Welcome to this curated educational transcript of the Joe Rogan Experience. In this session, we provide a deep-dive examination of the critical perspectives and historical dialogues presented in Episode #919. Our mission is to offer a high-fidelity, searchable research resource for students of cultural history, emerging technology, and global discourse. This transcript has been specifically optimized for academic reference, linguistic study, and archival preservation regarding Cosmic Perspectives, Astrophysics, and Scientific Communication. Four, three, two, and boom. That's a nice hat.
I've told you already, but live, I've got to
tell you, that is a nice hat. It's very kind
of Indiana Jones. It's not quite that and not
quite cowboy. Yeah, you're like in the middle
of that. You're riding the wave. You're dancing
on the edge. Look, I have a really fat head,
and so there's this website called bigheads .com.
There's a website for it? Yes, a total website
for fat -headed people. I got to get my friend
Bert Kreischer a hat then. I put his hat on.
I couldn't believe how big his head was. There
was like an inch gap all around my head. I thought
I had a big head. Yeah, so if you know your head
size, do you know your head size? No, I do not.
So it turns out if you know your head size, that
number comes from somewhere. Can I tell you what
it is? Sure. So if you measure the circumference
of your head, just get a tape measure, like you're
measuring your waistline, but do it around your
head. And take that number, divide it by pi,
then that's your hat size. Whoa. Yeah. Seems
complicated. Divide by two? Why can't it be just
like your waist, 32? You know, your waist is
what your waist is. I know, it just is what it
is, right? Why can't it just be the circumference,
right? So what it turns out to be, so what that
means is if you're dividing by pi, you're getting
the diameter of the circle that has the same.
as the circumference of your head. So if you
have an oblong head, then what it's doing is
finding out what the circle is, the diameter
of the circle that has that same circumference
as your head. Oh, okay. And that's what that's
doing, for whether that helps the hat maker.
So immediately I started thinking about Dan Aykroyd
on Saturday Night Live as a cone head. Right?
Remember? Well, then you need a tall hat for
that, too. Yeah, there's an issue there. So,
dude, you're still doing stand -up? That's great.
Constantly. I'm loving it. And I caught you a
few months ago. You were emceeing some MMA, was
it? Well, I'm always doing that, yeah. Oh, you're
always doing that. I'll catch some of it then.
I think it's great you stayed in shape because
I'm a... fat slob right now. Well, you were ripped
back in the day, man. I saw a picture of you
when you were wrestling, and I was like, damn,
Neil, you look good. I had some street cred back
then. Do you exercise at all now? It's not that
I don't have the energy to. It's trying to find
the time. There's you back in the day. Look at
you, shredded. How much did you weigh back then?
Let me guess. Oh, go on. 176. No, no, no. I'm
6 '2", so I'm 190 pounds in that. Oh, you look
great. I have big thighs and stuff. Other wrestlers
would have skinnier thighs and things. So I was
also taller than anyone I wrestled. So since
we're the same height, it meant they had bigger
muscles, actually. Because we're the same weight,
right? Did I say that right? I'm taller, but
we're the same weight. So that means they have
bigger muscles. Right. Because none of us have
fat, right? So I had to do things that my lankiness
would enable me to do and to accomplish that
they couldn't. So I have long reach, you know,
this sort of thing. I scoop an ankle, that kind
of thing. There's great advantages to having
long limbs in martial arts, particularly in wrestling,
grappling, because of leverage. Yeah, also if
you're quick and with long limbs. And I was both.
But if they got me in their grip, it was hard
for me to get out. So what kind of exercise do
you do these days? No, that's not, no. Nothing?
No, I'm trying. You know, I guess. Yeah, I'm
trying. When I'm in, I'm good. But I've just
got so much going on. Yeah. I have to, like,
make the time. That's a problem, right, when
you become a little bit too successful for your
own good? I saw some food. There's a lot of food
documentaries trying to get you to eat differently.
So I thought I'd watch them all. I binged on
them one weekend while I was doing other stuff.
Got hungry? No, one of the guys, he was trying
to lose 100 pounds or something. So every 15
pounds he lost, he put a bowling ball up on the
counter. And said, that is what I'm not carrying
around with me. Whoa. Because a bowling ball
is about 15 pounds. And I said, wow, he's measuring
a weight in bowling balls. That's something.
Because we say, oh, I'm three pounds less and
two pounds. That doesn't hit you emotionally
the way a bowling ball does. Yeah. After you've
lost 15 pounds. Because no one wants to be carrying
that around. So psychologically, I thought that
was quite potent. That is potent. I think we
do need some. I usually use like plates. I think
of weight plates or dumbbells. Okay, yeah, that
works too. Yeah, yeah. I started doing intermittent
fasting. pretty recently, where I only allow
myself to eat 10 hours in a day. Oh, wow. That's
it. 10 hours out of the 24 -hour day. Yes, so
14. I had Terry Crews on my radio show on StarTalk.
That boy, my boy's ripped, okay? Yeah, he looks
great. He's still, and he's like 47 or something.
I mean, he's, so he doesn't eat until 12 noon.
Oh, same sort of deal. And he doesn't eat until
after 10 o 'clock. That's right. Yeah, 10 hours.
And then he doesn't eat after 10. Yeah. It's
a 10 -hour thing. And so he's watching everyone
else have brunch and breakfast. And so he's got
to overcome that. So it's a little bit of fasting
each day. Intermittent fasting. Just to keep
the discipline. At the end of the day, it's really
just discipline. Well, it's not just that. It
also forces your body to burn fat instead of
carbohydrates. And when it forces your body to
burn fat, that state of ketosis is actually easier
to maintain because you don't get hungry. Yeah,
then there's no roller coaster. Yeah, the crash,
the carbohydrate crash that you get. Right, right.
Is that outside of the realm of possibility for
you? No, I can totally. I'm a ketosis guy. Anything
involving science? Come on. It's in there, baby.
It's in there. I once got raked over the coals,
not by everyone, but I tweeted once. I said,
if there was a diet book written by a physicist,
it would contain one sentence. Consume calories
at a lesser rate than you burn them. That is
sort of true. That's the one -sentence diet book.
No, it's more complicated than that. And everybody
just try to get all, no, it's this, it's that,
it's that. And one of the great things of physics,
when you do physics, is all the details are just
cut off. It's window dressing. And you get down
to the window itself. And that's what the analysis
works on. I have rarely seen you attacked, but
I did see you attacked when you were celebrating
Sir Isaac Newton's birthday. Oh! I was like,
that, people were so mad. People lost their minds.
They lost their mind when you were, by the way.
incorrect in the date of Jesus' birthday. That
is not the date of Jesus' birthday. Jesus was
not born on the 25th. Plus, I didn't even mention
it. So what I said was, by the way, that to this
day is my highest retweeted tweet. I tweeted
it. I retweeted it. So you remember. It's actually
a couple years ago now. So it was on December
25th comes. There it is. A child is born by the
age of 30 to transform the world. Happy birthday,
Sir Isaac Newton. On this day long ago. A child
was born who by age 30 would transform the world.
Happy birthday, Isaac Newton. Born December 25th,
1642. 79 ,000 retweets. 86 ,000 likes. People
just lost their mind. They were so mad. They
were angry and I thought, well. interesting because
i'm just speaking the truth here yes he transformed
civilization by actually he did it by the time
he was 26 um so yes it's provocative because
you're expecting that jesus is going to end that
but i thought i'd share some actual truth with
people and so some people celebrated it deeply
religious people uh one had a headline saying
Neil deGrasse Tyson is trolling Christians on
Christmas Day. And I said, Newton at least has
the benefit of actually having been born that
day. And then later on, it's actually more subtle
than that with Newton because he was on the Julian
calendar, which is 10 days shifted from the Gregorian
calendar. So if you ask what would his birthday
be today, it would be January 4th, not December
25th. Yeah, but when he was born, his mother
was celebrating Christmas. So that's really what
matters for that tweet. Well, it's such a bizarre
thing anyway, because if you're a real Christian,
you would understand that the birthday was shifted
in order to comply with pagan religion. Exactly.
It landed. I don't know how many people know
that, actually. I mean, you're a well -read guy.
But so if you give me a minute to just explain
that. So December 21st, we know, is the first
day of winter, shortest day of the year. And
what makes it short? shortest daylight of the
year. And what makes it short? The arc of the
sun across the sky is very low. The sun doesn't
get very high and it doesn't stay up for very
long. And it's been coming a lower and lower
arc every day on route to December 21st. The
ancient peoples were worried about this because
everyone worshiped the sun because it made your
crops come and it gave you warmth. And you say,
well, if this keeps going lower and lower in
the sky, we're going to lose the sun entirely.
December 21st, the sun slows down and it stops
this drop in its movement across the sky from
day to day. So that stopping of the sun is solstice.
That's Latin, the stationary sun, like armistice,
stationary arms, right, from the end of the First
World War. November 11th, that was. Armistice,
solstice. So the movement of the sun lower in
the sky stops. But that doesn't mean it's going
to come back. It takes a few days for it to slow
down, stop, and then reverse. He said, oh, it
is coming back. Let's celebrate that. And that's
a few days after December 21st. It's about December
25th. A pagan. holiday celebrating the return
of the sun. Christianity is trying to take foothold
where pagans once roamed. And you put celebrations
that match theirs just so that the shift is not
as hard for you. And the unknown birthday of
Jesus was then assigned this pagan day of celebration.
To make that transition easier for the pagans
to become Christians. And sure enough, it remained
Christmas Day. And isn't it a speculated... The
birth of Jesus. The speculated birthday of Jesus
is like the spring, right? The spring. There's
some passages, of course, in the New Testament
that reference what the sheep were doing. Plus,
there's a census being taken by the Romans, you
know, which is what... And Mary goes to the manger.
The animals are not in the manger. So there's
secondary evidence for that's probably happened
in the spring. Now, with the advent of commercial
space travel, it seems inevitable. It seems inevitable,
right? Love your segues. Do you think that it's
possible that maybe you could even offer up a
Flat Earth Believer tour where you take them,
like at the very least, take them up to Alaska
where it's light for 23 hours a day? Do you have
Flat Earthers calling into you? Tweeting me constantly.
Treating me constantly. Yeah. Call me a sellout.
I'm a sellout. I'm a round earth sellout. Like
as if there's some round earth money. Wow. Yeah.
You're on the payroll. I'm getting some checks.
I'm getting some round earth checks to keep the
nonsense going. You're getting some payola. Some
round earth payola for your show. I'm sure you've
seen the basketball player who graduated from
Duke. From Duke. That was hitting the news the
last couple of days. I saw that. And he believes
that dinosaurs are fake and that the world is
flat. Okay. So here's the thing, Joe. Okay. I've
thought about this. I bet you have. As an educator,
I've thought about this. Okay? Okay. So here's
what matters. We live in a free country. People
should be able to think whatever they want, whenever
they want, provided it doesn't subtract away
from someone else's rights. Okay. So thinking
the earth is flat doesn't harm anyone unless
you want to run for office. Or you want some
position of power over other people. That's when
it's dangerous. I'm thinking of elevator banks
where they have numbers. You know, I have a photo
essay of what elevators look like inside. I know
it's just... You mean the gears and all that?
No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Not even that geeky.
Just what are the numbers on the panel? Oh, without
the 13, you mean? Yeah, yeah, exactly. So about
80 % of buildings taller than 12 stories don't
have a 13th floor. And so this trixodecaphobia
is, again, in a free country, if you want to
be afraid of the number 13, go right ahead. It
just seems to me you should not be tasked with
designing elevators if that's your fear. Find
something else. to do. Holding aside the fact
that I'm a little scared that in this 21st century
United States of America, we have people walking
among us afraid of the number 13. What does that
mean? I don't know in the long run. But if you
keep to yourself, don't harm others, think whatever
you want. So the rubber hits the road is you
now have power over others. And that's where
the failure of the educational system actually
manifests. That's how societies and cultures
collapse. Right, but it's not that they don't
know that there's a 13th floor and that you're
just calling it the 14th floor. I want to take
my Sharpie, cross out the 14th and say, that's
the 13th floor. You're not fooling anybody. Now,
when you see it on an elevator and you're like,
you see no 13th. Plus, they try to fake you out.
How do they do that? So they go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. And then you have to
go to the next row to begin for the 14th. So
you don't see 12 right next to 14. And some modern
buildings will put their heavy machinery, like
the HVAC. on the 13th floor so that there's no
residency there. But they could still say it's
the 13th floor and then there's the 14th floor.
Yeah, yeah. Does anybody ever have a dummy 13th
button where you press it and it never lights
up? Like, I don't get it. I can't get in there.
Oh, that's interesting. That's what I would do.
Oh, you just put it there to satisfy me, but
still nobody lives there. Exactly. That's too
clever. Oh, this is one of the 20 % of people
that make sense. What a great building. Meanwhile,
there is no 13th floor. It's just a dummy button
that never lights up. Remember that Twilight
Zone episode with the mannequins? They went up
to the 11th floor, but there is no 11th floor.
And the Madicans come to life at night. Ooh,
I forgot about that one. Yeah, they leave the
store floors, and they all go up to 11, and they
have a cocktail party. And they vote which one
of them is going to go out and become human for
a day. The Twilight Zone was so good. I think
it was the best television there ever was. Like,
still, to this day, ever. You've used up so many
great premises. Great premises, great actors,
great cinematography, and it was in black and
white, so shadows were completely dark. Yeah.
Because shadows don't have much meaning when
you're filming color, because everything is just
there. But in black and white, the shadows create
moods. Yeah. I watched To Serve Man the other
night. Oh! I hadn't seen it in a while. To Serve
Man. I had it on the DVR. I'm like, let's just
sit down and watch this one. And then they had
Big Guy, who played Lurch. Yes. Yes. On The Addams
Family. Yeah. That was a great one. Because it
was just like it had all the elements of people
going, well, you know, they seem nice. They seem
nice. Yeah, yeah. And they solved all of our
war and our famine. It's a cookbook. Yeah. God,
it was great. They had so many. Another good
one was The Invaders. Do you remember this one?
No. This was a one -woman performance. And I
forgot who it was. Was it not Agnes Moorhead?
One of these women of that era. It'll come to
me in a minute. And she's living alone in a farmhouse.
No electricity. She's got a farm. And she's alone.
And some alien spacecraft lands on her roof.
And it's got these devices. It's got these saws
and blazers cutting through things. And she's
freaking out. She's got the pan and the pots
and the rolling pin. And then she gets the shotgun.
And she's attacking this thing. And you don't
know what it is. And it's got lights and a thing.
And it's this tiny little thing. It's like three
inches across, right? And it turns out that's
the thing that's attacking her. And then she
finally, like, comes. That's it. See the little
robot? Okay. And then I got to give it away.
The show is 40 years old. I can give the punchline.
Okay. So she actually successfully damages the
thing. And then you zoom in on it. Right. And
then you hear a radio transmission from the aliens
that are inside. And it says, yeah, hello. Hello.
Houston, there's a giant who's trying to attack
us. We need help. Send backups. Oh. It was great.
Whoa. We were the invaders. That was us landing
on her home. Some other planet or some parallel
earth from some other dimension. It's just this
small are we no no no no, okay? Yeah, I get it.
So she's it's another planet She's the cheese
the giant they're saying there's a giant attacking
us right, but the whole show you are have her
point aliens The these aliens are trying to hurt
her when they're just it was our space probe.
Just trying to Explore its environment. But isn't
it possible that it's like another dimension?
It's us in another dimension and they are landing
on Earth? Except it is. No, no. I mean, they
were speaking English. But couldn't they have
just parallel evolution? Well, isn't that the
definition of infinity? That somewhere, if there
is really an infinity, there is not only a you
and an I, but there's a you and an I and everybody
else we've ever met and all the exact events
in the exact same order have gone down an infinite
number of times, including this conversation.
Okay, except. Except. There is. I don't know
how many people know this, but often it's mind
-blowing when you learn that some infinities
are bigger than others. Joe Rogan just leaned
two feet away from the microphone. How's that?
Yeah, not all infinities are the same size. But
if it's infinity, then it's infinity. It's infinite.
What is no? Okay. Don't you remember when you
were a kid? They said, what's the biggest number
you know? A million. Well, there's a million
and one. Right. Okay, how about... A billion.
It was a billion and one. The annoying kid always
added one to it. Okay, how about infinity? Well,
infinity and one. Okay, well, it turns out infinity
and one and infinity are the same number. Okay?
So, for example, the number of counting numbers,
so one, two, three, up to infinity. Okay? Right.
The numbers you would use to count things. That's
infinite. The number of irrational numbers. So
the numbers that you cannot represent as a fraction,
okay? That, there's more, there are more of those
than there are counting numbers. Whoa. By far.
So these are orders of infinity. Then there are
more, there are more transcendental numbers than
there are irrational numbers. What's a transcendental
number? So that's a number that you'll never
find as a solution to an algebraic equation.
So pi is a transcendental number. E is a transcendental
number. These are magic numbers that show up
in mathematics. And it turns out there's like
an even bigger infinity of those than there is
of these other two classes of numbers. And they
use the Hebrew letter Aleph in... in rankings.
So it's LF1, LF2, LF3, LF4. I think there are
five levels of infinity. So my point is, just
because there's infinite universes, to me, doesn't
mean there's infinite conversations that have
happened. And I'd want to really explore the
depths of infinities before I say and agree with
you that this conversation has happened a million,
you know, an infinite number of times in just
this way, except you have a different engineer
sitting next to us. And an infinite number of
times where it's been Jamie, too, right? Yeah.
In principle, that's the argument that's given.
But I think that there's some nested infinities
in there that deserve some explanation. My feeble
brain is not handling this well. Well, that's
fine. As I've said, as I say in the epigraph
of the book. Book that's not available yet, but
I have a copy. Ha ha. Astrophysicist for people
in a hurry. Astrophysics. For people in a hurry.
Not astrophysicists for people in a hurry. You
come over to their house. Hey, what's up? You
in a hurry? Astrophysics for people in a hurry.
Oh, you got to say it quick. You got to say it
because you're in a hurry. So the epigram on
that is the universe is under no obligation to
make sense to you. That's rational. And I've
tweeted that before. And so it makes sense to
you that the universe is under no obligation
to make sense. So it's okay if your brain hurts
when I say there's a ranking of infinities. But
you shouldn't say that doesn't make sense, therefore
it is not true. I definitely wouldn't say that.
But what confuses me is the word infinity because
I had always taken the word infinity to mean
something that has no end. So how can something
that has no end be larger than something else
that has no end? So the way they do that mathematically,
the way to demonstrate that mathematically is
you map. one item in the set of this infinity
to corresponding items in the set of the other
infinity. And so you do this. So you take the
one and you map it to like the first transcendental
number. Take the two to the second. You just
keep doing this. And when you do that mathematically,
what you find that one infinity outstrips the
other infinity. Wow. And then you're left with
more numbers. So that shows you that you have
a bigger infinity. Now, when you find, I mean,
there's a new NASA announcement that's supposed
to, is it Monday that's supposed to be announced?
Or tomorrow? Is it tomorrow? The exoplanet announcement.
Yeah, it's a Wednesday. Yeah. Yeah, so it's Wednesday.
I don't have a secret. You don't have juicy details?
I'm not authorized to. Okay. If you did have
juicy details, is there a time? Okay, let me
invent some juicy details that it could be. So
NASA, so. He's been good at segueing lately.
I'm just jumping in. He's just jumping. I know
I only have a short amount of time before you've
got to get that red eye. Yeah, I'm flying back.
Thanks for fitting this in, Joe. My pleasure.
Anytime. I would open this place up at 3 in the
morning for you. Oh, man. I feel the love, so
thank you. Here's some things it could be, because
NASA is saying that it's a stunning new announcement.
Well, what could be more than the fact that we
already know that there are Earth -like planets
orbiting in the Goldilocks zone of the nearest
star to the sun, Proxima Centauri? Can you do
better than that for me, NASA? I don't think
so, unless you got some extra stuff you're going
to tell us, like... What's been a cottage industry
in the last couple of years is the observation
of planet atmospheres. As the planet passes in
front of the host star, light from the host star
passes through the atmosphere, and the light
signature is altered by the chemistry of the
atmosphere. So depending on what the chemicals
are, it'll influence the spectrum that you get.
And when you do that, you can say what the chemical
composition of the atmosphere of that star is.
There's certain... There's a certain combinations
of elements that we would call biomarkers No,
we can't look down to the surface of the planet
and look at cities if there are any but there
are Consequences in the atmosphere to there being
life on the surface such as is there oxygen there
I Used to think when I was watching Star Trek
when I was a kid because I saw it in real time.
That's how old I am When it first came out original
series Star Trek characters never wore spacesuits.
Yeah You ever wonder? I mean, you ever thought
about that? Okay. What happens is they visit
planets that have nitrogen -oxygen atmosphere,
Jim. All right. Well, that's what our atmosphere
is, nitrogen -oxygen. So they find planets with
nitrogen -oxygen. They go down. They don't need
a spacesuit. So they've actually thought about
that, and that's their solution. So that must
mean there'd be planets that you could find.
Well, here's the thing. We have oxygen on Earth
only because... There is life on Earth. Not any
kind of life. Photosynthesizing life. We have
life that takes sunlight, turns it into chemical
energy, into itself, into wood, into plants.
And one of its byproducts is oxygen. Oxygen is
chemically active. If you took away all plants,
tomorrow... that oxygen would slowly get absorbed
chemically into the environment. And then you
would not have oxygen there to be viewed by aliens
trying to see if we have life here. And it's
pretty surprising to people to note that we're
mostly nitrogen in our atmosphere. Oh, yeah,
we're 78 % nitrogen in our atmosphere. You know
what happens if you have too much oxygen? If
you have, like, let's say 50 % oxygen or more.
You get really high, right? Isn't that part of
it? No, what happens is, like, a forest fire
would never go out. Oh. Yeah, because oxygen
feeds combustion, and so you could basically
burn all vegetation in the world if the oxygen
went above certain thresholds. So you need it
high enough so that you can still have oxygen
metabolism, but not so high that it's bad for
lightning -triggered forest fires. So if they
see that. I don't know the announcement, but
I'm just guessing here because it's been a cottage
industry the last couple of years. Let's find
these biomarkers. Do you have unstable chemistry?
going on in that atmosphere because if you do
it means something's generating it and and certain
combinations of chemistry tells you there's likely
to be life of some kind now just a couple decades
ago we had speculation of other planets but we
really didn't have any tangible proof in fact
anyone anytime i give a public talk you do this
at your in your gigs ask who here's born since
1995, okay? And your audience leans young, so
there'll be some fraction of the audience that'll
raise their hand. And so what I do is I knight
them as Generation Exoplanet. Ah. Because 1995
was the first year that a planet outside of our
own solar system was discovered. So they have
been alive. only during a time where we've known
of other star systems. That's so crazy. Generation
exoplanet. I want to start that movement. It's
so crazy. That's so recent. It is. I was living
out here. It's 24 years ago. 22 years ago. That's
insane. If you stop and think about it, what
a short period of time that is. And in that period
of time... There's like rising through 3 ,000
exoplanets. This is the advance of technology.
That's not just science advance. That's engineering
and technology. and telescope quality and imaging
quality. And there's a lot that goes on to the
advance of science. It's not just how clever
you are in an Einsteinian way. It's do you know
good engineers to build a device to make the
measurement? This is how we discovered gravity
waves. Now, what's your take on that planet that's
supposed to be outside the Kuiper Belt? Oh, yeah,
Planet 9. Planet 9. So far? Yeah, yeah. All the
data look convincing. So what they've done is
they've looked at other objects in the Kuiper
Belt and looked at these are... colleagues of
mine at caltech um so it's it's mike brown who
you know i get blamed for killing pluto but i
i was an accessory for sure but i didn't definitely
didn't kill that dude killed pluto all right
he found another object that was basically the
size of pluto out there so either you make that
a planet or you demote pluto and how much smaller
is pluto than let's say our moon oh so so don't
get me started our moon has five times the mass
of pluto wow So Pluto was lame from the beginning.
We thought it was big. We wanted it to be big.
We made it one of us, one of the nine. And its
size didn't settle out until the late 1970s,
where we had better and better, more accurate
ways to measure its size. And that's when we
learned. It's small even compared to our own.
But granted, we have a big moon. If you're not
going to think our moon is a planet, you're certainly
not going to think that Pluto is a planet. So
this object, let me just tell you how they did
it. So they found these other objects out there,
the same team. Constantine Battingen and Mike
Brown, both at Caltech. And they found these
objects in the outer, the Kuiper Belt, of icy
bodies. of which Pluto is a member. You track
their motion, and you say, okay, if I add up
all the gravity that's affecting them, they should
move this way, but they don't. They move another
way. a different way. So either Newton's laws
of gravity are failing in the outer solar system,
or there's some object out there whose gravity
you have yet to reconcile with the motions of
these objects. So they said, let's assume Newton
is right. What object do we have to put out there,
at what distance and at what size, to influence
the movement of these Kuiper belt objects in
the way we see it? And did they do this through
Bode's law? No, no, we're way past. Way past.
Thanks for remembering Bode's Law, but Bode's
Law was an early measure of where you might find
a new planet. And it was based on mass and gravity.
No, no, Bode's Law was a simple arithmetic tool.
All it did was basically double the distance
with a certain additive parameter. Double the
distance of known planets? So, for example. And
there's a factor in there that helped the inner
planets come out right. But let's look at Mars.
Mars is like two and a half times Earth's distance
from the sun. What comes after Mars? Jupiter.
Jupiter is five times Earth's distance. Oh, I
see. Saturn is ten times. It went from two and
a half to five to ten. So, Bode's Law is just
a simple arithmetic scheme. It's not based in
any known physics. And it was only based on the
solar system itself. On the solar system itself,
that's right. And it worked, and yet you have
to fudge your way to get Mercury to work in that.
Oh, really? And it didn't have Pluto. Of course,
Pluto wasn't a planet anyway. But anyhow, it
was a fudgy way that was most... right by accident
and this was in like what year was this oh that
was 1800s basically yeah yeah so now we have
advanced computer programming very high precision
modeling and they're saying there's got to be
a planet somewhere here in this arc of the sky
let's look for it Because we think that's what's
affecting the orbits of these other objects.
And that is a completely noble way to discover
a planet. That's how Neptune was discovered.
And because everyone looked at the orbit of Uranus
and said, you know, Uranus is not following Newton's
laws. Maybe Newton's laws don't work that far
out. It's never been tested that far. And they
said, well, let's assume it works. ask what would
have to influence it. And by the way, it's a
difficult mathematical calculation because you're
not saying, here's the object, what's the gravity
field? You're saying, here's the gravity field
I need. Where must the object be and how massive
must it be? That's a much harder mathematical
problem to solve. And so once the errant orbit
of Uranus was known and calculated, they started
looking for another And that's how they discovered
planet Neptune. Wow. So now when they're looking
at this planet nine. I hope I said that right.
It was the movement of Uranus's orbit was not
following proper laws. And they inferred the
presence of Neptune. They said, look here, tomorrow
night. And they looked there and they found it.
Wow. Yes. It was a brilliant display. And no,
we're going back to the 19th century. So, I mean,
people were badass. Every generation's got their
badass scientists. Now, how much further out
from the known solar system is this unknown planet
supposed to be? So I'm not quick to call it Planet
9 because it's 20 ,000 times farther away from
the sun than the Earth is. So I'm not – sorry,
you're not in the family. You're not in the neighborhood.
No, you're not in the hood. Sorry, I'm not feeling
it. It's like calling Connecticut New York City.
I'm not feeling it. I'm not feeling it. But it's
something massive, right? It's like six times
the mass of the Earth? I forgot what mass they
were assigning it, but, yeah, if that were in
our solar system, there'd be no question you
would label it as a planet. And it wasn't their
one -time speculation that it was some sort of
a burnt -out star that existed further? No, not
at that mass. No? No, no, no. Too small? No,
you might be thinking, if that's what I think
you're thinking, you've got good memory. Long
ago, in a galaxy far away, so I'm talking about
the 1970s, people looked at the extinction record
on Earth, and every 20 ,000 years they found
a little blip, a little dip in... the fossil
record where we lost some species, and people
were wondering why. Could there have been some
flux of comets raining down periodically on the
Earth, wreaking havoc on the ecosystem, rendering
species extinct in these periodic intervals?
If there is, maybe there's some double star to
the sun. Right, binary star system. Some binary
star system. So they invoked it, and they called
it, they came and named it. They called it Nemesis.
They gave it a name. And so you know what period,
orbital period, that object must have. It's got
to match the extinction. And so it's got to be
a 20 ,000 -year period. But people looked for
it. They couldn't find it. And then you reanalyzed
the extinction records. And you had to fudge
it to make it look like it was periodic. So basically
we've abandoned the idea of nemesis. And aren't
binary star systems really common? Yeah. More
than half the stars you see in the night sky
are binary or multiple systems. In fact, the
iconic image from Star Wars, the original Star
Wars movie, before they numbered them. I think,
what Star Wars 4. Tatooine, right? Is that what
they were? Well, yeah, whatever that desert planet
that Luke was on. And he comes out after visiting
his, what is his step -parent? No, his adoptive
parents. I don't remember. Whoever he was visiting.
He comes out and you see a double sunset. So
that's basically the only accurate science in
the entire series. That's it? Star Wars series.
That was another thing I really enjoyed is you're
taking a part of gravity, the movie gravity,
and how many people got mad at you for that?
Yeah, you know, so I stopped commenting on movies.
I don't need to piss people off. When I watch
a movie, I'm having those thoughts. Anyway, so
I might as well share them with people if you're
interested. So I did just that. And then people,
the last time I did it was for Star Wars, The
Force Awakens, Star Wars 7. I had a series of
tweets. You know, one of them was BB -8, a smooth
rolling metal spherical ball would have skidded
uncontrollably on sand. People. Got angry. Someone
tweeted back, shut the fuck up. So I said, okay,
I'm not here to get people angry. I'm just here
to enlighten, to help people enhance their movie
-going experience. But to the extent that it's
not accomplishing this, I don't need to do it.
I'm just saying. I'm an educator. I thought I
was being nice. I don't need to do it. So I haven't
tweeted about a movie since then. Don't let them
stop you. I have tweets I could post about Arrival.
Please do. I didn't watch that. I watched a little
bit of it. I shut it off. Okay. No, you got to
give it a chance. As soon as I see a movie that
starts out, spoiler alert, starts out with a
sick kid, I'm like, fuck you. I know what you're
doing. No. In fact, it's very not about the kid.
I'm sure. That's what I keep hearing. It's totally
not about the kid. Jamie hated it. Oh, yeah?
Yeah. Okay. So you just give it a chance. But
anyhow, so I just stopped. Maybe I'll come back,
but I'm... Do it! Yeah. People need to know.
Like gravity. That was good that you explained
that not only is this not plausible, those two
satellites aren't anywhere near each other. Oh
my gosh. Then they said, oh, there's the International
Space Station and I'm on the Chinese space station.
Let me just jet pack my way there. Yeah. Do you
realize... Excuse me, lady. Do you... Hey, lady,
do you know how far away these are from one another?
You can just jet around from one space station
to another. No, can't do it. They're tens of
thousands of miles from one another. For goodness
sake. But anyhow, so yeah, you remember these
tweets. Please keep doing it. It was like 15
tweets. And I didn't know. That was when I realized.
Like the press was reading my movie tweets. And
those tweets. Now, a couple of years ago when
Gravity came out with Sandra Bullock and. What's
the dude's name? George Clooney. So I tweeted
it and they got talked about on the Today Show,
the weekend Today Show on NBC. Then it was talked
about on NBC Nightly News. Then my tweets were
talked about on Saturday Night Live's weekend
update. It was like the NBC trifecta. And I said,
my gosh, that was not the point. I didn't seek
this. It's fine. I'm glad they are reacting this
way because that means they care about the science
maybe. But what Seth Meyers did, because he was
doing Weekend Update at the time, he said, astrophysicist
Neil deGrasse Tyson harshly criticized the movie
Gravity, saying it contains a number of scientific
inaccuracies. For example, There is no way George
Clooney would have spent that much time talking
to a woman his own age. That's hilarious. I think
Sandra Bullock's still younger than George Clooney,
though. So they should have got their facts right.
Yeah, but not by much. I mean, yeah, they were
in the same neighborhood. Yes, they were in the
neighborhood. Yeah, I think it's important. I
think you enjoy the movie. It's great. It's fun
and everything like that. But it's important
to point out what the science errors are. I think
the movie could have done better. Honestly, I
think they could have made the same movie with
correct signs. People thought I didn't like the
movie when all I was doing was pointing out things
they got wrong. By the way, they did some stunning
things correctly. For example, this is brilliant.
If you're in zero G, a fire basically puts itself
out. So think about when you burn a candle on
Earth, so you light the wick. Does people have
candles anymore? They forgot what a candle is.
You light it with a match that you used to get
from smoking lounges at bars. All right. So you
light the candle and it stays lit. The fuel is
the wax. The oxygen continually comes in because
it heats the air around it and the air rises.
Hot air rises, and fresh air comes in from below
and has fresh oxygen. So the candle will stay
lit until it burns all the way down. In space,
if you light a candle, you can light the candle.
It'll heat the air, but the air will not know
where to go because it's not lighter than everything
because it's in zero G. It'll stay clustered
around the candle. The candle will use up all
the oxygen in that bubble, and then it'll put
itself out. They did this in the movie. So why
do they have some good science? Because you can't
think of everything. Why don't they just have
you on staff? Bring you in. What's wrong with
a shitty movie? Maybe I couldn't think of anything.
So you can't think of everything. So I wasn't
judgmental so much as this movie. The fact that
it got so much right is what put it on my map
to criticize what it got wrong. That makes sense.
Does that make sense? Like the hair. Earn the
right. Yeah, oh, the hair. Her bangs should have
been floating. Floating all over the place, right?
Now, if you might think, am I nitpicky? No, because
if you look at any picture of somebody with hair,
okay, in space, in zero G, their hair is flying
everywhere. It's the first thing you notice about
them. It is so obvious. Like, wow, that's the
cool. You're not thinking about the spaceship
or the Thai technology. You're looking at the
hair doing stuff you will never see happen on
Earth unless someone is, like, underwater and
they're jiggling their head. So they would have
to film it all in zero gravity. They would have
to film it all in one of those drop things. Yeah,
or the drop thing. They'd have to be clever about
it. And she only had bangs. That's all you had
to figure out. They did other clever things.
So anyway, that's all I did. By the way, in all
fairness to movies, I'll call out something that's
good. science that movie got right that otherwise
got no science right i'll be i'm the first in
line to do that like what oh uh in the movie
monsters inc oh my gosh you didn't think i was
going there did you uh those doors were four
-dimensional portals to to another that's possible
well if you had four dimensions that's what it
would look like do you remember the movie yes
they take the doors home yes they open the door
And they're in the closet of the kid that they're
going to terrorize. Yes. That's a wormhole. That
is what access to the fourth dimension looks
like. Do you think scientifically that's possible
one day? I hope so. I hope so. Really? Because
here's the example. We've got a nice broad desk
here at this interview, right? So desk is two
dimensions. It's got length and width. And I
can start putting papers on this desk. And I
can lay them out. mosaic style. And then all
of a sudden I have no more room to put a sheet
of paper. If I'm an ant living in this surface
of the desk, I say, no more room. But wait a
minute, we are three -dimensional people and
I can put an organizer and stack things vertically.
So I can take a sheet of paper and now I can
put it. higher up than the surface of the desk.
The ant will say, where did it go? Oh my gosh,
it disappeared in some portal. No, no, what is
that? It went into the third dimension and the
ant bound to, ant obviously is a three -dimensional
thing. Imagine it only lives in two dimensions.
You would have made that paper disappear into
a third dimension and it will have no clue where
it went because you had a portal. You had access
to that extra dimension. So look at how much
you can store on a desk when you have access
to a third dimension above it. Vastly more than
just papers mosaicked out on the surface. So
now let's up this example by a dimension. You're
storing boxes in a room. Oh, I ran out of room.
No, you didn't. Let's open this four -dimensional
door. You open it, put the boxes through the
door, close the door, box is gone. That would
be awesome for hoarders. You look around the
other side of the door, there's nothing there.
Right. Your side of the door, nothing there.
It's just a door. That is a portal to a fourth
dimension. That can hold vastly more content
than what is what you're stuck storing in the
three -dimensional space of your room now that
So that's a brilliant concept and even though
it has monsters that don't exist that all speak
English and one of them is a Cyclops and one
of them is a you know, I'm not judging the biophysiology
of these creatures, but they got the physics
of four -dimensional portals completely accurate
Now the concept of dimensions is work. It's really
abstract with people I love me some dimensions
and it is abstract it is now and that's why you
Take let the math take you into those higher
dimensions because our intuition will not will
fail for us, right? Well, that's where it gets
weird or when you say take the math let the math
take you so like when quantum physicists use
these legal notepads, those yellow pads, and
write all that crazy stuff down that nobody but
you and maybe them understand. And when you look
at all those equations... No, it's them, maybe
me, not me, maybe them. You probably understand
it, right? But I definitely don't. My point is,
what are they exactly figuring out that allows
them to say there are, I think they say, at one
point in time it was 11, but I think they've
expanded that, right? What are they saying now?
I don't have the latest dimension count on the
universe, but what... The way it works is you're
trying to make sense of the world. Right. And
so you take some leaps, some philosophical leaps,
leaps, some mathematical leaps. You say, all
right, maybe all particles that manifest as an
electron, a proton, a neutron, quarks, maybe
they're just strings of energy vibrating at different
frequencies. And we sense these different frequencies.
as different particles. Let's just go there for
a minute. Well, if you're going to do that, what
are the consequences to it? And how many dimensions
do these vibrating strings require to have the
properties that we see in our dimensionality?
So the exercise of explaining what you see takes
you to places that you've never been before.
And that's fine. Intellectual places that have
been previously unplumbed. There's nothing wrong
with that. We've done that before. That's why
we know what is happening in the center of the
sun. Have we ever been there? No. No. But we
know how matter behaves under pressure and temperature.
We can do that in a laboratory. We've got a sun
sitting out there with a surface temperature,
a mass, a certain luminosity. And we say, what
must be going on down in the core? Let's bring
our best physics, our quantum physics, our chemistry,
our nuclear physics, bring it all together, and
we have a complete understanding of what's going
on in the center of the sun, and we're on to
other problems now, even though we've never visited
there. So when they're going over the mathematics,
observable things that we have right now are
at the atomic and subatomic level. Correct. Do
you realize the electron? Okay, so I did a whole
series of this. There's something called the
Great Courses lecture series. Oh, yeah, it was
a sponsor of this podcast for a while. Were they?
Really? Okay, Great Courses. So, cool. So I was
once invited to be one of their professors for
the Great Courses. And I taught a very short.
Most of them are like 30 lectures. It's like
a whole college semester. So I don't have the
time, the energy. So they let me do like short
bits. So one of them is only six parts. And it's
called The Inexplicable Universe. And it's six
parts of everything about which we know nothing.
in this universe. And you might say, well, that's
a pretty easy course to give. Dark matter? Having
a clue, okay? On to the next lecture. It might
be something. Dark matter? Yeah, it could be
something. We don't know. Stay tuned. But it's
interesting to learn how we come to know what
we don't know. And so it's an exploration of
our ignorance. And I'm very proud of it because
it's not what you'd normally find in a lecture
series. And it's still out there. But one of
the things I will tell you in it, and I'll tell
you now, the electron... has no known dimension.
It is smaller than the smallest we have ever
had the capacity to measure. So as far as we
are concerned, it is infinitely small. We have
no way to even know how to measure. By the way,
how do you measure something small? You get something
smaller and find out how many of those it is.
Oh, my head. My stupid head. No, think about
the challenges at each extreme. Ask me, how big
is the universe? And I'll say, it's as big as,
well, I got nothing. What am I going to say?
Right? There's nothing as big as the universe.
So at the biggest end and at the littlest end,
there's not something else. It doesn't work as
well, okay, to try to say what it is relative
to something else. Do you entertain the possibility
that the biggest end and the littlest end are
the same thing? Meaning that at the smallest
measurable point, that literally might be a whole
other universe? That might be fractal? It's fun
to think about. You mean all the way down? Yeah.
It's fun to think about. Like infinitely down.
However, and people, by the way, in the 1920s
when we discovered the atom and its structure
and that there's an electron. quote, orbit around
a nucleus. And we said, wait, we've been there
before. We've got planets orbiting the sun. And
so maybe it's a mini solar system. Maybe it's
solar systems all the way down. Well, I'm glad
you brought this up. I'm glad we brought this
up because I wanted to bring this question that
I almost forgot. There's a photograph of a brain
cell and side by side with a photograph of the
known universe, and they look eerily similar.
So you're talking about the large -scale structure
of the universe where there's something of galaxies.
I'll get to that in a minute. Pull that up, Jamie.
Okay. So I'll get to that. So do you ever tell
him just pull up his own damn images? Yeah, but
I can't put it on the TV. So he has to do it.
So here's why that's not likely. Okay. It was
an entertained idea, but here's why it's not
likely. The manifestation of the laws of physics
are different at the atomic scale. Than they
are at the macroscopic scale. They're just simply
different a planet can take any orbit sensible
for its velocity around a host star an electron
cannot Its energy levels are predetermined and
quantized Hence the word quantum the prefix quanta
in quantum physics so if it was a continuum of
matter and energy following the same laws of
physics, then I would say then it's solar systems
all the way down. But the rules completely change.
And so things can, on the surface, seem similar.
But when it comes time to understand them and
to analyze them and to manipulate them and to
exploit their conduct and their behavior for
other means, as we have done with atoms and molecules
for the entire IT revolution. No longer are they
the same, and you abandon this romanticized concept.
So now with the neurons, the network of neurons,
and the clusters of galaxies and galaxy superclusters,
that would be on the right, neurons on the left.
That's so eerie. Yes. So, yeah, they can look
the same, but they're operating under completely
different laws of physics. So in other words,
the laws of physics that dictate what's going
on in brain cells have no relationship to what's
going on in the universe. Brain cells, you're
undergoing, we can tell you what forces are operating.
It's electromagnetic forces. Brain cells use
electrical impulses, chemical impulses. This
is why drugs can affect the brain. There's chemistry
going on in the brain in its natural state. You
disrupt that, enhance it. You just put down some
chemistry in your stomach that's now affecting
your brain. What did you just drink there? What
was it? Alpha brain. Alpha brain. Okay. Yeah.
So you're entering the chemistry. So it's chemistry.
What's going on on the large scale structure
of the universe is not chemistry. Right. There's
some chemistry deep within. But the chemistry
is not what's making that pattern. And because
of that, it becomes an artistic curiosity, not
something that has any kind of deep scientific
insight. So it's just a fascinating similarity.
Yes, it's a fascinating similarity. Put them
up together, and it's fun to think about it.
But it's fun to think about it artistically,
but not scientifically, no. It's great if you're
hanging out with your friends going, wow, man.
It depends on how high you are. Yeah, exactly.
But now when you're looking at subatomic particles,
excuse me, and you're looking at these like when
they observe particles in superposition, where
they're moving and stationary at the same time,
where they blink in and out of existence, like
when you get down to that. And I repeat the opening
page of the book. The universe is under no obligation
to make sense to you. Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah,
it doesn't. It definitely doesn't. Yeah, so at
that scale, things that go on with atoms and
molecules fall outside of your life experience.
You don't hang out at the bar. with protons,
nucleons, or other nucleons or molecules. You
just don't. So what they do in their day is completely
foreign to you. So now you shrink down to that
size, and particles are popping in and out of
existence. They become conjoined, quantum mechanically
conjoined, and it's completely weird, and you
would say none of this makes sense. And this
is observable in a visual sense? Well, it depends.
It depends on how big the phenomenon is. Otherwise,
you can see other things that would happen that
you know that are the manifestations of that
happening. Right. Yes. So an electron is smaller
even than that? Oh, yes. By how many factors?
No, no. We don't even know. We don't know how
small an electron is. We've never measured the
size of an electron. The concept of super string
theory. So these vibrating strings are smaller
than that. Yes. The strings would have to be
smaller, thinner, smaller than the electron itself.
By many, many. That I couldn't quantify for you.
I've got to bring in a string theory person.
So it's like at the bottom of what we can observe.
Well, that's a great question. What is the bottom?
And you know the word atom, which was introduced
by the Greeks. You know what atom means in Greek?
It has a translation. You know what it means?
No. Indivisible. Ah. So they imagined that all
matter was. You'd come down to something that
was indivisible. How the hell? They figured that
out. No, they didn't figure it out. They supposed
it. And it's amazing that they were right. The
first they were, you know, they're wealthy and
had free time. And, you know, when they weren't
waging war, you could think. And, you know, what
we think of as philosophy is traceable to a lot
of what they were doing back then. And the origins
of what science is are traceable to back to back
then. You have an idea that applies to what the
universe does that enables you to predict future
behavior. That is science. So the atom, it turned
out, is divisible. It's divisible into subatomic,
subatom particles. So you get electrons, protons,
neutrons, and a whole host of other particles
less familiar. There are neutrinos and other
things. Then it turns out protons and neutrons
are further divisible. You get quarks out of
those. And as far as we know, there are only
four fundamental particles in the universe. The
photon, which is light. The electron. of which
there's several species. There's the anti -electron
and this and that. But just stay simple here.
The photon, the electron, the quark, and the
neutrino. That's it. Everything in the universe
that we've ever observed is made out of that
stuff. Oof. So those are quote the atoms of the
universe the indivisible parts if you will now
This is a dark matter could be made of yet another
kind of thing that we don't know yet But we got
top people trying to figure out what dark matter
is. We've measured it out there. We just don't
know what it is Well, it's something like 90
something percent of the universe you add up
dark matter and dark energy It's 95 % of all
that drives the universe. And we can measure
the existence of both, yet we have no idea what's
driving them. This is an awesome opportunity
for you to illuminate this often. But it's all
in Astrophysics for People in a Hurry. It's out
in May. It comes out in May. You can pre -order
it, which, by the way, publishers love it if
you pre -order. Isn't it adorable? Beautiful.
It's a good size. It's adorable. You can pre
-order it on Amazon? You know, the reason why
publishers like you to pre -order it is so that
they can accurately. They don't want to overprint.
They don't want to underprint. So they get a
sense of the pre -ordering. Because you're not
charged until they ship it. So it's a pretty
harmless exercise. While we're on this subject
of subatomic particles and weirdness, I wanted
to, if you could, illuminate this often misused.
explanation for the observer effect because you
know the the particles waves and you watch them
observe them and it changes the reaction it is
heavily misunderstood it's misunderstood because
people want to attribute it to magic the magic
of the mind the consciousness looking at it but
isn't it in fact just measuring it yes thank
you please explain next question no explain to
people because i'm so tired joe you're good it
just drives me nuts carry your people with you
Try. Where are they coming from? Where are you
pulling? What? What? Where are you getting your
people? I don't know. Well, I don't own them,
for sure. You don't own them, okay. So they're
definitely not my people. They vary greatly.
You can't even loop them together. I know. You
have an admirably diverse following, and not
many people can claim that. And it's probably
because of your diverse profile, right? Well,
I'm as open -minded as I can be. But on top of
that, you're smart, and you read, and you're
thoughtful, and you're also, on some level, respectful.
You'll hear somebody out, and you got your MMA
thing. So, no, you're in a line. lot of places
and a lot of spaces and that's a good thing i
mean we need more unity in this world so so well
thank you yeah thank you so please explain what
what what people are getting wrong okay so very
simplistic it's much simpler than you think okay
all right you ready yes so i'm looking at you
the only reason why i can see you is because
there's light reflecting off of your face your
body into my eyes so there's light Oh, by the
way, these stars, that's beautiful. Yeah, those
are Hubble photographs. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, those
are images from the Hubble. That's why I didn't
notice that when I walked in. They're sheets
that you put over the fluorescent light cover.
Very nice. And so when we look up, we actually
see the real images from the Hubble. So you're
pretending it's the night sky. Yeah. Well, it
doesn't look as cool as it could be. And you're
not in a completely cavernous recording studio.
Well, what I want to do in the future studio,
I want to actually build a glass ceiling and
have a full -scale image, a high -resolution
image of the stars. So a planet. Planetarium.
Yes. You're describing a planetarium. Yeah, exactly.
Call it that. It's a planetarium. Well, something
like that. But I just wanted an image. Is there
a way to do it? Tell me how to do it. I'll do
it. No, do better than that. You get a curved
version of those very high -resolution LED screens.
Curved. Yeah. And then you put any image up there
you want. And then there's the night sky tonight.
It's what the sky looks like from Alpha Centauri.
Oh, so like when you go to see one of those star
shows at a planetarium and they show it on the
ceiling above you. Well, yes, but nowadays the
ceiling itself is the source of light. It's not
projected from something else. So then you just
feed that with image data and then it becomes
whatever you want. Can you hook me up with someone
who knows how to do that? Yeah, I could totally.
I'm excited. Yeah. I don't know. You don't know
people. I got people. I mean, people that like
planetariums. You need my people for something?
Well, you know the real people. I thought you
had people. You know the people at the top that
would teach the people. So we'll get to that.
I'm looking at you. Okay. All right. Yes. And
I see you. I want to know where you are. So I
turn on the lights and I say, there you are.
All right. Now, let's make you tinier. Let's
make you mini me. Okay. Like in the movie. Right.
So now there's a tiny version of you, a mini
me version of Joe Rogan. Now you're little. I
turn on the lights. You're still there. Okay.
Okay. Because if the lights are not on, I can't
see you. I don't know where you are. Right. It's
that simple. Okay. Okay. When you start becoming
the size of molecules, right on down to the size
of an atom. And I ask the question. Where is
Joe Rogan, the atom? And I turn on the light
to see you there because I think you're there.
The light, the photon comes in, hits your atom
and pops you into another location. The very
act of trying to measure your position. prevents
me from measuring your position and as have jack
shit to do with your consciousness or your mind
or your eyes or Anything it has to do with the
fact that to know you're there some information
has to come from you to me like shining a light
on you and the smaller you are the more susceptible
you are to the the energy of the light changing
your position In space. So my question is, how
do they know? You know what it's like? I don't
know if this has still happened. A quarter spills
out of your pants pocket in the backseat of a
car and is there in the wedge between the bottom
and the backseat. And so you try to reach in
to get it. And the act of reaching for the coin
makes the coin move farther away from you. Ah.
The act of reaching for it. Right, because you
separate the cushions. You separate it and it
just slides down even further. That's not your
mind making that happen. It's the it's the act
of the measurement that is affecting what it
is you're trying to measure. And this was discovered
in quantum physics to the point where that's
actually, it's a Heisenberg uncertainty principle.
It's one of the basic foundations of all of quantum
physics. And it's profound. But when it's described
in the woo -woo way, they show these particles
going through these slots and then observing
them changes the pattern that they go through
with. And there's a horrible cartoon that you
see in that movie, What in the Bleep? I couldn't
get through that movie. I tried. Did you go crazy
with the bad science? No, can I tell you where
I turned? Please. Well, here's what people don't
know. A lot of that is from a cult. That I didn't
know. The woman who is the main woman. I don't
mind a cult movie. She's a channeler. She's speaking
as a character. Do you know that one blonde woman,
older blonde woman that's in that movie? Yeah,
okay. When she speaks, she's speaking as a character.
Okay, I didn't know that. She's a part of this
very bizarre... sort of cult okay and should
i tell you where i tuned it out or you want to
finish okay so i tried to i just couldn't watch
it right there's a point where they were talking
about uh natives in the caribbean seeing european
ships yes and then they said well because they'd
never seen a ship before the brain didn't register
it as anything, and then it just disappeared.
Bullshit. And I'm thinking, no, that's not how
the brain works. Excuse me, that's not how this
works, okay? What would happen? They might not
know what they're looking at, but they'll know
they're looking at something. And they've had
ships. They went from island to island. That's
how you get from island to island. They say,
well, that's a really big version of what we're
doing. We've never seen anything that big before.
I don't know what it is. I don't know where it
came from, but I want to find out. I want to
study it. to protect myself whatever so just
because you've never said doesn't mean you're
not going to register it excuse me no exactly
no then i said no what i can't waste my i got
other things i got to devote my brain energy
to instead of instead of this but someone else
said oh it gets better later on so i said maybe
i'll one day oh no it doesn't it does not it
gets more confusing later on and it it it does
a better job of confusing you as to what science
has shown and what they haven't shown now by
the way Just in all fairness to what I think
the point they were trying to make, there are
things that if you don't know to recognize them,
they would go undiscovered. Yes. Okay? But that
doesn't mean you wouldn't see them. Okay? So,
for example, let's say you're walking and you
didn't know that you were walking over this huge
burial mound. Because the slope was really shallow.
And you're just walking. Okay? Well, you didn't
notice that. Okay? So you need a different way
to see it in order to know. So from space, from
an angle, measure the height, whatever. So there
are ways to miss things. And that happens all
the time. Right. But if it's something there
on the horizon, my gosh. This is why we have
eyes. Okay? Now, they're not the best data -taking
devices, but if it comes time to tell you whether
there's a ship or not a ship that you've never
seen before, it's a ship. Of course. Okay? Of
course. I mean, there's so much evidence of that
when people discover new animals. Yes. New anything.
They've never seen anything before. Anything.
New anything. There's no record of it whatsoever.
People find it and they can still see it. Most
scientific discoveries, you discover something
we've never seen before. Ramtha. That was the
woman's name. That was the person that she was
channeling. That's a cool channel. Cool channeling
name. Yeah. You have to have a channeling name.
If I were a channeler, I'd be Ramtho. I found
that after the movie was done, after I watched
it. They got me with a lot of things. I was like,
wow, is that true? Is that real? And then I started
reading. Fortunately, that movie came out in
the 2000s instead of in the 90s. Because if it
came out in the 90s, we would all got duped.
Oh, yeah. Because we wouldn't have the internet.
We wouldn't be able to research all the shit
that's wrong with it. But in the 2000s, I started
researching it. And then I would send it to my
friends. Like, look at the fuck. this came from
and then and then you go oh that's a cult yeah
it's a cult the lady's a cult she's a she's talking
like she's an alien she's supposed to be an alien
right isn't that Do you see it in there anywhere?
Again, I don't mind if people think they're channelers.
I just don't put them in charge of anything.
That's all. Well, it's not that I mind. It's
just that you should probably say that when you
get going with that thing in the beginning. Oh,
in advance. Yeah, so I know exactly what I'm
getting involved with. She's not going to say
this is a cult. Nobody's ever said that. She
just calls herself Rampa. They think it's real
and genuine, and they're very sincere because
they've duped themselves. Well, that whole thing
was just... So what you need is... You know what
you need? is some foundation of science literacy
so that you can inoculate yourself against those
who would exploit your absence of knowledge of
how the science works for their own gain. Well,
not even for their own gain, just YouTube videos.
I mean, someone could make a very compelling
YouTube video where they get you convinced that,
oh, my God, dinosaurs aren't real. They start
playing these things for you. They tell you about
them. Or cell phones can pop popcorn. You ever
see that one? Oh, I have seen that one, yeah.
Yeah, you line up some stuff and then it starts
popping. Yeah, you got to like direct them at
the kernels. That was a fun one, yeah. That can't
really happen. No, of course not. No, of course
not. Can you imagine if it could? Jesus Christ.
We'd be like, what are we doing with these phones?
But there's a ton of those out there where people,
see, it's one of the problems with a lack of
dialogue, with someone who just has one narrative.
Like you sit down, you edit something, and you
just talk. It's very similar to like, even if
you write a blog, I mean, it's one thing if you're
writing a blog, like, say, if you're an expert
in electronics, you write a blog about how a
television works. But if you're just a person
and you don't really understand what you're talking
about, but you write something and use the right
words and you say it in a very compelling way,
like an attack piece on someone that really has
no basis in reality, you can have someone convinced
this person's a terrible person just by writing
something without them having to respond. Like,
hold up. Stop. Never did that. I tweeted a few
weeks ago. I tweeted a few weeks ago. I'm not
going to botch it because it's. It's way better
as the tweet than I will ever remember it as
the tweet. So it was one of the great challenges
in life is knowing enough to think you're right,
but not enough to know you're wrong. Yeah. Well,
that is a big problem with a lot of people that
watch these YouTube videos, right? That's what
it is. They say, oh, this is right. Oh, my gosh.
But they don't know enough to know why it's wrong.
Well, this is what I want to talk to you about.
What is it about people that there's this very
compelling need to find something out that other
people don't know, like the world is flat, like
dinosaurs aren't real? Like that kind of stuff
is very compelling to people. So what I do in
those cases in the – Bigfoot. Yeah. So what I
do is I would say – Instead of debating them,
and some of your listeners are listening to this
right now, all I would do is say, what is your
best single bit of evidence for what you're claiming?
And what would it take to show that you're wrong?
All right, well, let's go with a simple one.
So that's what I would ask. I've done this exercise,
and it doesn't work. You know why? Why? Because
there was a guy who didn't believe we went to
the moon. We spent a third of our time in our
last session there. Someone I know who doesn't
believe we went to the moon. Let me just say
he's skeptical. So I said, what kind of evidence
would convince you? He said, images of the landing
site of the Apollo missions. So I said, okay.
Here's a website where we sent... in fact, it
wasn't us, it was the Chinese, I think it was
the Chinese or Europeans, sent a probe, an orbiter
to the moon so that it was close enough, because
ground -based telescopes are not, they don't
have the resolution to see the landing sites.
But if you get close enough to the moon, you
can. It photographed the entire surface of the
moon, and there were the landing sites, and you
saw the rover tracks and the base for the lunar
module. And so that night, he went home and found
it. And then he came back and says, Well, NASA
could have faked that. Well, I'm done with you.
We have no more to talk about. Because he's not
ready to be convinced. Well, that's a weird one.
Because I gave him the evidence he asked for.
Exact evidence. That would convince him, and
it did not convince him. That's a singular event.
I have no other conversation with him. That's
a singular event, which you could say in one
way or another. It is possible that someone could
fake a singular event. They can't fake whether
or not the world's flat. Right? Like that, to
me, is the scariest one. That there's so many
people out there that believe the world is flat.
Because you could literally see the curvature
of the Earth from a plane. I mean, you can get
to parts of the, you look at the images from
the space station where they circle the moon.
Or they circle the Earth, rather. I mean, there's
many, many satellite images of the Earth in its
entirety. And one of the things that the argument
was, is how come every photograph of the Earth
is a compilation of photographs? Well, because
they're all taken from 300 miles up, the Earth
is huge. Yeah, hers is way bigger than 300 miles.
Yeah, you have to take compilations. You have
to. That's the only way to get images of the
Earth. Well, except for the Apollo photo. The
Apollo 17 coming back has the Earth. That's the
famous one that has Africa and Antarctica in
view. It's the full Earth. Very few full Earths.
It's very hard to get a full Earth single photo.
Of course. And when we went to the moon, the
moon missions, when they're coming back, think
about it. To get full Earth. means the sun is
behind the astronauts on the way back to Earth,
which means the side of the moon facing Earth
is not lit. But that's the side of the moon they
came from. So they want to visit the moon while
it's sunlight there. They don't want to need
flashlights when they get to the moon. So they
visit the moon while there's sunlight. Earth,
the view of Earth at that time will not be full.
So Apollo 17 was there long enough so that by
the time they left, The moon was basically a
new moon. Earth was full moon. Earth was full
Earth. And then they got a full Earth photo.
Those packs that they have on their back that
regulate the temperature that allows them to
walk on the surface of the moon when it's 250
degrees above zero? Well, the side that's facing
the sun is more than 200 degrees. And in the
shadow, it drops. 250 degrees below, right? Below,
yeah, yeah, yeah. So can it switch back and forth
between those two environments? What you need?
No, you just insulate. The astronauts insulated.
And so when you're insulated, those temperature
extremes are not felt. They're minimized. And
it's regulated by the pack. Oh, yeah. So it's
a life support. The pack goes warm or cool. It
maintains the temperature. But it's capable,
obviously, of warming and cooling. In the face
of what's going on. It maintains the temperature.
That's how you need to think about it. Okay,
so regardless of what - It's not that it's cooling
one side of you and heating the other side. Right.
It's maintaining a temperature for you. And when
you are in space, like say when they're doing
a space walk on the space station, same thing.
Same thing as being on the surface of the moon.
Because there's no atmosphere. On Earth, you
are in this cocoon, dare I say, of atmosphere.
So all the air in this room is the same temperature.
Because the air can communicate a difference
in temperature to itself, equilibrating it across
the whole room. If you don't have air, then your
temperature is measured by where's the energy
coming from that's hitting you. And if the sun
is hitting you, all that energy will be raising
your temperature and the side of you that's not
facing photons, that temperature will drop. So
you could survive it if you... Put yourself on
a rotisserie. Figure out the right rotation rate.
And even then, you'd have to spin pretty quick
in order to bounce it all out. I have to calculate
that. Yeah, you have to figure out what the right
rate is. Now, when you get in a debate with a
guy like that, a B .O .B. guy. I don't debate
people. Okay. Well, when you discuss, educate.
Because as the saying goes, when an argument
lasts more than five minutes, both sides are
wrong. Well, that's a terrible saying. It's definitely
someone wrong and the other person's stubborn.
It could definitely last for hours. That's not
true at all. It's true 80 % of the time. Oh,
okay. Yeah. But you got into it with that rapper
that thinks that the - I'll tell you why, B .O
.B., because in his Twitter stream, he was saying
he was invoking physics. And so I got to deal
with this. Right. And so he showed a picture
from Bear Mountain, which is a mountain in slightly
upstate New York, where Manhattan is in the sight
line of the summit of this mountain. And he says,
given the curvature of the earth and this formula,
you should not be able to see Manhattan at all.
Okay. It depends on the height that you're viewing
from. Well, thank you. So you do the math, and
it turns out Manhattan, the island, would not
be visible at all. That's true. But any building
taller than 15 stories would rise up above the
curvature of the earth, and you will see it.
And if you look at the photo, you see the tall
buildings rising above 15 stories. It's exactly
what... The correct formula shows. And not his
formula, which was wrong and misinterpreted,
claims to show. Well, it's just bizarre because
snipers have been using the literal curve of
the earth to plan where bullets go. That's how
you plot out. You have to when you shoot at a
mile. When you're shooting well out over 1 ,000
yards, those factors. So let me think. A mile,
I have to ask, how much curvature of the earth
do you get? After a mile, it's an interesting
question. Well, you also get drop. You get drop
and curvature. That would be gravity drop. Yes.
And then curve. Yeah, so both of those. Yeah.
Well, here's a thing to say to someone. If you
have a bullet in your hand and you shoot a gun,
which bullet drops faster? Right. Yeah, generally
they get the wrong answer to that. Yeah, drop
at the exact same rate. They'll hit the ground
at the same time. Exact same time. And that blows
people's minds. They can't believe that's a fact.
But you do that in Physics 101. It's a physics
demo. So that's why physics is so important.
People say, oh, let's take biology and this.
Great, but don't leave out the physics because
that's where the fundamental operations of nature
are to be found, of the physical universe are
to be found. So what you have is you have a gun
at one side. It's like a thing that shoots out
a projectile. I don't want to call it a gun.
At one side of the stage. And then you have like
a little stuffed animal at the other side of
the stage held up with an electromagnet at the
top of its head. And these two are exactly the
same level. As the projectile comes out from
this mini cannon, it trips an electric circuit
that releases the electromagnet at the top of
the stuffed animal. The stuffed animal begins
to fall. The bullet moves horizontally but also
falls because gravity. is pulling them both.
And you watch the projectile curve down, you
watch the stuffed animal curve down, and it hits
the stuffed animal every single time. The only
factor that would change that would be if you
put wings on the bullet and it was dealing with
the wind. Right? Yeah, wind would affect it.
Do they have bullets with wings? I haven't seen
that. No, they don't. Okay. No, but if they did.
Yeah. If you shot the bullet and then they figured
out, clink, and the wings came out. I saw that
on some James Bond movie, I thought. Probably.
Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. It's just got to be frustrating
for you when these things come back around. There
was no flat earth theory when I was in high school.
Well, there are other things, though. Think about
it. When you were in high school, there was much
more astrology going on. Oh, yeah. President
Reagan. Oh, let's talk about that. Nancy Reagan
had an astrologer. You don't see much of it.
Unless you talk to Steve Maxwell. But it's still
there. It's just not manifesting in public policy.
Some people believe in it deeply. I agree. But
it's not up there in public policy. That's what
I'm saying. Okay. Well, Nancy Reagan was really
the only one that made it in public policy. Sure.
But at the bar, do you hear people saying, what's
your sign? Oh, hell yeah. Is that still a pick
-up line? Oh, hell yeah. 100%. Well, no. Let
it not be true. Listen, dude. You're married.
On Tinder. I've not been married. You're an older
man. I'm out of it. Excuse me. You don't understand.
want to get laid, you've got to talk nonsense
to people. Well, I'm a Scorpio, and if you're
a Taurus, we should just stop talking now. I
misled myself. I thought it was fading, but Nancy
Reagan was the big proponent at the time. It's
nonsense astrology now. It's not like someone
who really understands astrological charts and
can plot it and the moon's in retrograde and
you were born and Celsius is rising and all that
crazy crap that they tried. I don't know what
they're doing. I was on a talk show with an astrologer.
A real one? Apparently, yes. She's a real one
or a fake one, right? How do you know? She says
she's real. Okay. And I trust her because she
talks about how fake other astrologers are. Oh,
she's a hater. She's a hater. Don't trust her.
And she was saying that the Kennedys all died
during a lunar eclipse. Oh, scary. You know,
this is a very checkable statement. She just
says this, and everyone's listening and believing.
It's like, wow, that can't be by accident. Well,
I don't know when other Kennedys died, but I
know when Jack Kennedy died, and it was November
22, 1963. So I don't need to know if there's
an eclipse then. I just need to know what phase
the moon is in. Right. Because you can only have
a lunar eclipse when the moon is full. So the
moon was nowhere near full. It was like two weeks
away from full. Even if there was an eclipse...
It didn't happen during Eclipse, is my point.
Right. Okay? So... Of course, because it was
daylight. Well... Well, no, you can have a lunar
eclipse at any time. Oh, man. You can have solar
eclipse at any time, too. It's just not for you.
It's just not for you. It would be for the other
side of the Earth. Somewhere else in the world.
Right, right. Don't be so centric. In fact, when
there's a lunar eclipse, anyone on the side of
the Earth that sees the moon will see the lunar
eclipse. So, by the way, lunar eclipses, you
get several per year. by the way, partial eclipses
as a minimum. And every couple of years, there's
full lunar eclipses. So these are not rare things
to start. They're not rare, okay? So I said,
you know, he was shot when the... I forgot what
moon it was. First quarter moon. And she said,
oh, well, this counts if they're anywhere within
two weeks on either side of the eclipse. What?
That's a month. That's a month out of 12. What?
So I said, let me just shut up here and let her
keep... What did she say? We were sharing the
time. Pharrell had a talk show. We were both
on Pharrell's talk show. And he liked science,
by the way. And he wore a NASA shirt at the...
At the Academy Award group photo. So I've got
to give him some props for that. So I just say
I have nothing more to say here. Hence, my argument
with her lasted less than five minutes. Now,
when they're trying to decide what your personality
would be and what you can dictate from your birth
date and what time you were born, what are they
exactly trying to connect? I had a deeper awareness
of this recently when I learned that people take
the names of things very seriously. Okay? That
names mean things to people, regardless of what
the thing actually is. Okay. Okay? Okay. So what
might we mean by this? So... Let's like astrophysically
I say we have this thing called dark matter.
We don't know what it is Well, it's got to be
some kind of matter. No No, it shouldn't be called
dark matter. It should be called Fred. All right
with no It shouldn't lead you to think anything
about it because we do not know what it is We
should really call it dark gravity. It is it
is gravity that we have measured We don't know
what's causing the gravity just call it dark
matter implies you think it's matter Some people
do, but we don't know. So explain to me, what
is this based on? Like when you say dark matter,
what is it based on? I'd like to just call it
Fred for now. Okay, let's call it Fred. And I'm
saying we don't know what it is. Right. How is
Fred measured? We measure the gravity of this
stuff. Okay. It's out there. It's six times the
gravity of stuff that's ordinary matter. We don't
know where it's coming from. We don't know the
source. We don't know the origin. Is it a parallel
universe? We don't know. And how are we measuring
it? By its effect on the motions of objects.
So a certain strength of gravity will force you
to move at a given speed as you near it and as
you pull away. And we see this in galaxies, galaxy
clusters, binary galaxies. And they measured
entire galaxies that are made completely out
of this FRED. At least 80 % of the force of gravity
manifested in these galaxies is FRED, yes. Why
are they calling it dark matter? They shouldn't,
in my opinion. They should call it dark gravity,
because that's literally what it is. So it's
gravity that cannot be measured, or gravity that's
not completely understood. It's not understood,
correct. So it's mysterious gravity. Or it can't
be completely measured. No, we measure it. But
you can't narrow down what the root of it is.
We measure its gravity precisely. Right. Okay,
so you measure it, but you can't determine the
origin? Because we don't know what it is. Right.
My point is, because someone called it dark matter.
It has swayed everybody into thinking that it
is matter of some kind. It has constrained people's
thoughts about how to think about this problem.
Okay, so now the ancients looked up and they
saw these stars and they put their culture on
the sky. So there's centaurs. There's, you know.
There's a centaur archer, so it's Sagittarius.
We have Orion the hunter. We have Taurus. We
have sea serpents. We have rivers. We have stuff
that mattered to people back then. Okay? We have
Aquarius. What is it? What's the water bearer?
Oh, the water bearer. That must mean that when
the sun is in Aquarius, it's going to rain more
on Earth. Why? Because the ancients called it...
The water bearer. Oh, okay. And all of a sudden,
the name reigns supreme over the fact that it
is a random set of stars, widely separated in
space, that don't even look like people holding
a pitcher of water. Of the 88 constellations,
about six of them look like what you're told
they're supposed to look like. The rest require
opium -induced imagination to establish what
they are. So they all have names. Then you go
to the astrologer's tables and they say, oh,
this is the rain sign or this is a dry drought
sign. And they take the names of things and those
names are what they interpret based on where
the moon is, the sun is, where the planets are
and all whatever the angle configurations there
are. And each angle has a certain latitude over
which they'll count it as a hit rather than as
a miss. And so this gives extraordinary. capacity
of the astrologer to tell you what's going on
in your life. So it's bullshit. But they did
have this real fascinating connection with these
certain constellations and all of the different
things that they thought were attached to these
certain constellations. You know what it would
be like? It would be like a geologist going up
to the border of Colorado trying to understand
the shape as a geologist. Hmm. It's an arbitrary
shape. Colorado is a square on a curved surface.
It's amazing how much confirmation bias is attached
to astrology, though. It's not surrounded by
a river. Yeah, that's right. So Wiki has a great
website on cognitive bias. And there's like 20
or so well -known by every person. This should
be a course called Cognitive Bias 101. Forget
college. Every high school should have a course,
cognitive bias. And that entire course should
be about all the ways we fool ourselves. Don't
you think that would be very important? I've
tweeted this too. Science. The only point of
the scientific method is to make sure you are
not fooled into thinking that something is true
that is not. Or thinking that something is not
true that is. That is the only point. And therefore,
the scientific method could be anything you invent.
Just take better notes. Take a chart recorder.
Be more awake next time you take the data. Bring
a friend to observe it with you. Whatever it
takes to minimize the chances that you will misinterpret
what you're looking at so that you don't think
something is true that is not or think something
is not true that is. Do whatever it takes to
support that. Mission statement. That's what
the scientific method is. And that's what we
do as scientists. And that's why when you bring...
All of these things that people do. So it's the
astrology and the crystal healers and who are
the, quote, therapeutic touch people. Oh, don't
mess with them, dude. That's real. No, that's
real. You don't even understand. I'm a healer.
I'm an intuitive healer. It goes on and on and
on and on. Yeah. And these are the things that
fail in the double blind science. Why do you
do double blind? So you don't fool yourself into
thinking something is true. That's why you do
double blind. And if you don't and you want something
to be true, even if you're surprised by something
that might have been true that you were against,
still you need someone else to check it. And
you only get an emergent scientific truth when
you have agreement among different people's experiments.
So even if you get a result that you're happy
with, it is not yet a scientific truth until
you can confirm it by other people who have no
investment in you. Who don't care about you.
In fact, we're trying to show that you're wrong.
This is what made Einstein so great. Because
no one believed his relativity and they kept
devising ever more accurate experiments to show
he was wrong. And it ended up showing that he
was right by ever higher precision. Do you think
that we're doing ourselves a disservice by not...
teaching people how the mind works, how confirmation
bias works. Shouldn't that be a big part? We're
teaching the wrong things in school. I'm working
on this. In a few years, I'm going to have something.
Why not? Because I'm busy. My kids are in school
right now. I'm busy. Excuse me. I can't be. I
can't. I understand, but let's discuss it because
I think it took me a long time. The curriculum
has to include an entire course on cognitive
bias. Yes. If we are going to emerge as adults,
No longer susceptible to charlatans. Yes. Okay.
Who are either well -meaning and just misguided
or who are explicitly exploiting your ignorance.
And it's a major factor in our culture, a major
factor when it comes to politicians. It's a major
factor when it comes to bosses. It's a major
factor when it comes to how you choose what you
do for a living, how you choose to live your
life. And human interaction with nature itself.
Yeah. I mean, we are constantly trying to manipulate
and control other people's biases, behaviors,
the way they think, the way they act. And we're
very vulnerable in some senses because this is
not something that's taught to us at an early
age. You know, and I think that it takes a long
time to. figure it out on your own. And I've
often thought like, man, why wasn't I explained
this when I was young? Yeah. Cause the curriculum
was, it wasn't thinking about that. Yeah. Well,
we're thinking about just giving people facts
instead of teaching them how to manage your mind
is this vessel into which you pour information
and nowhere. And at no time are we trained how
to turn a fact into knowledge, knowledge into
wisdom. and wisdom into insight. I think that
full sequence needs to be in there in the academic
system. K through 12, 13 through 16, 13, 14,
yeah, college. It's got to be in there somewhere.
Without it, you're just this vessel of facts.
And even the people we call smart in class, these
are people who get A's on everything and they
know everything, but do they have the deepest
insight? Do they really understand what it is
that they're putting back on the test? I don't
think all of them do. I think they have good
short -term memory, some of them, and they do
well on the exams because of that fact. So they're
good at acquiring data and maintaining it. Acquiring
information and then bringing it back. On command.
Not all. Some are deep thinkers, and I don't
want to take that away from them. All I'm saying
is that the curriculum, I think, needs these
other dimensions of survival, really. That's
what it is. It's survival in a world. And when
a scientist says this is true, you can ask, well,
why do you think that's true? Exercise some healthy
skepticism. I don't have a problem with that.
Say because of look at this evidence. Do you
know how to read evidence, by the way? And look
at this evidence. Look at this chart. Look at
this experiment. And this is why we conclude.
overwhelmingly, that this is going to happen
in our future. You pointy -headed scientist,
what do you know? By the way, give me my cell
phone so I can call my grandmother, okay? While
I use GPS satellites to know when to make a left
turn. Right. I'm going to call my astrologist.
To tell them these scientists got their head
up their ass, right? Yeah. Well, I think also
it would be really beneficial to teach people
how to manage perspective and how to look at
life in a way that's going to be beneficial to
you. But we're not really giving them any tools
to manage the mind. Like philosophy. There's
some philosophy classes that can help that. Sure,
but even philosophy. Not all philosophy. Yeah,
it's very rare. Philosophy of just how to think
about decision making and the causes and effects
and consequences. There's not enough of that
either. No. Maybe they're relying on that to
happen at home. But not all homes are intact.
Right. In fact, perhaps most are broken homes
or separated homes. And so I think the school
needs to be rethought. And I'm trying to. think
that through. It'll be a few more years. Well,
anytime you talk about alternative schooling,
people look at you like you're some sort of a
hippie freak who wants your kids to eat granola
and live in the mountains and get their own spring
water. You know what I mean? That's what they
think of when you say alternative schooling.
Right, right. I'll train them at home. Oh, man.
Good luck. As soon as you say homeschooling,
oh, you're a religious nut. I mean, that's immediately
the perception. That's the fastest growing sector
of the homeschooling sector. They don't want
you clouding your head with all that evolution
talk. Right, right, right. Do you ever talk to
that Ken Ham guy? Have you ever sat down with
that guy? No, but Bill Nye has. I mean, Bill
Nye debated him. I mean, I can't debate people.
It's not what I do. You just can't do it. I just
can't do it. It's not what I do. I'm an educator,
and I want to educate you so you can think for
yourself. But then I go away. That's it. To debate
someone implies that whoever is most convincing
is correct. Right. That's not how knowledge works.
Right. It's just too much charisma involved.
Yeah, yeah. It's not how knowledge, whatever
charisma level I have or not have, I don't want
to hinge what is true on that fact. Right. All
right. So I'm an educator. I will teach you the
causes and effects. of knowing what science is
and how and why it works. Which is why it's critical
that you continue to criticize science fiction
movies. It's very important. Don't you back off
now. We need you. There's a lot of people that
wouldn't know that that Chinese space station
is nowhere near the American space station and
that her hair would be moving all over the place.
Her hair would be everywhere. Oh, but my favorite
one is, remember when he's at the end of a tether
and she wants to save him, but she doesn't have
enough oxygen to do it. So he lets go of the
tether and that way, She can't save him before
she can save herself. Right. And then he flies
away. It's like, no. They're like floating in
space. Yeah. He lets go of the tether. It just
stays there in his hand. Yeah. He would be right
there. He would be right there. Nothing. He lets
go. Nothing happened. Wouldn't be like a bungee
cord. Now, if she were swinging him in circles,
and he let go, yeah, he'd fly off at a tangent.
But that's not what was happening. Right. And
nor were they rotating. I would check what they
were relative to Earth below. That was not what
was going on. So, and you know what? She could
have just given a slight tug, and then he would
have drifted towards her. That could have even
been a little romantic. Just a little baby tug.
Yeah. That's it. Yeah, baby tug. would do it
they would slowly drift towards one another no
i hate that movie then the helmets would hit
you know and then that movie makes me mad oh
and then the helmets would break and then they'd
be freezing to death instantly right when you
suffocate you'd suffocate oh that too and then
freeze to death right What movie nailed that?
There was one movie where they were off in space
and they overdid it. Well, there was, people
want you to like explode in space. No, no. I
mean. Well, they want you to freeze solid too
instantly. Yeah, right. No, just no. And even
in, was it Armageddon? Where the sun rose over
the comet and he didn't have his visor down and
he was blinded by the sun. It's like. The same
sun in our daytime sky. The atmosphere doesn't
protect you in any way? The Earth's atmosphere
takes out, you know, a few percent. That's it?
Oh, yeah. A few percent. Well, in the middle
of one daylight at the top of the sky. So you'd
just be squinty. It's a few percent. Now, he'll
get more UV. He'll get more UV. That's important.
Get a little more brown. Yeah, but... Yeah, death
in space is nowhere near as spectacular as movies
would have you think. Yeah, they make it seem
like if you take that helmet off, you just immediately
freeze up. Yeah, yeah. No, no. I mean, you can
go into very... What happens is there's nothing
making you cold other than you radiating heat
from your skin. Oh. So you only get as cold as
quickly as you can radiate away heat. That's
all. So it would take quite a while. Oh, yeah.
You just have no air, so you'd suffocate quicker.
Yeah, you'd suffocate. Oh, yeah, you'd suffocate
long before you saw anything like that happen.
So just think about it. There's nothing touching
you that's making you cold. It has to wait for
you to radiate away. That's what's happening,
okay? And so, yeah, you'll feel very cold very
quickly, but you're not going to die from that
fast. Now, when Stephen Hawking... Oh, by the
way, you also have dissolved gases in your body,
which will try to come... Because in the vacuum
of space, you don't have the air pressure tamping
down. the dissolved gases. So you take away the
air pressure, then the dissolved gases will begin
to bubble out of your blood. And it's the same
problem when you have the bends. When you come
up from low altitude and you go to lesser pressure
around you. So you want to do that slowly so
that it's a very slow thing. But the hazards
of... Why would you... be butt naked in space.
I mean, you're going to have a space suit on.
Well, you just want to prove to everybody that
you can do it. Well, they did it in 2001 in Space
Odyssey. They basically did it right. The guy
without his helmet went through the airlock and
just held his breath. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's
all he did. Oh, well, that's way more reasonable.
Well, because it was a reasonable movie. It was
a reasonable movie. It was a good movie. It had
real advisors. Stanley Kubrick. Well, he was
a really interesting guy, too, because he was
a mathematician. I didn't know that about him,
but I knew he cared about that level of detail.
He used to do complex math for fun. So there's
a failed bit of physics in 2001. You want to
hear it? Oh, yeah. One day I'll talk about 2001.
The monkey suits? The monolith? Which was it?
No, no. So remember when he's... He's on one
of the moon crafts, and he's orbiting the moon,
and they give him food. And there's a tray of
nasty food, obviously. It's like astronaut food.
Remember, this is 1968, so everything here is
a visual taste of the future. So he has another
packet where he extends a straw from that plastic
packet. Okay. Oh, there he is. Excellent. You're
getting a good photo. You're good. Your boy is
good right here. Okay. Yeah, there he is. So
he sucks up the straw. Right. And this is in
zero G, so stuff is floating around. He sucked
up the straw. Then he goes to another straw,
and the liquid in the straw goes back down. Ah.
That's gravity. Oh, they fucked up. Yeah. Ah.
He totally fucked up. No. No, so that one, obviously,
he can't get everything right. But it's fun to
notice the things he couldn't get right or didn't
think to get right. So to me, it's a celebration.
Here's another one. Okay. The rotation rate of
the space station. I calculated that, and I calculated
what g -force would you have on the outer perimeter
of the space station in 2001. And I did the math,
and I forgot the exact number, something like
between 2 and 3 g's. Oh. And I said, why would
you do that? That's stupid. You wouldn't do that.
And I realized if they rotated it at the rate
that would give you 1G, it would be way too slow
to make an interesting scene. So I gave it to
them. I said, I'll give you 3Gs. Because the
Strauss waltz as the thing turns and the space
shuttle that's approaching it matches its rotation
rate with the opening in the center of the space
station. This whole ballet, this entire ballet.
Wow, that's cool again. Happens at a stately
but real pace. Okay. But that pace gives him
a three Gs of gravity. So it's three X the correct
pace. The correct pace would be much slower.
It might have been two and a half, but I forgot
the number. But it's multiples too high. So that
is possible? But if it looks good, so I let him
do it. It looks good. Fine. That's artistic license.
That's Mark Twainian license where he says, first
get your facts straight, then distort them at
your leisure. That is what I'm holding artists
to. So now when you're looking at a space station,
like they're in zero gravity when they're in
the space station. No, they are in 1G on the
edge of the space station. On the edge? Yeah,
on the turning edge. Yeah, that's the whole point.
You mean that thing? I mean a real space station.
Oh, our space station? Oh, so it's 0G. Right.
But it is possible. It's 0G because it is in
free fall towards Earth. So it's constantly in
freefall, but it's just going around the... Yeah,
it's in freefall towards Earth, but it's going
sideways so fast that the amount that it has
fallen equals precisely... The spin of the Earth.
The curvature of the Earth. Uh -huh. Is that
more proof that the Earth is round? Yeah! Is
it? If you've had physics 101, yes. But is it
possible to generate gravity? Yeah. In a space
station. Only if you rotate it. Only if you rotate
it. That's not gravity. It's a simulated gravity.
Right, a simulated gravity. But according to
Einstein, they're indistinguishable from one
another, so you can do it. So it is possible
to do something where you can send people into
deep space and generate gravity through some
sort of rotation? At least two ways. One of them,
you just rotate it. And all the good sci -fi
movies have rotating sections of a space station.
Right. And there's some that have rotating opposite
ways so that they can spin up against one another.
Right. And so there's some clever ideas out there
with space stations of the future. For long voyages.
Because I had Commander Hatfield on the podcast.
Cool. Who came back from space and was talking
about the excruciating difficulty he had readjusting
to gravity after being in a zero gravity environment
for so long. He's just showing off because he's
like setting records for being - Wasn't he like
six months, I believe? Yeah, it was a long time.
He was like, yeah, I couldn't handle life with
you lowly Earth people. He was talking about
his body. Like it took like over a year before
his bone density came back. Well, this is partly
addressed in the film The Martian Kid. He's born
on Mars, comes to Earth. Which one's that? Born
on Mars? Yeah, the kid born on Mars. You've got
to research this, like, now. What's the name
of the movie? Recent? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, The
Space Between Us. Oh, what the hell's that? You've
got to get out more, dude. I do. Yeah. So this
is a Martian colony where the first community.
What movie is this? This came out a couple months
ago. Really? Oh, my gosh. Oh, yeah. Oh, man.
Is this out on iTunes yet? So that's the Martian
colony. And one of the female astronauts they
send, that one there, happens to be, they learn,
is pregnant. And they can't bring her back. And
so she gives birth on Mars. And the first person
who is ever born on Mars. And then they keep
it a secret, and then he comes back as a teenager
that falls in love. See, there's the fetus. So
anyhow, he has a hard time on Earth because his
heart developed in Martian gravity, which is
only 38 % Earth gravity. Oh, wow. And then on
Earth, he just couldn't. They had to figure out
what to do with him. Wow. Yeah, that's on Mars.
The kid was born on Mars. Okay. Yeah. Don't spoiler
alert me, Jamie. Shut that off. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So what were we talking about? Generating gravity.
Yeah, so one way is to rotate it up. Another
way is if you're headed somewhere, you just have
a huge fuel tank and just always run your rockets.
Oh, so you always have G -force. There's always
a G -force. Oh, interesting. So if you accelerate
it 1G. Right. towards a destination, then you'll
always feel Earth's gravity and you'll get there
awesomely fast. But you would have to have so
much fuel or rely on something new. Well, you
need filling stations en route, this sort of
thing. And if you do this, you accelerate 1G
halfway there, then you turn the spaceship around,
then you decelerate at 1G for the other half
of the trip so that when you get there, you're
not whizzing past it in a flyby. Okay? That way
you have 1G the whole trip. That's how you would
do that. Wow. So the momentum when you would
precisely hit halfway there. If you accelerate
it at 1G, oh, my gosh, you hit near the speed
of light very quickly. Whoa. I mean, I forgot.
What is it? I have to calculate it. But it's
the acceleration of Earth's gravity. If you actually
move that fast, that's head snapping. Now, would
they have to have some sort of a crazy propulsion
system in order to do something along those lines?
How fast will 1G get you there? One year. Yeah,
so 1G would take one year. Plus the distance
in light years. Proxima and Centauri, 4 .2 light
years, for example, would take 5 .2 years. So
the distance in light years plus a year. Wow,
that's crazy. So that gets you basically 20.
25 % the speed of light. But what happens if
you just run into stuff on the way? There's a
lot of stuff out there, right? Isn't that a giant
issue in getting to Mars? Well, space is actually
quite empty, but if you do hit something, that's
the end of everything. So it's a low risk, high
consequence. Right. That you got to put in play.
Now, how much of a risk is the space junk that
we've left in the environment? Oh, don't get
me started. We were freaking out the other day
about how many pieces are up there. There's countless
thousands of bits of space junk. Yeah. From chips
of paint that fell off of space. To bolts. To
bolts and nails and. Retro rocket boosters. Yeah,
it's all up there. And I'm wondering whether
we haven't been visited by aliens yet because
they saw the space junk orbiting Earth and said,
forget that. I'm going to visit someone. other
planet i'm gonna risk my life crazy short -sighted
approach to space travel so if you bring up the
nasa orbital debris office website you can actually
see the debris that nasa's tracking basic almost
in real time it's crazy and it's it's like a
beehive around the earth so you got yeah there
it is okay that's the debris around the earth
that actually asked that nasa tracks It was a
failed Japanese experiment to try to... And that
outer ring that you see, that's the altitude
of geosynchronous satellites. And that inner...
There should be a video of that. Yeah, go to
the bottom right. Go to the bottom right. Right
there. Click on that. Play that video. It's not
a video. Why isn't that a video? I'm sure there
is a video somewhere. Yeah, there's a video on
that site. So you can just see... The movement
of these pieces. And so launch windows have to
know when to not hit stuff. Oh, jeez. So when
you have launch windows, it's not just is everything
aligned right. It's will you successfully get
past the debris. And there was a Japanese, they
had an experiment to try to capture it with nets.
It was a recent mission. Oh, yeah. Didn't work.
Yeah. So the problem is the low orbit stuff will
eventually. fall in and burn up. The higher orbit
stuff will never go away. There's nothing to
destroy it. And so they can't capture that stuff?
Well, you need a very clever... The stuff is
moving 18 ,000 miles an hour. So, what's your
net... What are you doing? That's so crazy. Oh,
yeah, there you go. There's the video. Oh, my
God. Go higher res on that. I know there's a
higher res. Oh, God. That's 1080? No, it's not.
It's not from NASA's YouTube panel. It's from
somebody else. Okay, somebody else. So all of
that's debris that you're looking at there. So
anyway, yeah, so your concern for debris is well
placed. And we may be putting so much debris
in space that we will close ourselves off from
space travel because of the dangers it would
take to get through our own garbage heap. That's
so crazy. And this was all started in the 1940s.
1950s? Like, when did they start shooting stuff
up there? Oh, no, 1950s. Sputnik. Yeah. 1957.
That was the first satellite, right? First anything,
yeah. First anything in orbit. Oh, God. In that
short amount of time. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah,
it's like a dumpster. 60 years. Planetary dumpster.
They ruined the whole thing. Ruined the whole
thing. They've had it for billions of years.
60 years, they filled it up with junk. Okay,
there it is. Oh, my God. That's terrifying. Yeah,
that's going around the earth. Oh, my God. All
of that. Oh, my God. And has anybody ever hit
anything while trying to do something? Well,
so what exacerbates it is remember when China,
when was this? 19, 2004, 2003? China destroyed
one of its own satellites. Yeah, what was that
about? I remember some of that. Yeah, yeah. And
they basically did a kinetic kill on a satellite.
So a kinetic kill, for those who don't know,
is you don't need explosives if the speed of
the projectile and its kinetic energy is higher
than the energy that would be in the explosive
shell itself. Oh. So it was a fascinating. calculation
to make so so here it is so I have this delivery
system with a warhead and I put some bomb device
in the warhead and you can calculate how much
energy that is then I send it and it hits and
it blows something up but suppose I send this
thing really really fast really really really
fast I can calculate how much kinetic energy
this thing has there will be a point where I
give it so much kinetic energy the kinetic energy
is greater Than the chemical energy of the conventional
explosive that I put in the warhead. Oh, like
Shoemaker -Levy. Well, for example. I'll give
you a terrestrial example. Okay. It's what we
call a high -speed collision. This is more than
you bargained for in our time together, but I'm
going to tell you. No, it isn't. Okay, you ready?
Perfect. The argument for the longest time that
the craters on the moon were calderas. from volcanoes
and not asteroid impacts. The geologists argue
strenuously these can't be asteroid impacts.
They've got to be calderas, these thousand craters
on the moon. Well, why? Because everyone is a
perfect circle. And if asteroids are coming from
space, they would come from all angles. And if
you come in at a shallow angle, you get an oval.
And even shallower would be more oval. So you'd
have a whole range of circles and ovals and ellipses.
You don't see that. They must be calderas. Explain
a caldera. It's a volcano that explodes and it
leads a crater. Volcanic crater. Like Yellowstone.
Yeah, yeah. It's a volcanic crater. That's all.
And it's a little more poetic, a caldera. But
it's a crater left by a volcano that has exploded.
Like the boom was so big, the mountain's gone,
and now it's just a big hole. Or at the top of
the mountain, there's a crater at the top of
the mountain, like Crater Lake. That's a round
hole in the top of a mountain. Was that once
a volcano? I don't know, but it's a hole. Okay?
So, in the 1970s, we were able to do calculations
with high -speed computers. Good computers. And
what we found was if the object is moving faster,
if the kinetic energy of the object is higher
than the energy that's holding the thing together.
Ooh. Okay. So what's holding together a rock?
The chemical. of the silicon and the oxygen and
the iron, everything that's making the rock,
that's holding it together, you can calculate
how much energy is holding it together. And if
it's going 45 ,000 miles an hour. So write down
that number. Now I send in the asteroid with
a kinetic energy higher than the energy that's
holding it together on impact. it explodes. Because
all that energy goes back into the rock because
the thing isn't moving anymore. Where did the
kinetic energy go? It digs a crater, number one,
by virtue of putting all that energy back into
the stone and that explodes it. So on impact,
even at an angle, it is a singular point explosion.
And that's why every single crater is a perfect
circle. We call that a high -speed impact. Where
the speed is greater. The energy of the speed
is greater than the energy that's holding it
together. That's amazing. Now, you have experience
in this. Okay? Have you ever thrown a... Do this
next... Oh, we're in California. Sorry. Snowballs?
Snowballs. Take a snowball. Go to Big Bear. They
have snowballs up there. And face a barn wall
and throw the snowball at it. And it'll make
a little circular mark on it. Now, change your
angle to the wall. And throw the snowball again.
It'll still make a small round mark. And it'll
keep doing it. You know why? Because the speed
with which you threw the snowball, that energy
is greater than the energy that's holding the
snowball together. Because hardly any energy
is holding the snowball together. It's just loosely
packed snow. So when you do it against the wall,
you see the snowball completely disappear in
a mini snowball explosion, if you will. So this
works for any comparison of projectile speed
and what we call the binding energy of the object
itself. This is why the intercontinental ballistic
missiles never carried conventional warheads.
Because their speed coming out. Of space, because
they leave the atmosphere, go from one continent
to the other, and then they fall out of the sky.
That speed gives them more kinetic energy than
any conventional warhead would have had. Whoa.
But then we figured out how to make small nuclear
warheads. The nukes. Now you're talking energy.
The kinetic energy of the ICBM is not higher
than the nuclear warhead that we now put in.
That's why all ICBMs are nukes. Wow. The V2 rocket
basically didn't need an explosive warhead in
its tip. It came out of the sky going five miles
per second. There was none of this. That implies
you're hearing the thing. It's coming in supersonically.
Whoa. You're sitting there at a cocktail table
on a block, and then the block is obliterated
in the next instant. You didn't even know to
look up. Wow. And they add an explosive anyway.
They probably didn't need to. Now, to go back
to Shoemaker -Levy, that was a comet that slammed
into Jupiter. Now, Jupiter's a gas giant. I've
always been confused as to what that means. Oh,
most of its mass is in the form of gas. Most
of its mass. Oh, yeah, 90 -something percent.
So when Shoemaker -Levy slammed into Jupiter
and made an explosion... It was going so fast,
the gaseous atmosphere was like hitting a brick
wall. Whoa. That's how fast it was moving. So
that's why the explosion was bigger than Earth.
Exactly. So all of its kinetic energy that it
had got put back into the object itself because
it slowed down very quickly relative to its speed.
So here's this comet. I forgot how big Shoemaker
-Levy was. So now it goes into the atmosphere
and you say, oh, isn't it just clouds? Watch
how fast it's going. You can ask the question.
Over how much distance will it plow through its
own mass worth of gas? That's a question, right?
Right. It has to plow that much mass out of the
way. That's an important resistive force, right?
Yeah. So how much atmosphere? That's a lot of
atmosphere because it's gas and this thing is
solid. However, the thing is going, what, 15,
20 miles per second? It's falling into Jupiter
at 20 miles, whatever the speed was. If you go
at 20 miles per second, you will cover that much
atmosphere in a fraction of a second. So in a
fraction of a second, you go from 20 miles per
second to zero. Or to a tiny fraction of that
speed, all that energy has to go somewhere. It
goes back into the system. It's a comet made
of ice. Ice is not held together very easily.
The whole thing explodes on impact. That was
another terrifying... statistic that i read about
the impact that hit the yucatan and killed the
dinosaurs that how deep it had gone into the
earth's surface within the first second oh oh
yeah these are these are numbers that are staggering
once you calculate what they are and like i said
if you come in fast enough earth's atmosphere
is a brick might as well be a brick wall to you
And, by the way, you go 60 miles an hour down
the road, roll down the window, just stick your
hand out the window. You have to use muscle energy
to not have your hand blown backwards against
60 miles an hour of air against your open palm.
Just try that next time. See what kind of energy
that requires. And that's 60 miles an hour. Now
imagine 5 miles per second, 10 miles per second.
20 miles per second. You're toast. How deep did
the asteroid that hit and killed the dinosaurs,
how deep did that thing go in the first second?
Oh, so what was that? That was a 150 -mile diameter
crater, something like that. I forgot the exact
numbers. So there's a relationship between the
depth of the crater and the diameter and the
mass of the thing. So, no, it goes miles down.
I mean, it's... Miles. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well,
let me think. An Earth rang for like a million
years. What happens is, let me take that back.
I don't know if it's miles. I think it was when
I read. I don't remember the exact statistic.
Excuse me. No, no. It's got to go miles down
because the thing is miles. The asteroid itself
was the size of Mount Everest. So the asteroid
itself is like five miles across. So it's deep.
No, you just don't mess with this. By the way,
the crater in Arizona. called Meteor Crater for
obvious reasons, that can sink a 60 -story building.
And that's not even a mile across. And now we're
talking about a crater more than 100 miles across
that took out the dinosaurs. That famous one
in Arizona can sink a 60 -story building? If
you put dirt up to the rim of that crater, you
can bury a 60 -story building. Wasn't that an
instance where, this is your whole calculation
about explosions and about the amount of energy,
they were looking for the... raw materials that
caused that crater. Correct. Because they thought
that they could mine it. Correct. They first
thought it was volcanic, and the geologists thought
it was volcanic again. But one geologist, in
particular Eugene Shoemaker, who was in line
to be on one of the lunar missions, and then
he had like a heart murmur, and then they sent
Jack Schmidt in his stead, who was also a geologist
turned U .S. Senator from Arizona? Where is he
senator from? I forgot. But can you look at Jack
Schmidt, where he was senator from? Forgive me,
because I'm friends with him, so I should have
known that. NASA. Jack Schmidt. S -C -H -M -I
-T -T. There's no D in it. Mexico? Yeah, so I
was right. Oh, I said Arizona, so New Mexico.
But anyhow, he's saying, no, this is an impact
crater. And well, if it's an impact crater, where
is the meteorite? It must be buried down here.
And so there were miners. There were iron miners
who bought the land so they can get this huge
meteor that they were sure was just sitting down
there that they could mine for its natural resource.
They could not find the meteor. That's because
it hit. At high speed velocity. It was a high
velocity impact, which means its collision energy
was greater than the binding energy even of the
iron atoms itself. And 90 % of that thing vaporized
on impact. Wow. Oh, my brain just went like this.
There it is. There it is. Wow. That looks more
impressive even than I remember it. Okay, there
are pieces. That's a nice low angle shot so you
get the shadows of the rim. That's in Arizona.
Where in Arizona? It's near Winslow, Arizona.
Where would that be near? Is that like if someone
wanted to fly in to see that? Oh, here it is.
If you go to the Grand Canyon, then you drive
to this and it's a couple hours, a few hours.
Okay, there's Meteor Crater. I might have to
go. The map is coming up. And where's the Grand
Canyon? There's Meteor Crater. and Grand Canyon,
which is also in Arizona. Flagstaff. You can
drive that. See that? Grand Canyon to Meteor
Crater through Flagstaff. Yeah. So you're not
going to fly that. You just drive it. It has
Yelp reviews? Look at that. Look at that. Look
at that. It's got five stars. You can't Yelp
review a crater. Look at it. Come on now. Look.
Why doesn't it have all the stars? Look. I know
it should have every goddamn star ever. No! Only
3 .9. People are so picky. It's a fucking meteor
crater! It's not that big a deal, man. I could
dig a hole better myself. Oh, by the way, so
this hole was, this meteor crater was dug in
like, you know, a few seconds. This crater was
made. Yeah. Just... And how many years ago was
that? 50 ,000 years ago. That's nothing. Approximately.
Nothing. Wow. There's probably some form of human
living here then. Oh, yeah, yeah, early humans.
Maybe. I don't know if they were in North America
yet. They say 40 ,000 is the most recent, right?
Yeah, it depends on when they crossed the Bering
Strait. Yeah. That's when they would have just
arrived. They would have said, oh, that's cool,
I'm going back. Have you gone to that? Oh, yeah,
multiple times. Oh, yeah. Is it freaky? What's
freaky about it is you walk up to it, you can't
see it because the rim of the crater, it just
looks like a ridge, a ridgeline. Ah. The rim
is raised above the plane of the area, right?
Because when you press down, it raises it up
a bit. So you just walk up to it, and then you
come up to the ledge. And then it's like... And
you realize what it is. This is nearly a mile
diameter hole in the ground. Oh, my God. Oh,
yeah. It's a stunning encounter with the forces
of nature. And the fact that there's so many
of those particles just floating around out there.
That could easily just slam right in? That was
nothing. How big was that one, you think? Oh,
yeah. That was about 20 yards across, something
like that. Oh, my God. That's nothing. That's
nothing. That's it? 20 yards? Yeah, between 20
and 40 yards. 20 yards is the size of this building.
Oh, yeah. That's right. From that garage to that
front door is exactly 19 yards. Yeah. Yeah. Wow.
That's crazy. Right. And that's the kind of thing
that can get close enough that you don't even
see, and then it's too late. Of course, that's
not going to render you extinct. That's not going
to make us extinct, but it'll make a very bad
day for a city. Yeah. Okay? Well, yeah, a city's
done, and most likely the power grid's jacked
for a long time, too. Right. Now - What time
is that? Is my plane left yet? No, you have 10
more minutes. Okay. I had to get the Stephen
Hawking's quote out for you. Stephen Hawking
was talking about the - the possibility of alien
life discovering us and that it would be a terrible,
terrible thing if it did happen. If you look
at what has happened to other primitive life
forms and we discovered them, primitive cultures
and we've discovered them. Do you share that
same opinion that if something did find us? I
don't have a strong opinion on that question,
but I have an analysis of his comment. Okay.
He is worried about the possibility. of aliens
enslaving us based on the reality that we've
done that to ourselves. Yes. Just think about
that. His fear of aliens derives not from actual
knowledge of aliens, but from an actual knowledge
of ourselves. Any time a more advanced civilization
has come upon a less technologically advanced
civilization, it did not bode well for the less
advanced civilization. And that happened in North
America, South America, North America with Europeans,
South America, the Spanish, Australia with the
Brits. It never boded well for the less technologically
advanced civilization. His factual knowledge
of that. leads him to suspect that aliens would
be exactly the same and I I'm not that skeptical
I Don't think all life forms in the universe
have the basil Primal violent attitudes that
we do as a species. I've not been given reason
to think so, but don't you believe that? Things
advance because of competition and competition
forces things to be fairly ruthless. It has been
argued that if you colonize, if you're a civilization
that colonizes the galaxy, that it's a self -limiting
exercise. Why? Because here you go. You ready?
We start here on Earth. It's you and me, boy.
All right? And you take that planet. I take this
planet. And now we both have offspring that are
just like us. And we want more planets. All right?
We reach a point where expansion is not possible
because we are warring with ourselves to gain
the territory that each other has obtained. So
it has been argued sociologically. that the very
act of wanting to colonize is self -limiting
against successful colonization of the galaxy.
Because to colonize the galaxy, it has to be
done in an organized way. You take this sector,
I take this sector. But if I want territory and
I want it now, and my kids want it now, I want
that territory, not this other one. In fact,
I want it all. That kind of attitude breeds violence.
It breeds war. intragalactic war. So it may be
that the very kind of civilization that could
peacefully colonize a galaxy is not the kind
of civilization that would colonize the galaxy
at all. Oof, that's heavy. Very heavy. What about
the idea that any advanced... That's my first
comment about Stephen Hawking. He made another
comment about we should be a multi -planet species
to protect ourselves. against an asteroid rendering
one extinct. It makes a good headline, and it
sounds like it makes sense, but I'm not there
with it. Yeah, of course I want it. Back up.
Of course. Let's be a multi -planet species.
Fine. But I would do it for different reasons.
I would do it because it's cool, not because
I want to protect. human species from extinction.
No, that wouldn't be the reason to do it. Can
I tell you why? Please. List every reason why
you think we go extinct. One, we trash Earth.
And we can't live off of it anymore. An asteroid
is coming. There's some nanobot gone astray.
Okay? Pandemic. Virus pandemic. Okay. So, it
seems to me that if... We want to be a multi
-planet species. Mars would be the one because
it's a 24 -hour day. It's got seasons. We would
have to terraform it first, but then we all move
there. We'd just ship a billion people there.
Here's my point. Whatever it takes to terraform
Mars and ship a billion people there, it's got
to be easier to deflect the asteroid. Whatever
it takes to terraform Mars to turn it into Earth.
If you had the power of geoengineering to do
that, then you have the power of geoengineering
to turn Earth back into Earth. But there are
occasionally things that we miss, right? Because
of the way that... So you say, okay, whatever
it takes to geoengineer Mars and ship a billion
people there, it's got to be easier to create
a perfect viral serum that makes us immune to
all possible disease. That's got to be easier.
Whatever that takes. But isn't it possible that
there's some asteroids that we just will not
see until it's too late? Then you put up, whatever
that takes. That's what I'm saying. I mean, whatever.
Terraform Mars and ship a billion people there.
A billion. Why? Of course. Why wouldn't it be?
What, are you going to put ten people there?
That's not good. You want to split your species.
Right. Okay? And if... An asteroid is coming
that you can't deflect, which would surprise
me if you could ship a billion people to Mars.
You just let them all die? Is that what you plan
to do? You're going to let all the Earth people
die and the Mars people survive just so you can
save this people? Don't save everybody. I'm not
buying into the premise, this cable car -ology
premise, that you have to save one to not save
the other. You know cable car -ology. I see what
you're saying. The cable car, you know, someone's
in the tracks. You let them go. You let them
go. You steer it out of the way, but then you
actively kill two people instead of passively
killing one person. What do you do? I'm not buying
into that premise for this question. I'm simply
saying. That whatever it takes, it's got to be
easier to put up some kind of net that finds
any asteroid that could possibly harm us and
zaps them out of the sky. It's got to be easier.
This is the last question. Is it possible that
the reason why we are never visited by extraterrestrials
is because the way civilizations advance? It's
because of the space debris. One. Two. Is it
because the way civilizations... They have visited.
They visited during Comic -Con. Nobody noticed.
They don't like cosplay. Three. We're out of
here. Their costumes weren't as good as ours.
Okay. Three. Three. Three. They've observed us
and judged there's no sign of intelligent life
on Earth. Okay, but is there another possibility
that civilizations don't ever get to travel like
that? Because what happens is as they advance
and as their technology advances, they become...
Instead of a biological entity seeking to spread
its genetics throughout the universe, they become
some sort of symbiotic artificial life that as
they create, as they advance their technology
and as they continue to innovate, they reach
a limitation in biology and that eventually create
artificial life that sees no desire whatsoever
to travel. Oh, interesting. So I would say that's
a great philosophical question. The day we create
AI, if the AI is everything we are except more.
And not emotional. Then it would have an urge
to explore. Maybe. Otherwise, then it's not us.
But wouldn't it create those doors like in Monsters,
Inc. and start going dimension to dimension instead
of fucking around with jets? With chemical jets?
Yeah. Right, right, right, right, right. Yeah,
they figure out the fourth dimension. Yeah, wouldn't
that be the best way to do things? And then they
figure it out. And then they would figure out
a way to travel better than any way we could.
But if the fact that we want to travel and we're
creating versions of ourselves called AI. I don't
see why AI wouldn't want to travel. But why would
it be curious? If AI... If it is us, this is
my point. Then it's not... Well, if we create
every neurosynaptic map of our brain into silicon,
into a computer, and recreate our consciousness
as humans... The human brain. But wouldn't that
be just one version of AI? Sure. Wouldn't there
be like an infinite version of AI that AI could
create itself? It could. And why would it limit
itself to all of our emotions and sexual desires
and jealousy and all the ridiculous things that
are holding us back? It could. Sure. Sure. Now,
I'm not as fearsome of AI as others are. You
know when we're not gonna make an AI looking
human being because a human form is not the best
or ideal form for anything Did you see X Machina?
Yes, I do love it Good good moments. You didn't
love it. No, it was good. I loved it I want to
marry it. You want to marry it. Oh, okay. Well,
that's the first thing you use. It's the sex
bot. No, it's not even that. That's where the
money will be for sure. For sure. Yeah, for sure.
But I'm just saying it's one of my favorite movies.
I want to marry the movie. It's just an awesome
movie. So then marriage would no longer be about
sex or just be about reproduction because you
just go to your room with your sex bot. Well,
I'm hoping that that's one of the first things
that people figure out they shouldn't do anymore.
Once they get smart enough to symbiotically attach
themselves to artificial intelligence. I was
watching, what was it, Family Feud? feud one
of the questions was uh if you're we asked 100
married women if you could have a second husband
for only one purpose what would it be something
like 70 of them that said just for sex whoa damn
a second husband for only one purpose just just
for getting stuffed just just sex so that's a
fucking wake -up call for a lot of dudes out
there a lot of guys Let's end on that. Neil deGrasse
Tyson, astrophysics for people in a hurry, due
out in May. Thank you so much, sir. You're a
gentleman and a scholar. Love you, man. I love
you, too, brother. Thank you so much for coming
here, and thank you anytime. Open invitation.
Call me up. Middle of the night. Come down here.
We'll open it up. And you've got to wake him
up. He'll do it. He's down. He loves you, too.
All right. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.