WEBVTT 00:00:02.040 --> 00:00:09.060 Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. 00:00:10.320 --> 00:00:12.740 StarTalk begins right now. 00:00:13.920 --> 00:00:15.480 Welcome to StarTalk. 00:00:15.500 --> 00:00:27.280 I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, and I've got with me my co-host, Chuck Nice, and this is a special edition of Cosmic Queries brought to you in partnership with PocketLab. 00:00:27.660 --> 00:00:36.640 These are people that find all manner of reasons to gather together thousands of teachers around the world, which they did for this special live stream. 00:00:37.580 --> 00:00:40.120 And this presentation was called Science is Cool. 00:00:40.320 --> 00:00:44.480 We took their cosmic questions and turned it into a StarTalk Cosmic Queries. 00:00:44.820 --> 00:00:45.320 Check it out. 00:00:47.860 --> 00:00:49.900 Hey, everybody in Virtual Universe. 00:00:50.980 --> 00:00:52.900 And hi, Dave, good to be with you guys again. 00:00:53.240 --> 00:00:54.820 Guys, it's great to have you again. 00:00:54.840 --> 00:00:59.980 And, you know, as a testament to how much the audience really enjoys this, we got over 1,000 questions. 00:01:00.520 --> 00:01:01.400 Can you imagine that? 00:01:01.420 --> 00:01:02.600 Yeah, we'll just go fast. 00:01:02.720 --> 00:01:03.460 We'll go and think about it. 00:01:04.180 --> 00:01:05.140 Yeah, soundbite mode. 00:01:05.140 --> 00:01:06.260 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:01:06.280 --> 00:01:08.480 People love to ask you guys questions. 00:01:08.500 --> 00:01:12.380 So I'm going to hand it off to you guys, and I'll be back on towards the end. 00:01:12.600 --> 00:01:13.100 All right. 00:01:13.120 --> 00:01:13.580 Excellent. 00:01:13.740 --> 00:01:14.280 Thanks, Dave. 00:01:14.760 --> 00:01:16.320 Okay, so Chuck. 00:01:16.500 --> 00:01:17.080 Hey, buddy. 00:01:17.600 --> 00:01:18.880 Yeah, good to see you again. 00:01:19.040 --> 00:01:20.720 Always a pleasure without a doubt. 00:01:20.740 --> 00:01:21.840 You're in LA right now, right? 00:01:22.180 --> 00:01:23.420 I am in Los Angeles. 00:01:23.440 --> 00:01:24.280 And I'm in New York. 00:01:24.280 --> 00:01:27.000 So, we got the whole country spread there. 00:01:27.020 --> 00:01:29.480 We got the country blanketed from end to end. 00:01:29.700 --> 00:01:30.360 End to end. 00:01:30.360 --> 00:01:33.220 Science, we have science across America right now. 00:01:33.240 --> 00:01:34.380 Science across America. 00:01:34.400 --> 00:01:42.940 And we've got many international viewers from, you know, I was going to say international from other countries, but of course, that's what that means. 00:01:43.220 --> 00:01:44.060 I got you. 00:01:44.080 --> 00:01:45.180 You know, we really need, we need. 00:01:48.140 --> 00:01:54.000 When the Flat Earthers had a conference, it was, they were boasting that they had flat earth supporters all around the globe. 00:01:57.960 --> 00:01:59.820 Yeah, it should have been all around the disk. 00:02:00.160 --> 00:02:00.800 The disk. 00:02:00.960 --> 00:02:05.820 Thank you, Flat Earthers. 00:02:05.840 --> 00:02:06.840 So you got to stop. 00:02:06.860 --> 00:02:07.940 So, so let's hit them. 00:02:07.960 --> 00:02:09.860 I mean, I won't necessarily know the answers to these. 00:02:09.860 --> 00:02:13.640 I mean, I, you know, people, these aren't even constrained by topic, right? 00:02:13.760 --> 00:02:17.080 They're just whatever, whatever people want to ask you. 00:02:17.100 --> 00:02:18.020 This is my favorite. 00:02:18.040 --> 00:02:19.020 This is when I like it. 00:02:19.160 --> 00:02:24.720 You know, when people just come out and they ask you whatever is on their mind. 00:02:25.280 --> 00:02:26.460 Just galactic gumbo. 00:02:26.500 --> 00:02:26.800 Yeah. 00:02:26.820 --> 00:02:27.380 Yeah. 00:02:28.040 --> 00:02:28.620 That's right. 00:02:28.640 --> 00:02:29.620 Guaranteed. 00:02:29.640 --> 00:02:30.540 Galactic gumbo. 00:02:35.560 --> 00:02:38.860 Does everyone who make gumbo speak like that? 00:02:42.180 --> 00:02:42.600 All right. 00:02:42.620 --> 00:02:43.240 Well, let's get to it. 00:02:43.260 --> 00:02:43.720 Give it to me. 00:02:43.760 --> 00:02:44.420 Here we go. 00:02:44.420 --> 00:02:45.320 Bring it on. 00:02:46.200 --> 00:02:52.180 Speaking of international, man, why not let's start this from a little further down south. 00:02:52.200 --> 00:02:54.140 Let's go to Bogota, Colombia. 00:02:54.360 --> 00:02:55.160 Bogota. 00:02:55.560 --> 00:02:59.020 And just before we begin, let me just establish my credentials here. 00:02:59.040 --> 00:03:01.920 I don't normally do this, but there might be new people to this. 00:03:01.940 --> 00:03:06.520 And I just want to say, okay, so I have an undergraduate degree in physics. 00:03:07.340 --> 00:03:10.060 I have a PhD in astrophysics. 00:03:10.940 --> 00:03:14.920 I'm widely read on many current scientific topics. 00:03:15.380 --> 00:03:19.160 I have various hobbies that inform back into my work. 00:03:19.800 --> 00:03:26.660 And I count myself as a lifelong learner ever since I graduated, ever since I exited school. 00:03:27.100 --> 00:03:32.280 So any day that goes by where I don't learn something, for me, feels like a wasted day. 00:03:32.740 --> 00:03:47.280 So often when I'm given answer, I'm pulling from different places in my portfolio of knowledge and expertise, which can flesh out an answer, make the answer a little more memorable to you if I add a pop culture reference. 00:03:48.600 --> 00:03:52.760 I spend some time thinking about pop culture, which folds back into this. 00:03:52.760 --> 00:03:53.640 So there you have it, Chuck. 00:03:53.720 --> 00:03:55.540 And if I don't know the answer, I'm just going to say I don't know. 00:03:55.780 --> 00:03:56.540 Okay, that's cool. 00:03:56.560 --> 00:03:59.520 And I guess I should give my credentials too. 00:03:59.900 --> 00:04:10.020 I have read every issue of Scientific American this year, and that's it. 00:04:11.840 --> 00:04:13.740 Jamie Cardozo wants to know this. 00:04:13.980 --> 00:04:16.020 This is a great question. 00:04:16.680 --> 00:04:24.660 Neil, what is the most beautiful and inspiring process in space? 00:04:25.240 --> 00:04:26.800 Wow. 00:04:28.200 --> 00:04:29.760 We're starting off, we're going yard. 00:04:30.620 --> 00:04:31.100 Let's go deep. 00:04:33.140 --> 00:04:38.560 Okay, by the way, most of our listeners might not be American, so we're not going yard, we're going meter. 00:04:40.220 --> 00:04:44.080 Going yard is an American football expression for either going... 00:04:44.100 --> 00:04:45.580 No, going yard, that's basketball. 00:04:45.920 --> 00:04:48.260 No, going yard is baseball for your... 00:04:48.260 --> 00:04:49.960 Baseball for going out of the yard. 00:04:50.200 --> 00:04:50.760 There you go. 00:04:51.580 --> 00:04:52.640 Oh, it's hitting out of the... 00:04:52.700 --> 00:04:54.500 Out of the ball yard, yeah. 00:04:54.500 --> 00:04:56.100 Oh, it's not how many yards away it is. 00:04:56.120 --> 00:04:56.520 No. 00:04:56.540 --> 00:04:57.260 Okay, fine. 00:04:57.580 --> 00:04:59.520 But anyway, so I would say... 00:04:59.540 --> 00:05:00.420 What a great question. 00:05:00.580 --> 00:05:01.860 I would say on Earth... 00:05:03.160 --> 00:05:13.160 Well, I'll go out into space in a minute, but I would say on Earth, on everyone's bucket list, especially since in modern times, there's more traveling around the world than ever before. 00:05:13.760 --> 00:05:20.680 It used to be really rare if you left your country and went to another country, or if you got on an airplane, that was a newsworthy event. 00:05:20.700 --> 00:05:23.420 Now, it's a little more common, it's more affordable. 00:05:24.540 --> 00:05:28.740 On everyone's bucket list should be to bear witness to a total solar eclipse. 00:05:30.880 --> 00:05:37.860 By happenstance, the size of the moon on the sky is the same as the size of the sun on the sky. 00:05:38.480 --> 00:05:45.080 Of course, the sun is much, much bigger, but it's also, the sun is 400 times bigger and it's 400 times farther away. 00:05:45.720 --> 00:05:49.480 So they exactly cancel out, so that they're the same size on the sky. 00:05:49.700 --> 00:05:54.660 So the moon passes in front of the, you can't see the moon, because you're observing the backside of it. 00:05:54.680 --> 00:05:56.360 It's the other side that's lit up by the sun. 00:05:56.540 --> 00:05:59.760 In broad daylight, the sun looks like it's like it starts to disappear. 00:05:59.780 --> 00:06:02.760 And then the sun does disappear. 00:06:02.780 --> 00:06:08.200 You have the beautiful Corona, not the Corona virus, just the Corona, which is Latin for crown. 00:06:09.260 --> 00:06:12.200 And it lasts only a few minutes. 00:06:12.460 --> 00:06:14.960 So you travel all this way, and there's the anticipation. 00:06:14.980 --> 00:06:24.020 It's like a cosmic pilgrimage to participate in one of the great spectacles of the universe, a total solar eclipse. 00:06:24.040 --> 00:06:29.160 I've seen two, one when I was 14, the first time I saw one. 00:06:29.680 --> 00:06:33.020 And I saw the one that came across the United States just a few years ago. 00:06:33.380 --> 00:06:36.180 But total solar eclipses happen every couple of years. 00:06:36.760 --> 00:06:37.920 So they're not rare. 00:06:37.940 --> 00:06:42.320 By the way, practically every news article on eclipse, they say rare eclipse coming by. 00:06:42.500 --> 00:06:43.180 No, they're not. 00:06:43.560 --> 00:06:44.880 They happen every couple of years. 00:06:44.980 --> 00:06:48.340 You don't say rare World Cup is being played this year. 00:06:48.680 --> 00:06:50.800 No, it happens, that happens every four years. 00:06:50.820 --> 00:06:52.840 Eclipses are more common than the World Cup. 00:06:53.200 --> 00:07:05.800 Okay, so, but newspaper people and many other people want to believe that you're experiencing something that never happens ever, and it's just happening in your lifetime when you happen to be here on Earth. 00:07:06.100 --> 00:07:08.660 No, the point is eclipse paths are very narrow. 00:07:09.360 --> 00:07:14.500 So, you gotta put in some effort to get in the path of the moving shadow, all right? 00:07:15.060 --> 00:07:17.700 And usually it's in some exotic, interesting place in the world. 00:07:17.920 --> 00:07:19.720 Use that as an excuse to travel. 00:07:19.980 --> 00:07:23.880 So for me, it is beautiful, it is elegant, it drives you to poetry. 00:07:24.500 --> 00:07:33.820 And beyond that, if I could go anywhere in the universe, I would watch the collision of two galaxies, but have it happen in my own time scale. 00:07:33.840 --> 00:07:37.860 Because it typically takes a half a billion years and I don't live that long. 00:07:38.300 --> 00:07:43.160 So the next best thing we have are colliding galaxies on a computer, because you can speed up time. 00:07:43.500 --> 00:07:46.080 Go Google colliding galaxies. 00:07:46.240 --> 00:07:55.680 And oh my gosh, it's like a cosmic ballet choreographed by the forces of gravity as two spiral galaxies intersect. 00:07:55.920 --> 00:07:59.480 And they feel each other's gravity completely across their diameter. 00:07:59.720 --> 00:08:02.780 And so the whole galaxy begins to distort. 00:08:03.260 --> 00:08:11.100 And then they overpack, they overtake each other, they pass through each other, and then they come back and then they oscillate. 00:08:11.760 --> 00:08:13.240 We have these simulations. 00:08:13.480 --> 00:08:17.620 Go look on, go Google it colliding galaxies. 00:08:18.060 --> 00:08:20.520 And you'll get some of the most beautiful simulations there ever was. 00:08:20.700 --> 00:08:25.160 I'd like to see that just dangling out there in space and live long enough to just watch it happen. 00:08:25.400 --> 00:08:26.600 So there you have it. 00:08:26.720 --> 00:08:27.400 There you go. 00:08:27.580 --> 00:08:33.280 And thank you very much, Neil, for explaining where baby galaxies come from. 00:08:34.540 --> 00:08:37.860 No, it's where train wrecked galaxies end up. 00:08:38.040 --> 00:08:43.140 They start out as two beautiful spiral galaxies and they end up quite the mess when they're not. 00:08:43.460 --> 00:08:46.060 And their black holes typically merge in the middle. 00:08:46.220 --> 00:08:50.400 So they now have a monster black hole that's twice the monster it used to be in either one. 00:08:50.760 --> 00:08:52.240 So yeah, so there you have it. 00:08:52.320 --> 00:08:58.780 I'm just saying the imagery is very reminiscent of procreation. 00:08:59.580 --> 00:09:00.020 Really? 00:09:00.820 --> 00:09:01.400 Cosmic. 00:09:01.680 --> 00:09:03.140 Cosmic procreation. 00:09:03.160 --> 00:09:07.820 Even though that's not, I mean, I know stars come out of nurseries, you know, and there's stellar nurseries. 00:09:07.840 --> 00:09:10.800 But there are baby galaxies, they're called satellite galaxies. 00:09:10.820 --> 00:09:11.380 We have two. 00:09:11.920 --> 00:09:15.000 They're less than a tenth the mass of our own galaxy. 00:09:16.020 --> 00:09:19.160 And they, they're called the Magellanic Clouds. 00:09:19.180 --> 00:09:25.740 They're not really clouds, but that's evidence of what they thought they were when they were first observed, you know, 500 years ago. 00:09:25.760 --> 00:09:36.280 When telescopes revealed that what they thought was a cloud resolved into a pastiche of stars that are a collection of stars that orbit our own galaxy. 00:09:36.320 --> 00:09:36.820 Sweet. 00:09:37.060 --> 00:09:42.780 And our evidence shows that galaxies, over time, actually end up eating them. 00:09:43.240 --> 00:09:46.300 So we don't call it galactic procreation, we call it galactic cannibalism. 00:09:46.820 --> 00:09:47.020 Oh. 00:09:47.360 --> 00:09:49.780 You can Google that, galactic cannibalism. 00:09:49.940 --> 00:09:50.420 All right. 00:09:50.440 --> 00:09:51.120 All right, give me another. 00:09:51.180 --> 00:09:53.880 Okay, let's go to, okay. 00:09:54.200 --> 00:09:56.980 Yo, let's keep it international right here. 00:09:58.180 --> 00:10:03.480 Hafez Mertsa, Hafez Mertsa, coming to us from Malaysia. 00:10:03.880 --> 00:10:08.300 I'm gonna apologize in advance for Chuck's inability to pronounce anybody's name. 00:10:08.480 --> 00:10:09.220 He tries. 00:10:09.660 --> 00:10:11.960 Listen, I know it's not your name, but here's the thing. 00:10:12.400 --> 00:10:13.620 Now you got a better name. 00:10:14.280 --> 00:10:17.120 No, no, you got a name, a Chuckified name. 00:10:17.220 --> 00:10:19.740 They'll decide whether it's better, okay? 00:10:20.020 --> 00:10:21.080 It's got Chuckified. 00:10:21.100 --> 00:10:21.520 That's right. 00:10:21.540 --> 00:10:22.700 All right, here we go. 00:10:22.720 --> 00:10:24.420 But he's trying, just everyone to know. 00:10:24.620 --> 00:10:25.880 I love this. 00:10:26.260 --> 00:10:30.880 How does astronomy help civilization? 00:10:46.840 --> 00:10:49.580 Okay, so let me get base on you here, okay? 00:10:49.620 --> 00:10:50.040 All right. 00:10:50.540 --> 00:11:05.860 Everyone I know who dropped out of astrophysics graduate school and did not complete a PhD, okay, earns at least three times more money than any of the rest of us. 00:11:07.520 --> 00:11:19.680 So the talent, the skill set that you have as an astrophysicist, it's problem solving, it's mathematics, it's programming, it's taking large sets of data and making sense of it. 00:11:19.980 --> 00:11:24.760 That's hugely valuable in many other fields that are out there. 00:11:24.960 --> 00:11:33.120 In fact, Michael Bloomberg, the multi-billionaire turned mayor of New York City, one-time candidate for president of the United States. 00:11:33.440 --> 00:11:43.140 Michael Bloomberg studied physics and astronomy in college and engineering. 00:11:44.060 --> 00:11:49.080 And so then he went and left that and went to Wall Street. 00:11:49.420 --> 00:11:52.380 He became the youngest partner at Solomon Brothers. 00:11:52.960 --> 00:11:56.720 The youngest partner and his parents said, but you're not using your science degree. 00:11:56.980 --> 00:12:01.460 And then he left and founded his own company called Bloomberg Financial Markers. 00:12:01.580 --> 00:12:04.060 And his mother said, but you're not using your science degree. 00:12:04.200 --> 00:12:07.700 Then he turned that into a billion-dollar multinational corporation. 00:12:08.020 --> 00:12:09.520 But you're not using your science degree. 00:12:09.540 --> 00:12:13.800 And the fact is, he was using his science degree the entire time. 00:12:14.240 --> 00:12:22.140 Don't think that when you go to college or study in a graduate school that the specific knowledge is what you're applying. 00:12:22.360 --> 00:12:24.480 No, no, no. 00:12:24.500 --> 00:12:28.640 You go to school to learn how to think, okay? 00:12:29.060 --> 00:12:31.460 And I can give another example that's not even in the sciences. 00:12:31.600 --> 00:12:37.700 Let's say you're in an English class or a history class, and you write a paper on Napoleon, okay? 00:12:37.940 --> 00:12:42.620 Yeah, you'll know a lot about Napoleon, but really that's not what will matter later on. 00:12:43.000 --> 00:12:46.660 What will matter later on is that you took a topic that you knew nothing about. 00:12:46.780 --> 00:12:47.800 You researched it. 00:12:47.920 --> 00:12:54.700 You composed words, paragraphs, ideas into coherent arguments, thoughts, analysis. 00:12:55.520 --> 00:12:58.640 That's what you retain when you exit school. 00:12:58.700 --> 00:13:00.320 In fact, you know what wisdom is? 00:13:00.880 --> 00:13:06.120 It's what's left over after you've forgotten all the details of what you were taught in the classroom. 00:13:07.080 --> 00:13:07.860 That's wisdom. 00:13:08.860 --> 00:13:13.200 So, that was just for people who didn't become astrophysicists, all right? 00:13:13.340 --> 00:13:21.320 For those who do, there's a long history of the relationship between governments and astronomers. 00:13:22.320 --> 00:13:23.540 I wrote a whole book on this. 00:13:23.540 --> 00:13:26.800 It sounds like a plug for my book, but you asked the question. 00:13:26.980 --> 00:13:29.560 Hey, you all asked the question, okay? 00:13:30.420 --> 00:13:37.320 Yeah, and it's a weird thing because if you know the sky, that's the earliest form of navigation there was, right? 00:13:37.580 --> 00:14:04.900 If you're going to sail to explore, to conquer, for whatever is your good or bad reasons why a country might want to explore beyond its borders, you need to know where you are on Earth and what time it is, and both of those factors come to you by an understanding of the night sky, and it goes way back into indigenous peoples and what they did from Australia to the Polynesians to Native Americans, and it goes way back. 00:14:05.520 --> 00:14:06.260 Navigation. 00:14:06.500 --> 00:14:16.440 Some of the greatest navigational tools come from some of the oldest culture in the Middle East, in my museum, in my office. 00:14:17.440 --> 00:14:23.040 I have an astrolabe, and there it is, multiple disks that you put on, depending on where you are. 00:14:23.180 --> 00:14:28.020 You hold it up, and there's a weight at the bottom, and it's a beautifully carved Arabic in the brass. 00:14:28.860 --> 00:14:31.720 People were doing this navigating in the dunes. 00:14:32.180 --> 00:14:32.700 You know why? 00:14:32.720 --> 00:14:39.600 Because there wasn't a street corner to say, okay, this is north and this is south, and I'm going to find grandma's house. 00:14:39.880 --> 00:14:50.720 So the value of what an astrophysicist brings to the world is not so obvious to someone just thinking, oh, do you build a gadget that I can now buy in the store? 00:14:51.000 --> 00:15:00.060 We are enabling the world to function in ways that might otherwise feel and seem hidden. 00:15:00.500 --> 00:15:06.620 And by the way, this is just spillage from the rest of what we do, which is talking about black holes and quasars. 00:15:06.640 --> 00:15:09.940 Oh, by the way, some of us actually are studying asteroids. 00:15:10.220 --> 00:15:14.720 In fact, we just did a stop-and-go on an asteroid just a few days ago. 00:15:15.000 --> 00:15:15.500 Why? 00:15:15.780 --> 00:15:19.620 To kick up some dust, scoop it up, bring it back to Earth and study it. 00:15:20.340 --> 00:15:29.260 We have wars on Earth, fighting over natural resources, over limited natural resources that are basically unlimited on asteroids. 00:15:30.120 --> 00:15:35.400 So if you're one of these people who say, why are we down up there when we should be focusing down here? 00:15:35.420 --> 00:15:36.540 You know what you sound like to me? 00:15:37.000 --> 00:15:38.580 You're like the person in the cave. 00:15:39.500 --> 00:15:44.720 And I'm looking out the door, I peek out the door and I say, wow, there's a mountain over there and there's valleys and there's streams. 00:15:44.880 --> 00:15:45.920 No, you can't explore. 00:15:46.080 --> 00:15:47.240 We have cave problems. 00:15:47.360 --> 00:15:49.060 Let's solve the cave problems first. 00:15:49.300 --> 00:15:51.180 Then I'll let you exit the front door. 00:15:51.700 --> 00:15:59.360 That's what you sound like if you are trying to say, this is a luxury, we have to do the important things here on earth. 00:16:00.080 --> 00:16:01.100 Wow. 00:16:01.120 --> 00:16:03.560 I'm sorry I get all screaming at you. 00:16:03.800 --> 00:16:05.060 Don't worry. 00:16:05.080 --> 00:16:05.760 It's all good stuff. 00:16:05.780 --> 00:16:06.820 I'm all in the lens. 00:16:06.840 --> 00:16:07.820 Yes, exactly. 00:16:09.260 --> 00:16:09.820 I love it. 00:16:11.380 --> 00:16:17.180 It's the same fervor that you hear from the guy on the street corner in New York City telling everybody that we're all going to die. 00:16:17.360 --> 00:16:20.440 But for some reason from you, it works. 00:16:21.900 --> 00:16:23.240 Plus, I'm not saying we're all going to die. 00:16:23.260 --> 00:16:29.880 I'm going to say the methods and tools of science actually provide us power over many things that would otherwise kill us. 00:16:30.240 --> 00:16:30.740 Excellent. 00:16:33.020 --> 00:16:37.420 We've got to take a quick break, but when we come back, more Cosmic Queries on StarTalk. 00:16:45.020 --> 00:16:49.480 Hey, I'm Roy Hill Percival, and I support StarTalk on Patreon. 00:16:49.820 --> 00:16:55.420 Bringing the universe down to Earth, this is StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson. 00:16:55.440 --> 00:16:55.560 Thanks for watching. 00:17:02.095 --> 00:17:03.715 Welcome back to StarTalk. 00:17:04.255 --> 00:17:12.015 In this special Cosmic Queries edition, in partnership with PocketLab, it's drawn from a live stream that occurred recently. 00:17:12.575 --> 00:17:16.155 And in it, we fielded questions from educators around the world. 00:17:16.575 --> 00:17:17.095 Check it out. 00:17:20.695 --> 00:17:22.175 All right, let's keep it moving. 00:17:23.235 --> 00:17:24.115 Let's do it. 00:17:24.235 --> 00:17:27.055 Let's switch gears and come back to the United States. 00:17:27.075 --> 00:17:29.275 We'll now come back to our first US question. 00:17:29.535 --> 00:17:32.215 This is David Wilkerson from Kentucky. 00:17:32.555 --> 00:17:35.015 And David would like to know this. 00:17:35.035 --> 00:17:36.135 He's a science teacher. 00:17:36.155 --> 00:17:39.735 He says, misinformation is so prevalent in the media. 00:17:41.195 --> 00:17:47.855 How can science teachers better train students to see through the noise? 00:17:48.055 --> 00:17:50.675 This is a great question and an important question. 00:17:50.755 --> 00:17:56.595 And so I'm still, I have ideas that are still in the oven right now, baking. 00:17:56.615 --> 00:17:58.955 So technically that makes them half baked. 00:17:59.535 --> 00:18:00.635 If I share them with you. 00:18:00.795 --> 00:18:02.375 So I'll just put some things out there. 00:18:02.395 --> 00:18:04.055 And like I said, I think I've said that before. 00:18:04.515 --> 00:18:13.035 If I still want to think more deeply about this, but I'll give you some of my early thinking that science needs simply needs to be taught differently. 00:18:14.695 --> 00:18:22.495 Whoever was the generation of educators who said, science is this body of knowledge and we need to impart that in you. 00:18:22.495 --> 00:18:23.935 What is a DNA molecule? 00:18:24.395 --> 00:18:25.255 What is a molecule? 00:18:25.275 --> 00:18:25.955 What is DNA? 00:18:29.075 --> 00:18:29.755 What is metabolism? 00:18:29.775 --> 00:18:30.835 What are volcanoes? 00:18:31.175 --> 00:18:33.655 What is a combustion engine? 00:18:33.835 --> 00:18:38.635 This is knowledge and that's an important aspect of science literacy. 00:18:38.715 --> 00:18:43.395 I don't want to lessen its value by what I say next. 00:18:43.815 --> 00:18:51.935 Let's retain that value, but add to it the understanding that science is a means of querying nature. 00:18:53.215 --> 00:18:54.715 Somewhere in there that got lost. 00:19:01.255 --> 00:19:09.875 It is a process of inquiry, so that there's something you don't know and you ask yourself, how do I go about finding the answer to that? 00:19:10.195 --> 00:19:11.555 That is what science is. 00:19:12.195 --> 00:19:27.835 So the science denial that's going on is coming about because, I think, because people think of science as just this body of information and they decide what the cherry-picking information, the way you might in other subjects. 00:19:27.855 --> 00:19:30.115 You might say, no, I don't think it happened there. 00:19:30.135 --> 00:19:31.255 I think it happened this way. 00:19:31.275 --> 00:19:36.555 You know, in science, science doesn't give you that latitude of denial, right? 00:19:36.755 --> 00:19:45.275 The law of gravity is not something that was just written by members of parliament, you know, 20 years ago. 00:19:45.295 --> 00:19:56.935 And if you gain three pounds, you know, two kilograms last week, you're not going to say, oh, I want to repeal the law of gravity because it somehow made me look fat, right? 00:19:57.075 --> 00:20:00.135 This is, you don't have that option in science. 00:20:00.355 --> 00:20:10.695 And if you don't know the power and the objective truths that the methods and tools of science bring to you, you are susceptible to that way of thinking. 00:20:11.495 --> 00:20:22.615 So I don't know if you can go to adults and, you know, and convince them because they've already been through a system where they think that they can pick and choose what it is that they believe is true. 00:20:23.475 --> 00:20:28.115 So, but as science has taught as here's something, if you wonder if it's true, investigate it. 00:20:28.995 --> 00:20:35.735 Don't say, well, that conflicts with my culture, my religion, my family values, therefore it must not be true. 00:20:36.755 --> 00:20:40.655 Oh no, no, no, that's not how the world works. 00:20:41.195 --> 00:20:58.455 And so, so yeah, I'm still working on how this could be implemented, but the science standards are, I think it's missing some elements of what science is that could protect us as we go forward. 00:20:58.775 --> 00:20:59.435 So very nice. 00:20:59.755 --> 00:21:00.375 Very nice. 00:21:00.395 --> 00:21:01.195 There you go. 00:21:01.215 --> 00:21:02.495 That's a great answer. 00:21:02.915 --> 00:21:06.495 Let me answer questions faster so we can get through more of them because we have a thousand of them. 00:21:06.515 --> 00:21:09.215 And at this rate we'll be here until the year 2025. 00:21:10.595 --> 00:21:11.135 That's fine. 00:21:11.155 --> 00:21:13.915 I'm, you know, during these COVID times, I don't really have a lot to do. 00:21:14.295 --> 00:21:15.635 You got this. 00:21:15.655 --> 00:21:18.355 Let's hope COVID doesn't hang out that long. 00:21:20.855 --> 00:21:21.535 Yeah, let's hope. 00:21:23.355 --> 00:21:28.015 Let's get a little more personal with Michelle Medzlik from Wayne, Michigan. 00:21:28.435 --> 00:21:31.355 And Michelle says, Love you guys. 00:21:31.855 --> 00:21:36.615 What is the one thing you learned about yourself during the COVID quarantine? 00:21:36.635 --> 00:21:38.875 A little more personal here. 00:21:38.895 --> 00:21:42.035 Neil, have you learned anything about Neil deGrasse Tyson? 00:21:42.055 --> 00:21:43.055 Yeah, I have. 00:21:43.995 --> 00:21:48.915 First of all, I don't mind spending a lot of time alone or in solitude or with family. 00:21:50.035 --> 00:21:56.015 Fortunately, we live in, our apartment has enough rooms, people can go to them and separate. 00:21:56.535 --> 00:21:59.735 Not because we have COVID, but you can get on each other's nerves. 00:21:59.755 --> 00:22:14.795 Plus, I don't have like three-year-old children, we used to, but I don't have three-year-old, five-year-old children running up and down creating the entropic universe that they're so good at doing. 00:22:15.075 --> 00:22:21.995 So I don't want my answer to think less of the people who are actually trying to maintain their sanity. 00:22:22.355 --> 00:22:37.755 I will say is that I was very productive, but I am disappointed in myself because I want it to be a little more creative. 00:22:39.175 --> 00:22:50.775 As much as it's difficult, if not impossible to confess to ourselves or to each other, if you want to be more creative, you have to be less productive. 00:22:53.635 --> 00:22:57.975 You don't want that to be true, but if you think about it and think about your own life, it's true. 00:22:57.995 --> 00:23:04.535 Because I got this many emails done today and I cleaned up and I did the laundry and look at how productive I was. 00:23:04.555 --> 00:23:05.475 Did you create anything? 00:23:05.495 --> 00:23:06.535 Did you have any new thoughts? 00:23:06.835 --> 00:23:08.515 No, no. 00:23:08.535 --> 00:23:09.655 And you know what new thoughts take? 00:23:09.895 --> 00:23:22.975 It requires being alone for a while, just like looking up at the ceiling and letting the food that you spent your life feeding your brain, letting that find new connections. 00:23:23.855 --> 00:23:28.695 Because what is a new idea but old information connected in new ways? 00:23:29.295 --> 00:23:30.635 That's what a new idea is. 00:23:32.055 --> 00:23:33.275 But you know what is happening? 00:23:33.795 --> 00:23:36.835 Is people during COVID, they're binging TV shows. 00:23:37.675 --> 00:23:41.975 Okay, this is a stretch of hours that you could have sat there and maybe created something. 00:23:41.995 --> 00:23:45.235 By the way, it doesn't have to be, you don't have to be Isaac Newton. 00:23:45.295 --> 00:23:51.835 You know, you could, you know, knit something new or read a new book or something that takes your thoughts in a new place. 00:23:52.375 --> 00:23:55.315 A good TV can do that, and a good movie can do that. 00:23:55.395 --> 00:24:00.815 But if that's all that it is, all right, then it's really you're sampling other people's ideas and not true. 00:24:01.935 --> 00:24:05.335 So I was not as creative over this time as I wanted to be. 00:24:05.675 --> 00:24:10.675 And so I, and I, and I'm going to try to see what I can do about that going forward. 00:24:11.475 --> 00:24:13.935 I'm always creative because I'm never productive. 00:24:13.955 --> 00:24:15.055 So there you have it. 00:24:17.515 --> 00:24:20.055 It's just all creativity all the time, baby. 00:24:20.935 --> 00:24:22.835 All creativity all the time. 00:24:24.755 --> 00:24:26.175 Chuck, you have laundry on the ground. 00:24:29.595 --> 00:24:30.675 I'm like, that's not laundry. 00:24:30.695 --> 00:24:32.475 That's an extra bed now. 00:24:33.875 --> 00:24:37.835 Well, let's tomorrow's clothes because it wasn't quite dirty enough to put in the hamper. 00:24:38.215 --> 00:24:38.955 Exactly. 00:24:40.555 --> 00:24:43.675 So let's, great question here. 00:24:43.695 --> 00:24:46.215 All right, this is Katherine Higgins. 00:24:46.815 --> 00:24:48.195 And Katherine is coming to us from- 00:24:48.215 --> 00:24:49.015 Do we know where they're from? 00:24:49.035 --> 00:24:49.795 Did they say where they're from? 00:24:49.815 --> 00:24:52.035 He's coming to us from Spokane, Washington. 00:24:52.115 --> 00:24:53.435 Spokane, okay. 00:24:53.455 --> 00:24:54.195 Spokane. 00:24:54.915 --> 00:24:56.255 Here's what she says. 00:24:56.855 --> 00:25:07.435 If you could know the answer to one question about the universe, what would it be? 00:25:07.455 --> 00:25:08.715 You only get to pick one? 00:25:08.735 --> 00:25:10.795 I got that, I got that, I got that. 00:25:11.175 --> 00:25:12.695 So you've thought about this all right. 00:25:12.715 --> 00:25:13.955 Oh, yes, all the time. 00:25:19.895 --> 00:25:36.675 So I lose sleep wondering whether we, humans who are basically the first intelligent species of life on earth. 00:25:37.655 --> 00:25:40.595 You can define the word intelligence so that that's true. 00:25:41.295 --> 00:25:47.315 Okay, so we're the first ones to have music and poetry and art and science all together. 00:25:47.415 --> 00:25:51.495 Okay, no other, nobody else has done that and to build stuff, okay? 00:25:51.675 --> 00:25:54.395 So we sit alone in that category. 00:25:54.835 --> 00:26:09.895 If you define it that way, okay, if we are the very first species to have that ability, who are we to think that we have sufficient intelligence to contemplate all the complexities of the universe? 00:26:11.715 --> 00:26:17.675 Imagine a world where there are multiple intelligent species and some are way more intelligent than others. 00:26:18.075 --> 00:26:21.635 Some might be more intelligent compared to humans than we are compared to chimps. 00:26:23.895 --> 00:26:25.335 You know what chimps look like to us? 00:26:25.575 --> 00:26:34.675 Okay, yeah, they can stack boxes and reach a banana and they can use a stick and get termites and we say, that's a smart chimp and they're using tools. 00:26:34.975 --> 00:26:37.295 Yeah, but they didn't build an airplane, okay? 00:26:39.215 --> 00:26:45.415 So, you can praise them, but they're kind of really no better than our toddlers, what our toddlers can do. 00:26:46.195 --> 00:26:51.355 But if you find another species that's to us what we are to chimps, what do we look like to them? 00:26:52.555 --> 00:26:54.495 What do their toddlers look like? 00:26:54.515 --> 00:26:57.755 Their toddlers would be smarter than our smartest human beings. 00:26:58.935 --> 00:27:03.095 When I joke about this, their toddler comes home and said, oh, look, mommy, look what I did. 00:27:03.135 --> 00:27:05.555 Oh, Junior, Sissy, what did you do? 00:27:06.075 --> 00:27:07.715 Oh, you composed a sonnet. 00:27:08.195 --> 00:27:10.295 Oh, you derived the first laws of calculus. 00:27:10.315 --> 00:27:11.315 That's so cute. 00:27:11.515 --> 00:27:14.955 Let's put it on their refrigerator door for grandma to see. 00:27:17.115 --> 00:27:23.235 So if you can imagine that increment of intelligence above us, what are they figuring out? 00:27:23.975 --> 00:27:24.995 That we're not. 00:27:26.155 --> 00:27:26.715 Right. 00:27:27.455 --> 00:27:35.895 That we are just our most complex thoughts are incapable of even knowing what question to ask. 00:27:37.015 --> 00:27:39.115 That's what I wonder and I lose sleep. 00:27:39.135 --> 00:27:41.575 Not every night, but certainly weekly, I think of that. 00:27:42.935 --> 00:27:54.075 So, I mean, the real deal is for me, I don't mind if we're far down on the intelligence quotient. 00:27:54.475 --> 00:27:56.275 I just don't want us to be delicious. 00:27:59.395 --> 00:28:10.415 See, like, it's okay if aliens come here and look at us like we are much lesser beings, but I don't want them to come here and look at us the way we look at cows. 00:28:10.975 --> 00:28:13.055 That, that would bother me. 00:28:13.655 --> 00:28:14.735