, I'm Tommy James. And it was like a religious moment, like. And the Shondells? No, no, just Tommy James.

I don't know where he left the Chandelz exactly, but he had so many hits in that period of time. Like, was it the late sixties, early mid sixties, early seventies. And. And you would recognize the tunes if you heard them. Remember Tommy James, he's got a question.

Gary O'Reilly
About, of all things, coffee. Coffee. Yep. Let's take a listen and we'll get your reaction on the other side. Coffee.

Kevin Hart
My question to you is very simple. If I drink 08:00 coffee at 09:00 can I create a singularity? Okay. Okay. So that's a metaphysical question.

Chuck Nice
Once again, we didn't pre advertise it. As a metaphysical question. Okay. The way I would answer that is if you drink 08:00 coffee at 09:00 right. The coffee thinks you're in a different time zone.

Right. The coffee's fine with its eight o'clockness. That's right. It's 08:00 somewhere in the world. Yeah.

And that's what I was gonna say. Cause it's 08:00 somewhere at all times. It's 08:00 somewhere in the world. You know how you know that? Cause the world has 24 time zones.

Right? Right. Actually, there's more than some time zones go 30 minutes. Right. That's.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
These are crazy people who do that. Okay, maybe not crazy. We won't call them that. Okay. These are people who wanna be different.

Chuck Nice
Right? More than that. Yeah. Cause we shouldn't even have mountain time, to be honest. Let's be honest.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
Cut them some slack. We really should. I know. Like, how many people live in mountain time? People?

Chuck Nice
Like eight. So I think. I think the coffee is not thinking about you. It's only thinking about itself. How selfish.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
And then you resonate into the time zone where it is 08:00 in the morning at that moment. Yeah. I didn't know coffee had times affixed to it. I've never heard. Not all brands.

Chuck Nice
08:00 coffee. Yeah. Yeah. No, that was a brand. Oh, that was a brand coffee.

08:00 oh, I get it. Yeah. I think you're right. I'm seeing it came in a red bag or something else. Yeah.

Or am I thinking chock full of nuts? Chock full of nuts. That was the red. Plus, if you're any actual working person, right. If you ain't awake by eight, you ain't getting.

Forget it, forget it. You don't deserve coffee. Coffee is for closers, not for people who sleep past 08:00. Right, exactly. Or for people who had to wake up at six.

That's right. And get to the job early. That's right. Yeah. Yeah.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
So it should be 06:00 coffee. Yeah. I don't know anybody who has to be to work that gets up at. 08:00 and they say, oh, now I gotta be awake at 830 for my cup of coffee. So that's my answer.

But some of his songs, see, he's. A musician, so 08:00 a.m. That's like really, really early in the morning. Musicians, they wake up at noon. That's 05:30 a.m.

Chuck Nice
To everybody else. 08:00 a.m. Will be 04:00 as far as he's concerned. All right. He's getting up super early.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
Tommy James and the Shondells, he sang Crimson and Clover. Crimson and clover. Do you remember that? Not by him, but yeah. I had no idea.

People covered his songs. A lot of people covered his songs. No, no, but it was good stuff, man. That's good. There's another one, I think I'm alone now.

Chuck Nice
And that's another. Who knew that? Tiffany. No, no, Tommy James had that before Tiffany. I know, but that was the COVID.

So she's covering him. She's covering him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go check out his, his playlist. You'll recognize every one of the songs.

All right. Yeah, totally. Okay.

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Kevin Hart
Because, hey, listen, remember how you told me to toss those takeout containers before we left for vacation? And you were like, I'm serious. If that leaks over the counter, it'll be a slimy abomination by the time I get back. And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. Don't worry about it.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
I won't forget. Well, oh, yeah, that happens. So start clean with Clorox. Use Clorox products as directed. Rinse after use if in contact with food service.

Kevin Hart
I'm Kais from Bangladesh and I support Startalk on Patreon. This is startalk with Neil degrasse Tyson.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
All right, who's next? What else we got? Glad for that throwback. So next question. We have a stand up comedian, comedienne, because you got fussy the last time, so I'm throwing comedienne in.

Gary O'Reilly
And also an actress, Nikki Glaser. She has. Okay, so it's a two part question, so bring your patience. Here it comes. Take a listen and we'll get.

Your reaction on the other side is 100%. It's 100% that there's alien life out there no matter what. Right? Like, it's been proven, right? Because I got an argument with someone recently, Bill Maher told me that that's ridiculous.

Clorox
I said, no, it's been proven. It's 100% true that there must be alien life somewhere. Is that true or not? And also, is love real?

Neil deGrasse Tyson
How am I gonna put. How am I gonna answer those two questions at the same time? Easy. We're gonna do this separately. Easy.

Chuck Nice
If you think love is real, that's the reason why you think it's 100% sure that there are aliens. Oh, the hundred percent. Oh, you get the same answer. Okay. Exactly.

Because. Yeah. All right. If you say yes to both of those, it says what kind of person you are. It says what kind of person you are.

Like, there's 100%. We're definitely sure that there's aliens and love is real. Well, I got news for you. There's not 100% sure that there are. Aliens, even though it's very likely.

And love is a chemical reaction that your brain has so that we can further our DNA into the future. So it's all B's. Okay. No such thing as love. Except she didn't ask you.

Exactly. Right. So let's get to that. Is your answer any different?

Neil deGrasse Tyson
It just sounds a little more academic. Yes, exactly. Not at all. We'll put an academic spin on it, all right. Instead of a cynical one.

So when you look at the ingredients of life on Earth. Yeah, the chemical ingredients. Right. Wait, what's the number one molecule in your body? Carbon.

That's an atom. I said molecule, dude. That's another element. Molecule is more than one element put together. I'm trying to think which element is put.

Chuck Nice
Oh, okay. So that be water. Water. Thank you. We're more than half water.

Yeah, I was thinking it.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
So. And water is more than half. What? It's more half oxygen. H two.

H two. One o. Sorry. Thinking of backwards? Yes.

I'm going to take away the degree we gave you for honorary. Okay. H, two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen. So we are mostly. Water.

Is mostly hydrogen. Right. The number one atom in our body is hydrogen. I said that. And you said me.

No, I asked for the number one molecule, and then we unpack the molecule, and we get hydrogen. The number two atom in our body is oxygen. Right. The number three is carbon. Number four, nitrogen.

Number five, my favorite element of them all. Other. Okay, so how much are people full of shit? Is that quantifiable, or is it different? Although people have other elements in them?

Chuck Nice
Yeah. No, no, no, no. Oh, here's one I saw on a comic. So there's a periodic table of elements, and one of the boxes, it just. Has a picture of a mouth agape.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
And that's the element of surprise.

So if you look at that ranking of elements. So hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen. Other. Right. Okay.

Now let's look at the universe. The number one atom in the universe is hydrogen. Hydrogen. Number two is helium, but that's chemically inert. Nothing you could do with it anyway.

Next in the universe. Oxygen. Next. Carbon. Next.

Nitrogen. Next to the other class. Other. Okay. Other.

We are one for one, the same ingredients in order, in rank order in the universe. Right. So when Earth made life four and a half billion years ago, when Earth made life 4 billion years ago, it was being highly opportunistic. It made life out of the base ingredients given to it by the formation of the universe and stars itself. So unless you want to say that what happened on earth with the most common ingredients in the universe was rare, at some point you're going to have to say, oh, my gosh, this probably played out many places in the galaxy and in the universe itself, it is highly likely, as Chuck alluded to with fewer words, that there's life elsewhere in the universe.

Highly likely, but we do not yet have evidence of it. So what you're saying is, even though. It'S highly likely, let's be honest. If you walk into a supermarket, there is every kind of cake in that supermarket, but it has not yet been made. So you got eggs, you got milk, you got flour, you got vanilla, you got everything.

That was deep. Right? So just because all the ingredients are in the supermarket doesn't mean that there's a cake in the supermarket. Well, there is in the bakery section. Well, so using that theme, I don't.

Chuck Nice
Go to such a fancy market. Okay, so the universe isn't going to the fridge late on a Saturday night and finding it bare. It has everything it needs to make. In every nook and cranny of the universe itself. Okay?

Neil deGrasse Tyson
And because hydrogen and oxygen are the two most abundant chemicals in the list that are chemically active, water, you don't expect that to be rare. Right? Exactly. H two o. Would there be an ability to create other life forms, but by changing the magnitude of what was in place?

Possibly. It's different for different life on earth, but we're still carbon based. Carbon based. All right. Some people say maybe there could be silicon based life.

Silicon sits right below carbon on the periodic table, and all elements in a column form similar families of molecules. So you can have CO2. There's silicon sitting right below, there's sio. Two, and there is going to be silicon based life form. As a matter of fact, we're on the precipice of it right now.

Well, we call that the silicon chips. Exactly. That's not what they mean. I know it's. But I'm just saying, we're creating.

We are creating. We're creating it and it's going to replace us. It's going to be our overlord. Then you look at the synthetic biological intelligence that's coming through with research right now, which will then sit maybe alongside the silicon intelligence. Yeah, I mean, let's hope that never happens.

Chuck Nice
Please, God, no. Can I scare him any more now? So now people say, well, we've been looking and we haven't found it, so maybe there isn't any. Well, how much do you think we've looked so far? Exactly.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
All right, and so here's an analogy we get from my friends up at SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence organization up in northern California. Their array of dishes that they listen. To the whole universe. They have telescope dishes tuned in for anybody who's gonna talk to us, all right? As if they're gonna wanna talk to us at all.

What a big assumption that is. They care about us. They were right. Like, one day we're gonna hear a message just like, hello. What?

Chuck Nice
You know, I don't think it's on, does it? I don't think it's working. Harold. So waste. Harold.

Harold.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
It was the first alien. That's the first alien contact.

So they gave an analogy. You go to the ocean shore and you take a cup of water. You take an empty cup and you scoop up some ocean water and look at it, and you conclude the ocean has no whales. Wow, that's a great analogy, man. That's like us in the amount of the space we've looked, the number of frequencies we looked over time that we've looked is identical.

You can actually calculate that these probabilities are similar. To do that and say the ocean has no whales, using this cup as evidence that it doesn't. So we have no place to stand to declare that there's no life in the universe, given how little of it we have searched. All right, so that's the answer to the first part. But is there love?

Gary O'Reilly
And what's it got to do with anything? It matters to her, apparently so. Okay, matters to Nikki. But so is there love? Here's how I will answer that.

Chuck Nice
With cards and chocolate.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
One doesn't have to decide whether or not love exists. If you can measure things that happen on the assumption that it does. Oh, I see. See, I see. So you make the measurements of it, right?

Okay. Okay. I'm near a cave, and there's just snow, and I see bear footprints out front. I don't see a bear, so I don't think it exists. They're footprints.

You walk a little further, there's poop.

There's berry poop. Cause bears like berry. You have the carcass of a small child. Stop. So.

You'Re allowed in science to make measurements of phenomena that betray the existence of a thing that you hypothesize could be there. Right. And I will say that there's enough evidence of the existence of love in the conduct of our species that we should proceed with no denial of how real it is. You, sir, are an eloquent romantic indeed. I still say it's chemical reaction, but.

That does not diminish. That's true. The feeling, the reality, and the consequences of love in this world. That's true. Absolutely.

So, Nikki. Yes, there's love. And you're right about the aliens, too, Nikki. So. So.

Chuck Nice
Oh. Cause she heard that it wasn't, and she got challenged on Bill Maher. Right, right. She's saying that. Yeah, it's definitely.

Yeah. And, Nikki, Bill Maher should not be your source of cosmic enlightenment. Okay, maybe why? She asked the question. Okay.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
No, that's why she came. Okay, so Nikki's got Netflix specials. She's got potty mouth, though. Warning. She's got potty mouth.

Chuck Nice
Talks a lot about body parts in her comedy. All manner of body parts, body orifices. But she does it in a funny way, so I have no problem. Yeah, yeah. So check her out when you can.

Gary O'Reilly
So if we are looking at love existing, does that then roll itself out into other species? Do they experience love the way we experience love? And if we take it off world and there are other life forms, are they likely to experience love? So we went through many decades, even possibly centuries, declaring without evidence that we're the only ones with a consciousness about our existence, and we're the only ones that have feelings to distance ourselves from the rest of the animal kingdom. And the more we study animals, the more we learn.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
I'll just give an example. There's a video. You can find it, of a tortoise. Now, whenever you see a tortoise, it's not doing anything right. Sticking its head out and then back in.

Or it's eating lettuce. There's a tortoise with security cam footage, but no one else is around. And it's playing with a ball. There's a ball, and it goes up to it, and it rolls it, and it sees where it goes, and it goes back and rolls it again.

This is beautiful. Right? Okay, there's other footage of pigs having fun. Right? What will pigs do when you're not fattening them for slaughter?

If you look at other animals, when you're not chasing them and they don't know anybody's looking, many of them are just having fun. If they have the capacity to have fun, should they not have the capacity to love, to have other feelings that bring joy to them? I will not declare that they do not have love. Interesting. I'm not going to be that guy.

Chuck Nice
Yeah. All right, I'm going to get a little weird on you here. Okay? Can we stop you? Yeah, you can?

Gary O'Reilly
All right. Okay. I spent some time in Texas, and I had a roach infested apartment. That sounds like Texas. Okay.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
So I wanted to, like, study the roaches so that I can know my enemy. So I trapped some, and instead of killing them, I kept them in jars and I observed their behavior. And after three days, they had set up a pickleball court, and they were playing pickleball. So I set it up, and I'm observing them. And so, first of all, they're very clean in the sense that they're always cleaning their legs and their antennas.

They bring their antenna down and they clean it, and they're doing this at all times. You don't know that. Cause you're chasing them, ready to squash them. They don't have time to clean their antenna while you're chasing them, as they're escaping death. But when they're not otherwise escaping death, that's what they're doing.

And I see two roaches come up to each other after they clean their antennas. And their antennas just kind of touch like that. And what am I going to say? Oh, they're touching their antennas, but they don't actually feel emotion. That's like the porpoise is swimming in the ocean.

No, in the water park. One turning to the other, commenting on the humans who are up there and say, well, they face each other and make noise, but there's no evidence yet that they're actually communicating with each other. Okay. That's me thinking that roaches don't have this kind of understanding about themselves. Maybe the touching of the antenna was love.

Roach love. Next time, I'm gonna suggest that you call Orkin. But I can tell you if it's not roach love. What you do know is that they're making babies, right? That's true.

Roaches know how to make babies. Right. All right, all right. So I'm not gonna say other animals don't feel alive. All right.

Chuck Nice
I'm not gonna go. Okay.

Clorox
Start clean with Clorox. Because Clorox delivers a powerful clean every time. Because messes happen. Because. Hey, listen, remember how you told me to toss those takeout containers before we left for vacation?

Kevin Hart
And you were like, I'm serious. If that leaks over the counter, it'll be a slimy abomination by the time I get back. And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. Don't worry about it. I won't forget.

Clorox
Well, oh, yeah, that happens. So start clean with Clorox. Use Clorox products as directed. Rinse after use if in contact with food service. Life is a highway, and on it there will be many chicken sandwiches.

McDonald's
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Gary O'Reilly
Next question. You got another one? Let's do it. All right. We're all loved out this time.

Pop icon Jack White. And I think, if I'm not mistaken, he's got a question about rare earth minerals and their existence throughout the universe. Okay, this is Jack White, the guitarist, singer, performer, white stripes. Jack White, the man that appears in every stage around the world. If there's a sporting event, even though he's not there, always his music that gets played.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
Jack White. Yep. Okay. Let me tell you why I met him. Okay?

He's a fan of the universe. He was a fan of Carl Sagan's. Wow. I met him at a meeting of the board of the planetary society when I served on the board. And he came.

Cause he's just interested. He might even been a donor. I don't remember. Planetary society was founded by Carl Sagan and two of his colleagues to try to up the awareness of people's caring and sensitivity to the plight of Earth as a planet. Okay, great idea.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so right now, our friend Bill Nye is CEO of the planetary. Planetary society. So I'm there, and I meet him for the first time, and we pose for some photos. And so just recently, I gave one of my public talks in Nashville, Tennessee, where he lives.

Chuck Nice
What a surprise. Sent me. He dropped me a line saying, yeah, I hear you're in town. I'm gonna come see. Can you.

That's kind of cool. Okay, can you get me some tickets? Oh, wait a minute. He didn't pay for his ticket. I was gonna say, pay for your own damn ticket.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
He melted. Got enough money to pay for your own ticket? Jack White calling me up the mooch. Tickets off of me. Hey, Neil, it's me, Jack White.

Chuck Nice
You know, famous guitarist from the white stripes. Was wondering, can I get a free ticket to your show?

Come on now. No love for Jack? No, I mean, come on. So anyway, yes, I forwarded to. I got him some free tickets.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
I gave him some tickets, gave him a ticket, and then he invited me back to his place, and so I hung out with him about a half hour. All right. Okay. He showed me. He collects a lot of memorabilia.

It was fun. You know what just happened to be on tv in that moment? What's that? 2001 A Space Odyssey. Oh, look at that.

Just happened to be on tv. No, it wasn't. He had that set up. He had it on DVR. He had it on DVR.

Chuck Nice
And you walked in, he hit the play button, he was like, wow, what a coincidence. You're here in 2001, the space Odyssey is on. Oh, what are the chances? Okay, maybe that was also. I don't know, maybe I'm with you.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
But I pointed out some scenes where they got the physics wrong in 2001. But anyhow, at the end, I said, let me get a question from my man here, Jack White. All right, so let's see what he asked me. Doctor Tyson, I have a question, actually. Rare in the universe.

Kevin Hart
And part two, is it rare on the planet we live on? Mm. You notice how that question can be played in any civilization across the galaxy? Yes, it can. Because he didn't mention Earth.

Chuck Nice
He didn't mention Earth and the planet we live on. The planet we live on. I can replay that when we're Mars colony. So it's possible for something to be rare but common. Explain.

Aha. Okay, let me give some simple examples.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
In your life, birth is rare, but in the world, birth is common. Understand that now. Okay, okay. It's a big event if you're birthing out a baby. It's even bigger event if I'm birthing out a baby.

Chuck Nice
Just say biologically. So death is rare in your life. How many? Unless you work in a hospital or serve in the military, how many dead bodies have you actually ever seen in your life at, you know, most of few. At most, yeah.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
Yet it happens all the time. So something can be rare but common. So gold is rare because most things are not gold. But gold is everywhere. Okay?

Chuck Nice
Even in them. They're hills. Especially in them there hills. That was classic frontier gibberish. That was great.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
Especially in them there hills. So it's just, if it's everywhere but not all concentrated, then it's a challenge to gather it. All right. And so if I met a gold mine. No, a gold prospector once.

My wife is from Alaska, and there's a guy who spent his life doing this. A lot of people in Alaska do that. Yeah, exactly. And so he had a gold nugget. Does ingot have a special definition?

An ingot is probably above us. I don't know. Yeah, but no, isn't it? An ingot has been melted down into his bar. Okay, fine.

Chuck Nice
Okay. So he is the bar. He had a gold. Natural gold. That's a nugget.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
Nugget, yeah. And like the Denver nuggets. A nugget. He had a gold nugget on his wife's neck. And I said, what's the biggest chunk of gold you ever found?

He said, it's around my wife's neck. Wow. And it wasn't more than a centimeter across. And he does this his whole life. So you're not finding much gold where you're looking, but you can find some, and it's a big effort.

Okay. However, by the way, do you know that gold is very heavy? Yes. Okay. A cubic foot of gold weighs 1800 pounds.

Chuck Nice
Yeah. That's why they sell it by the ounce.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
Gold is one of the densest metals on the periodic table. Right. There's like two things. Denser than. It's not reactive.

Chuck Nice
Right. Osmium is the densest element. What'd you say? Osmium. Osmium.

Gary O'Reilly
So if gold is so dense, why wouldn't you get a higher carat of gold? Is it softer? Oh, density and softness got nothing to do with it. Thank you. In the same way.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
In the same way you can have something that's hard yet fragile, like stemware for wine or the shell of an egg. Or crystal. Crystal. It's hard yet fragile. Okay.

So that's why you can be dense yet soft.

All right. Good question, though. Thank you. I like that. Gold is very malleable.

So nature. Nature has done something very cool. Ready? When we form planets in orbit around stars, initially, it's very hot and the whole planet is molten. If you are molten.

That means heavy things can go to the bottom and light things go to the top. We did a whole explainer on this, didn't we? Yes. Okay. One of my favorites.

Okay, so while you are in your molten state, all the heavy stuff goes to the bottom, the light stuff floats to the top. What would that be? All the metals, the heavy metals. So iron, nickel, cobalt, metallica, death metal. Death metallica, pantera, totally guaranteed you're gonna.

Find Metallica in the center. At what level is thrash metal? We're going to get into the weeds. Heavy metals, all the bands are all there. So they go to the middle, and the light stuff floats like rocks.

Okay. Rocks are light in comparison compared with metals. Okay. If you have a chunk of metal and a rock and you drop them in the water, the metal is going to fall faster than the. Because it's going to cut through the water faster.

All right? So. Oh. But in the air, they fall the same rate. Right.

That's a galileo thing. All right, so what happens to these objects? They cool and they become solid. Then in the early solar system, which was an especially badass shooting gallery, other planetesimals can slam into you and shatter you to smithereens after you have formed, after you've been pre sifted. What that means is the asteroids you become are now pre sifted for the ingredients.

Chuck Nice
That's right. Some of them will be rocky, others will be metallic. Right. We have metallic asteroids in the solar system. If you go lasso one of those and bring it to Earth, it will have, depending on the size, of course, but there are asteroids out there with more gold in them than have ever been mined in the history of the earth.

Gary O'Reilly
Was it a movie or a tv series that they had a mining ship out in space? Oh, that's. Isn't that. That's called the expanse. The expanse.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
The expanse. They're mining the asteroids. Mining the asteroids for their natural ingredients. Because you don't have. It's pre sifted.

The geologists have a word for this called differentiation. That's what they call it. But it's just. I call it pre sifted supermarket. But all the isles.

Yes, but, yeah. If you're picking aisle one and aisle two among the asteroids, there you have it. So you can find places where gold is especially concentrated, because nature already did it for you, because gold is heavy. There you go. Right.

And it's why Earth's core. We have an iron core. Oh, whoa. By the way, there's way more iron than gold. Oh, God.

Chuck Nice
Yes. There's not much gold in the universe. Start there. Okay. Send the price of gold up.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
Oh, so if you bring that asteroid to Earth, which has all that gold, then what happens to the price of gold? Oh, it plummets. Unless you're smart enough to leave it parked a little further out and bring it in a bit at a time. Just a little bit at a time. Keep that price going.

So, yes, so gold is plentiful but highly scattered. Unless you're going to find the pre sifted stuff in asteroids. Oh, by the way, there's more gold in the ocean than have ever been mined on Earth. That makes sense. Okay.

Chuck Nice
Most of the ocean. So the earth is ocean or surface, right? Right. So if you. If you can set up a gold sifting device and you just maybe as the tides come through, you have a passive filtering device, you can slowly accumulate the gold that's in the ocean.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
The ocean doesn't need the gold. Yeah, we can make much better use of it than the ocean can, man. I'm sure there's a goldfish joke in there somewhere. Oh. But I'm not gonna do it.

Oh, goldfish joke. That's clever. I'm not gonna do it. Okay. All right.

Gary O'Reilly
You are, aren't you? No, I'm not. So he's gonna sit there squirming until he says that. Yeah. So the answer is, it's rare but common.

Chuck Nice
Rare but common. There you go. All right, here you go, Jack. And who knew a musician would live in Music City? Nashville.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
Oh, yeah, that's where he lives. All right, next one up. Coming out of the entertainment business, but staying in entertainment with the sportiverse, Cam Johnson from the Brooklyn Nets NBA team. Cam Johnson visited me in my office. Oh, wow.

Cam Johnson came to my office. He's a rising star in the NBA. You just come in and say hi? Yeah, just. I got.

You know. Why you surprised? Because I don't think he's coming by for basketball tips. Neil, I was hoping you could coach me on how to box out and have some. It could be some physics lessons.

Chuck Nice
Having some trouble with my crossover, man. I was hoping there could be some physics. I had Kareem Abdul Jabbar in that chair. We talked about the physics of the skyhook, the legends. That's right.

That's right. Okay, so Cam Johnson, all right, you look at him from a distance, he looks like a regular guy. And then he walks up next to you. He's like six, seven or something. You know, it's just they're tall, these folk.

What a surprise. So I'm trying to remember, why did he come by my office? You have magnetism. So I think it was like a day off for them. And they've got people who handle them and they find out what their interests are.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
And he loves science. When he was in college. That's great. Especially like his astronomy class. So he wanted to come and just.

Chuck Nice
Get a little fusion. Okay, let's see what his curiosity was. Let's see where it took him. Yeah, let's see where it goes. What's up, Neil?

Kevin Hart
This is Cam Johnson. Question for you. Can we feel the change in spin speed of the earth at the equator versus at the poles? Obviously at the equator, the earth is going to be spinning a lot faster, and at the poles, it's going to be spinning a lot slower. And obviously this has a lot of.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
Effect on the planet as a whole. But can we, as humans, kind of feel that change? Interesting question. Clearly he knows that the Earth spins faster at the equator. Yeah.

So at the equator, you are moving 1000 miles an hour. Cool. West to east. Thousand miles an hour. As you go north or south of the equator.

The surface of the Earth is not moving as fast, is moving as a solid object. Of course. Course. But your circumference is not as big if you are farther away from the equator than the equator is. But you still make one turn in a day, so you're clearly moving slower.

All right, so if we paved over Earth, okay, and I never thought of this example before. This is the first time I'm thinking of this. You pave over Earth, start you at the equator, and we say, run due north and don't stop. Okay? And you start running due north, but then they no longer tell you which way north is.

You just start headed to the Santa Claus. Okay. You start running and you're always going in a straight line. You will think you're going in a straight line, but you're not. Step back and we see your path.

Your path would have curved east and you'll never hit the North Pole. The point where you took your last step has higher sideways motion than the point where you just landed. So it is carrying you east without you even knowing it, even though you think you're running in a straight line. And another way to do this, if anyone still has them. Remember the record players, okay?

Take a little marble, start it at the end of the record player, and then roll it inwards. You will have to ruin that record. It will overtake the spindle and come in ahead of it. So that's kind of the only way you would know it. By the way, clouds know all about this.

All right? That's why they circulate into storms. Clouds coming up from the south, they overtake their destination. Clouds coming down from the north fall behind. As you do this, that creates a circulation.

So all storms in the northern hemisphere rotate counterclockwise. There you go. So weather feels it. That's what creates our storms. You would feel it if Earth were paved over and you ran, but otherwise, no, no one has any clue.

Chuck Nice
Right. And I asked you this question before. Is there a point on earth right at the axis where it actually doesn't rotate? Well, the very top spot. It's all rotating.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
Everything is rotating. Is there, like, one molecule, one atom. Right at the top? Yeah. No, because then everything would be turning around.

Gary O'Reilly
No, just why I'm asking, because it seems like there would be. Okay, here it is. Here it is. Mathematically, yes. There's a point that would not be rotating.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
Fine. But physical matter is not mathematical. There's always gonna be a molecule there that's gonna be dancing in a circle. And the worst case is you have the one molecule that's just pirouetting how elegant. The lone ballerina molecule.

Chuck Nice
Yeah. Oh, the ballerina molecule. Yes. Oh, we've got a hallmark trademark there. So thanks for those questions.

Gary O'Reilly
Don't thank me. Thank the stars. No, no. Yeah. Yeah.

Stars and their curiosity. It was fun. Yeah, we're good. We can do this again. Do we have other questions?

Well, it depends how buddy you are. With the famous folk. Yes. All right. And tell Cam to get some more Brooklyn nets up here.

I have the ceiling busted out, but, yeah, we'll work with it. In fact, there's something that went semi viral where we picked the was the top ten draft picks in the universe. Okay, so it's a thing they do, apparently. So I said, what's your first pick? And I'll take the Milky Way galaxy.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
And I. That was my first pick. I'll take the formation of the moon 4 billion years ago. So we go down and we create our top, our dream team of the cosmos. All the cosmos.

Chuck Nice
That's pretty cool. That's online. You can check it out. All right. With Cam Johnson.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
So, just to take us out, if I reflect on what has just happened, we have people who made a name for themselves doing things that have nothing to do with science. Yet deep within, they retained a kind of curious, dare I say, geek underbelly, something that historically was never valued, especially not by the bullies. Oh, yeah. You're carrying a calculator you did well in your math class, never boded well for the geeks. But for those who are brave enough to come forth in whatever is their profession and say, I retain geek curiosity, and I'm gonna take it to Neil degrasse Tyson.

I respect you and honor you first for your bravery and for retaining doses of curiosity well into adulthood. Keep it going. This has been startalk special edition. Neil degrasse Tyson, as always, bidding. You keep looking up.

McDonald's
Life is a highway, and on it there will be many chicken sandwiches. But there's only one McCrispy. So go ahead and hit this turn signal if you know about this juicy gem of a detour.

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At Capella University. You'll get support from people who care about your success from before you enroll to after you graduate. Pursue your goals, knowing help is available when you need it. Imagine your future differently at cappella.edu.

Stars Talk to Neil - Alien Love

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Episode Chapters

1: Introduction

2: Gold and the Universe

3: Love and Aliens

4: Humor in Space

5: Wrapping Up

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