Transcript of SYSK TRENDING -The Intriguing Mysteries of the Universe

The universe is filled with things we still don't understand. We don't really know what dark matter is. We're not quite sure why the universe is expanding faster and faster. We don't know what happened before the Big Bang, or even if there was a before. And then there's the question of whether we're the only intelligent life out there. These are big questions, and that's why today's SYSK trending topic is the intriguing Mysteries of the Universe. My guest is astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, and he's going to take us through some of the biggest mysteries and best-kept secrets of the cosmos— what we know, what we think we know, and what continues to completely stump scientists. Because the more we discover about the universe, the more mysterious it seems to become. And we'll get to that conversation with Neil right after this. A big thank you to today's sponsor, Vinted. I think most of us have what I call someday clothes. I'll wear that someday. That'll fit better someday. Someday I'll have a place to wear that. Meanwhile, it's been hanging in the closet for 3 years. Vinted offers another possibility: sell it. Every day, people can sell clothes they're no longer wearing and make some extra money.

And they've made the process pretty painless. Take what you don't wear, list it on Vinted. Listing is quick and simple, and when an item sells, Vinted creates the prepaid shipping label for you. And importantly, there are no seller fees on Vinted, so when you sell something, you keep everything you earn. I like this whole idea because instead of clothes just taking up space, somebody else gets to wear them and you get some money out of the deal. Your closet looks better too. I mean, everybody wins, even the closet. So maybe it's time to stop waiting for someday. Download the Vinted app for free and start listing with no seller fees so you keep everything you earn. Have you ever thought about Why you're here and how you got here to this point in time in the universe? And where are we all going? These are some big heady questions that can sometimes be fun to contemplate and even more fun to discuss with someone like Neil deGrasse Tyson. So let's do that. You know, people sometimes say they like my voice. I get that a lot. Well, one of the voices I like to listen to is the voice of Neil deGrasse Tyson.

And you can hear his voice in a lot of places. He has a podcast called StarTalk, and he's also on TV a lot. I find that after I listen to him speak, I just feel a little bit smarter, like I understand the world and the universe a little bit better. See if you don't feel the same way in about 20 minutes when we're done. In addition to all of his other work, Neil deGrasse Tyson is the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City, and he has a new book out called Cosmic Queries: StarTalk's guide to who we are, how we got here, and where we're going. Hi, Neil. Thanks for being here.

Excellent. Thank you for having me.

So let's just dive right in. How did we get here? Not on this podcast, but I mean in this universe. How did we get here? Why are we here?

There are a lot of ways to answer that. There are people who like thinking of the universe as this haven for life and its perfect laws of physics come together to enable life. But first of all, the universe would have gone nearly a billion years before Earth even formed. So if the universe were made for life, such as what we have here on Earth, it has a really delayed way of showing it. All right? And so that's my first point. comment. Second, the elements in our bodies, the carbon, the nitrogen, the oxygen, the foundations of our biochemistry, that was not available at the beginning of the universe. That had to be made later in the cores of stars. And we see this happening. These are stars that then explode, scattering their enriched guts across the galaxy. Out of which you make the next generation of stars with planets, at least one of which has life. But then you make the planet and you have all these ingredients. How do you go from just organic molecules to self-replicating life? That remains a mystery. We've got top people working on it. But one of the things about Cosmic Queries is we are not choosing questions based on what we have answers to.

We're choosing questions based on what people have asked. And then we— and it's laid bare. All right, I can tell you where we got the atoms. I can tell you how the atoms function later on. But how we go from molecules to life, that's a mystery. Other mysteries: what was around before the Big Bang? Don't know. We have some ideas, and here they are, but we don't know.

Do we have any sense of, you know, cells come from other cells, so where did the first cell come from? You know, chicken or egg?

Okay, well, so first, the chicken-egg question does have an answer. So, I'm trying to rid the world of people analogizing such questions to the chicken and egg. So, would you like me to give you that answer?

Please.

Okay, so the egg came first.

From where?

By a bird that you would not have called a chicken.

Oh.

Okay? This is what you get by sort of the evolution of species. So, there's some bird And it's not a chicken. And then there's some distortion in its offspring from a defect in the DNA. We'll call it a defect because what comes out is not what it started with, right? And it's some new kind of variation. Now, in practice, it would have taken many, many generations for this to happen. But at some point, you're calling the bird a not chicken, and then the egg that hatches out a chicken. And at that point, the chicken was laid by a bird that was not a chicken.

Okay.

So the egg came first.

Well, that sounds easier than if cells come from other cells, where did the first cell come from?

Oh, yes, that is easier.

Yes.

So now getting back to that one, a cell is a living thing. So that's my point. How do you go from organic molecules to self-replicating life? That's a mystery. And we have top people working on it.

So I know you talk about questions that are not the right question, that we can try to answer the question, but if you're asking the wrong question, you're not gonna get anywhere. So what are some questions that are the wrong questions?

Oh, okay, I got one for you. I'll give you 2 examples. Here's one that you know not to ask because it's illegal in our own universe. You ready? So you go visit Santa Claus on the North Pole. And you say, Santa, please point me north of here. The problem is every direction Santa points in is due south. There is no east or west either. So to say what is north of the North Pole is a sentence that has no meaning. Here's another one. Okay, how about Pinocchio? You tell me what will happen if Pinocchio declares Pinocchio says, my nose is about to grow. You tell me what happens next.

Hmm. Well, his nose can't grow. Or can it? I don't know.

Okay, if his nose doesn't grow, then he was lying, because he just said his nose is about to grow. And if he lies, it means his nose has to grow. If he says it and his nose grows, that meant saying his nose was about to grow Was true, and if it's true, that means his nose wouldn't grow. So that's a simple statement that actually has no meaning in the Pinocchio universe. So all I'm saying is, in the universe in which we live, I take you to the precipice and dangle you over the abyss of the unknown, and I ask you, what's the next question? You might come up with a question, but there's no guarantee that that question is even valid in the universe that you're now on the doorstep of discovering?

Well, a question a lot of people ask and have been asking for a long time is, is there life elsewhere? And you would say?

I would say it's highly likely for many reasons, several reasons coming together. The universe is old. The ingredients of life are everywhere. If life on Earth were made of really rare things, I would say, yeah, life is probably rare. But the most common atom in the universe is hydrogen. It's the most common atom in life. The next most common atom in the universe is, after helium, which is chemically inert, so that's not useful, the next most common is oxygen. That's the next most common atom in life. The next most common is carbon. That's what's next in life. So, and what's next in the universe? Nitrogen. That's what's next in life. The top 4 chemically active ingredients of the universe are the top 4 atoms in the human body and in life on Earth. So maybe life is an inevitable consequence of organic chemistry. We don't know. So there's that. And also, life got started really fast. On Earth, you look at the data, life from non-life to life took maybe 100 million years. And you say, well, that's a long time, Dr. Tyson. Well, not really if Earth is 4.5 billion years old. 100 million is pittance relative to that timeline.

So Earth made life almost as soon as it possibly could have and didn't seem to have trouble accomplishing it, even if we have trouble in the lab. Combine all those factors: life happened quickly, common ingredients, and the universe is old. I wouldn't be surprised if life wasn't teeming everywhere in the universe just for those factors alone.

Intelligent life?

That's different because look at all the life forms Earth has had. I, you know, millions, I think. I don't remember the exact number, but it's huge. Most of which are now extinct for all manner of various reasons. Over the history of the tree of life. But, oh, by the way, who defined us as intelligent? That's an important question. Yeah, we defined ourselves as intelligent. So would we be intelligent to an alien species who has the technology to jet between galaxies? Could they be so intelligent that human intelligence pales in comparison the way, you know, you don't, And the hubris of people saying, the aliens are watching us, they care about us. It's like, when you walk past worms, are you saying, gee, I wonder what that worm is thinking? Gee, I'm completely interested in this worm. Unless you're a nematode specialist, you're probably not caring what the worm is thinking about. So to believe we are so interesting that they'll perform sex experiments on us and draw circles in wheat fields, all for our benefit, that's thinking you're really in the center of the universe. So let's assume we are intelligent, even by alien standards.

We are one life form out of a million on Earth, one species. Intelligence doesn't seem to be all that important for life. Otherwise, it would have shown up many more times in the fossil record, like locomotion, like sight. like hearing, like the ability to manipulate your environment. These have shown up many ways, many times in the fossil record, and intelligence has not. So what's clear to me about that is intelligence is not all that important. Intelligence, as we define it for ourselves, is not all that important for our survival, for the survival of a life form. Otherwise, it would have evolved many more times in the fossil record. So it could be that our intelligence is extremely rare in the universe. Or if it's not rare, we are nowhere near the measure of intelligence that the universe manifests.

We're talking about the universe, and my guest is Neil deGrasse Tyson. He is host of the podcast StarTalk, and he is the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City and author of the book Cosmic Queries. So here's a question: how well did you eat in the last 24 hours? Did you get enough protein, fiber, greens, and all the things you're supposed to be getting? Well, I don't know either. And that's one of the reasons I've really come to like Kachava. 2 scoops gives you a remarkably broad mix of nutrition. Plant-based protein, fiber, greens, and much more, all in one shake. It's whole-body nutrition designed to support things like energy, digestion, strength, metabolism, and immunity. And for me, that's the appeal. I don't have to analyze everything I've eaten all day. Cachava is just a really simple way to put a lot of good nutrition into my body. And here's the pleasant surprise: it tastes great! I've tried most of the flavors. Chocolate is a close second. Vanilla is also very good. But the new Salted Caramel is my favorite. It has that salty-sweet combination that makes this taste more like a treat... than like something you're supposed to be drinking 'cause it's good for you.

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So Neil, since people started looking up at the stars and saying, you know, we really need to study this, we need to understand this, whenever that happened up till now, has the knowledge come in at a fairly steady rate, or have there been big moments where everything changed?

Any period of great discovery, discoveries happen exponentially. So I can be more precise about that. I have a book from 1890 on the Sun. And the first edition of that book was like 1886 or something, something like that, around there. And well, why did the second edition come out 4 years later? Well, the author writes, I paraphrase, scientific advances in our understanding of the Sun has been so great we had to put out another edition. to catch up on things. This person in 1890 is glorifying the pace of scientific discovery. When you are on an exponential curve of discovery, every moment you look at it, it looks like all the greatest advances happened in the recent years. That's what being on an exponential curve means. So, yeah, if it looks like you're living in special times, That is the hallmark of a period of exponential discovery.

What do you think was like the big game changer, if there was one or maybe two, like everything changed?

I would say Isaac Newton demonstrating that the universe was mathematically knowable. That was profound. You can write down an equation and make a prediction about something you've never seen before because you have connected the mathematics to the operations of nature. That was a game changer.

Well, knowing that we don't know what we don't know, how much do we know compared to what we probably don't know?

4%. We can quantify our ignorance.

You said that with some authority. So, where did the number come from?

Let's not call it authority. Let's just call it knowledge.

Okay.

Authority is telling you what to think and believe whether or not it's true. Authority has the power to make that happen, but if it's just knowledge, anybody could have it and share it. So all the chemistry and biology and physics that you know and love that is taught in the schools drives 4% of the phenomenon of the universe. The remaining 96% is dark matter and dark energy about which we know nothing. We can measure its existence, We can see its effect gravitationally on objects. We don't know where it came from. We don't know what it is. We don't know why it's there. We can't even characterize it. So our airplanes, our rocket ships, our energy, our civilizations are all living in 4% of the known universe.

So this may or may not be a fair question, but because you You've taken in all this knowledge and you have synthesized it, and you're well known for being able to explain it in a very interesting and compelling and, fortunately for many of us, a simple way. Does all of that make you more spiritual or less spiritual?

I would say more spiritual. Spiritual in the sense of, It's spiritual, sort of capital S. So spirit, I think from the Latin, is your breath, right? And your breath was equated to being alive, right, for the longest time. They would hold up a mirror in front of your dying body, and the moment you no longer fogged the mirror, you were declared dead. So your spirit left your body. So when I think of gazing on the darkened universe on a mountaintop, where I have a telescope that I'm about to use for scientific means, but before I enter the dome, I gaze upon the limitlessness of it and the majesty of it. That's a spiritual moment, I think, and the sort of the glory of the universe. And I bet it taps— I don't know this for sure, but I bet it taps similar parts of my brain that religious experiences tap for people. in people's brains who have experienced those. If that's the case, I have no hesitation calling them spiritual experiences. But when I use the word spiritual, I am in no way invoking a God who made the universe in 6 days and cares about who you sleep with, right?

This is not my usage of the term.

So how does this all end? Where does the universe go when it goes?

Yeah, so often when people say, how will it end, they're really only thinking about Earth. And there's some fun, interesting scenarios to get rid of Earth. Basically, the Sun will absorb it and vaporize it in about 5, 6 billion years. So that's— so we need to find another planet by then if our species survives that long. So that's cool. I mean, it's not cool. I mean, it's just the reality of it as the Sun expands to engulf the orbits of Mercury and Venus and bringing the oceans of Earth into a rolling boil. That's a bad day for Earth. So that's the, you know, the end of Earth is vapor inside the Sun. But the end of the universe is more intriguing because the universe can take any one of a dozen pathways, and we don't know enough to land on which pathway is highly likely. So that's why we give all the scenarios in it. And the ending that terrifies me the most is the one where we end up expanding, 'cause the expansion is growing exponentially, the expansion of the universe. So eventually the expansion will rip all the galaxies from our night sky, and then it'll rip the stars from our night sky.

Then it'll start ripping molecules from your body. And then it starts ripping the structures of the atoms from the molecules. And then the atoms themselves, the particles within the atoms themselves. And when you do that, there's no other way the expansion of the universe can accommodate it. And it's called the Big Rip, which is terrifying to me.

Oof.

The Big Rip, where it's like you're stretching some flexi cloth And then there's a point where it no longer stretches, and what does it do? It rips. I can't even picture what that would look like or what it would be, but it's nonetheless terrifying to me.

Sounds horrible.

That's in the book. But it's not happening anytime soon, so don't lose sleep over it.

Yeah, not this week or anything. So, when— can you explain, because we hear this often, that the universe is expanding and it's expanding exponentially, you said. What does that mean and what's it expanding into?

Yeah, that's a perfect honest question to ask. It depends on what kind of multiverse it is. If it's the simplest of multiverses, then the full extent of the actual universe is vastly greater than the universe you can see. And so our pocket that's expanding is simply expanding into Other parts of our universe. Okay? So, as would be any Big Bang manifested in the rest of this multiverse. So, the problem is if we— if multiple universes invokes higher dimensions so that it's creating a whole other universe with other laws of physics, then first that would be really dangerous to visit. You'd take your health into your own hands by doing so. 'Cause the charge on the electron could be different, and you walk across the proscenium and then you collapse into a pile of goo because the molecular forces no longer apply. So in that universe, that's in another dimension. And so we would expand but never interact with that other universe. You might say, well, how can you expand forever but not bump into another universe? Well, I can have a sheet of paper that's flat. Obviously, and I can stretch it in the 2 dimensions.

If I layer another sheet of paper right on top of it, not touching it, but above it, I can stretch both sheets of paper to infinity and they'll never intersect each other. So that's obvious because they're not in the same plane. Well, going from 3 dimensions to higher, in a higher dimension, the lower dimension entities can expand forever and not end up colliding. So if you're So, if you're eager to get a parallel universe, we might have a twin of you, don't hold your breath about whether it's one we can interact with.

That's very hard to grasp, that there's parallel universes.

Yeah. I mean, most of it is hard to grasp. I've said many times that the universe is under no obligation to make sense to you. So, what matters is whether it Satisfies experiment and observation.

Well, I wish it would make sense. It would make it easier to make sense of it all.

No, but you can't because your senses were developed on the plains of the Serengeti to not get eaten by a lion. They're not designed for math or probability or statistics or fundamental physics. So yeah, it's a problem. It's a problem. We're stuck with our own biology.

Well, it's pretty exciting stuff. And it's just amazing when you stop and look up at the sky, and I do this often, and just think, how amazing is it that I am here right now at this time in this place? It's hard to fathom.

Yeah, it's quite the— and it's, dare I use the word, it's a miracle that you're even alive, given how many possible humans there could be that will never be born. That's something to contemplate.

Wow. Well, it's always a pleasure to hear you speak. I enjoy the chance to interact with you, and I always feel a little bit smarter afterwards. Neil deGrasse Tyson has been my guest. He is the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City. His podcast is called StarTalk, and his new book is called Cosmic Queries: StarTalk's Guide to Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We're Going. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thank you, Neil. Appreciate you being here.

Yeah, thanks for your interest. Been a pleasure.

And that's it for today's SYSK Trending episode. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.